Page 59 of Fortress
“That’s not the worst I can do,” Tobias promised, his voice low and vicious with all the ways he meant it. By the way Justin stilled and stared up at Tobias, he heard them loud and clear.
“And the worst I can do,” Tobias continued, whispering so there wasn’t a chance Jake could hear, “doesn’t come close to what the ASC will do to you when they find you. Because theywillfind you, Justin Malveaux. Freaks aren’t very smart, and you aren’t smart, even for a freak.”
Tobias hadn’t thought Justin could go any paler.
“Witchcraft isn’t like getting bit by a vampire or a werewolf,” Tobias said, cold and mechanical. “Those who deal with the occult forfeit their humanity. There’s no mercy for you, Justin. You have two choices now: undo the witchcraft you’ve cast, renounce the occult, and leave this town; or die here and thank me for not turning you over to the ASC.”
Justin took a shuddering breath. “Okay, okay, option A. I’ll undo everything.”
“Including the blindness hex you cast two nights ago,” Tobias pressed.
“Yeah, sure. I mean, I’ll do my best.”
“Yourbestwill be a complete reversal,” Tobias snapped. “I won’t accept anything less.” He jerked his head toward the closet. “You have what you need in there. I know enough about witchcraft to know if you’re cooking up something else. Now I’m going to untie your hands, but not your feet.”
He did as he said, loosening the ropes around Justin’s wrists, then stepping back quickly to keep his pistol trained on him, out of reach of any sudden lunge. Justin took a minute to cradle and hiss over his mangled wrist, then tried to pull himself to his feet, but his tightly bound ankles stopped him.
“How am I supposed to move?”
“Crawl,” Tobias said.
Justin got to work slowly, assembling a large bowl, a battered book stripped of its cover, and a set of makeshift tools, some of them plastic or rusty. He flipped through the book for a few minutes, then looked up at Tobias. “You want me to undo the blindness one first, right? It’s gonna be hard without access to the dude I cursed.”
“Well,” Tobias said grimly, “you’re in luck.” He stepped back, to the middle of the barn, and called, “Jake, you can come out now.”
After a moment, Jake appeared, walking slowly toward them with one hand on the stalls. Tobias’s throat tightened as he realized the trust that showed in him. He moved toward Jake, blocking Justin’s line of sight until he could grab Jake’s arm and pull him behind him.
He made Justin describe the process exactly, step by step, before he let him reach for Jake’s eyes. Jake stood stiff, tense with Tobias’s grip on his arm, but he didn’t so much as twitch as Justin swiped his smoky fingers over Jake’s eyelids, chanting in halting, mangled Latin all the while. It set Tobias’s teeth on edgehowbadhe was at this, how easily he could fuck it all up again, but he didn’t dare interrupt.
Then Justin sat back, and Tobias tugged Jake behind him again before leveling the pistol at Justin’s head. “Get down on the floor, on your belly, hands behind your head.”
Jake felt a buzzing in his ears, which was definitely weird and probably shouldn’t be happening, since it was his eyes that were supposed to be getting fixed. Then his eyelids were tingling, and he blinked hard, grinding the heels of his palms into them.
When he next opened his eyes and blinked, the world was no longer black. It was muddy brown, with light in the distance, like he was trying to see underwater. Still, it was a hell of an improvement over unchanging pitch-black, and he let out a triumphant hiss as he rubbed his eyes again.
“What’s happening?” Toby’s voice was sharp. “Jake, talk to me.”
“I think it’s working...” He started to make out shapes, lines and rectangles and thinner lines down the floor. All were tinted different shades of brown, but that probably made sense, seeing that they were in a barn. He turned his head, desperate to see more—andthere.
“Shit!” A burst of sunlight (which must have been there the entire fucking time) pierced his eyes like a fucking barbed arrow. Swearing in pain and sheer gratitude, Jake squeezed them closed, feeling tears prickle his eyelashes.
“Jake?” Toby’s voice rose, alarmed.
“It’s fine, just—I can see fucking sunlight, Toby.” Jake felt giddy. Swiping away the water, he tried opening his eyes again, cautiously. The sunlight was fucking bright at first, too bright to see anything else in the barn, but he blinked through it untilshapes and colors started coming back into focus. Stalls—he was looking at horse stalls, loose hay strewn over the floor. Farm tools stashed at the far end of the barn by a door. Sunlight streaming through an open window.
He looked the other way, and the scene slowly came into focus: a teenage punk, almost as skinny as Toby, stretched facedown on the floor with his hands clasped behind his head. Toby pointing a gun steadily at him with both hands, his face committed to murder.
“Toby,” he said. Toby didn’t move. Slowly, Jake stepped toward them and even more slowly reached for the gun. Toby’s fingers went slack as Jake’s hands closed around it, and Jake was able to pull it away, placing one hand on Toby’s shoulder as he did.
“You got lucky today, punk,” Jake told the witch, trying to keep his voice a growling threat when all he wanted was to laugh maniacally and maybe dance-stomp around the barn and justlookat everything, lame as that sounded even in his head. He could see, he could fuckingseeagain—but he had to focus. “Just in case you haven’t figured it out, you ain’t a very good witch. We caught you half-blind and a day late, so get this through your dumb skull if you like living as a free man: we’re going to let you live for now. But after we’re gone, you’ll reverse the rest of the hexes, burn this barn down, leave town, and live clean. We’ll be watching you, and at the first sign, the first fucking peep of you doing this shit again, we’re going to come down on you like a Rocky Mountain avalanche. You’re going to be so flat you’ll have to use your toes to hold up your nose, you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Justin muttered.
“Good,” Jake said, and bent down to punch his lights out. Then he cut the restraints on the punk’s ankles and walked away. When Toby hesitated, still looking over at the kid with death in his eyes, Jake went back to grab him by the shoulder. They leftthe barn, walking quickly around to where Toby had parked the Eldorado in the back.
Toby passed him the keys, just pressing them into Jake’s hands without looking, but Jake caught him before he could move toward the shotgun seat. Toby hadn’t been looking at him, but now his eyes opened wide, startled.
Jake kissed him hard, one hand in Toby’s hair above his neck, the other around Toby’s upper arm. It took Toby a moment to get with the program, but he opened to the kiss, not quite matching Jake’s ferocity.
