Page 10 of Fortress
Once he’d hung up, Jake cranked up the radio and sang along while beating time on the wheel. Santana wasn’t normally his jam, but today was an exception.
Sure, he’d miss Toby for lunch, and that kind of sucked because he’d been looking forward to seeing him. But instead of waiting for Jake to remind him to eat oranything, Toby had walkedawayon his own from where Jake had left him, to buy food without Jake telling him to, because he hadwantedto eat. Everything about today rocked as hard as Hendrix on a Stratocaster.
He downed a burger and fries from the local Mickey D’s, then hit up the next few names on his list. Witness One from the second death wasn’t home, Witness Two was about as useful as the morning granny had been, and Jake got lost trying to find the third place, eating the last handful of cold fries from the bag and grumbling under his breath. There was no way in hell a town of this size needed to have a Misty Meadow Roadanda Misty Meadow Drive. It was fucking redundant.
So on his third circuit through the edge of town, he pulled up at the same old stoplight (the town had a total of three) and scowled at the red light. It was the longest damn stoplight he’d met in the last six states.
As the Eldorado idled, he glanced over at the dinky motel at the side of the road.
He’d put Toby and him up in the classier joint across town, but the Two Dollar Motel, with its peeling paint and rusty red-brown doors, each room with its own pull-up parking space in the lot, was a match for the string of rooms that had framed his childhood. And his adulthood, for that matter. He was trying to do better for Toby, but he could understand sometimes his dad’s struggle over using ASC money to spring for a better place or scraping by on what they had.
Then all the good vibes he’d gotten from his call with Toby turned to cold dread.
A black truck was parked in the motel lot.
It gleamed a perfect, predatory ebony in the sunlight, the plates just a little too worn to match the gleaming bumper. An unmarked Sierra Grande, in every way identical to the one Leon Hawthorne drove.
The cars honking behind him snapped Jake forward to see that the light had changed. He slammed on the gas and almost rear-ended the Jeep in front of him. He turned hard into the first driveway he saw, not giving a damn if it were private or public property, if he should be aware of a goddamn dog. The second after he parked, he fumbled with shaking fingers for his phone, sliding over the numbers before he remembered the speed dial.
When Toby answered before the second ring, Jake didn’t pause to try to keep his voice down, control it, think of a way to keep from scaring Toby oranyfucking thing because they may not have that kind of time. “Don’t go outside. Don’t leave. Where—where are youright now?”
After a moment, Toby answered, voice quiet and tight. “Library. Archive room. What’s wrong?”
Jake sucked in a breath, pressing his hand to his forehead, trying tothinkwhen it was fucking hard even to keep his hand steady on the phone and the phone to his ear. “You need to move. Go to the fiction section. Stay out of sight of the front door, ofanywindows. If you can see him, he can—they can see you and—just wait for me. I’ll be there in five. Don’t move unless—just call me if you have to, but stay there.”
“Okay, Jake. I will.”
He made it to the library in four, retaining just enough sense to scout out the block—the Eldorado was a big fucking beacon, Leon wouldn’t miss it if he were anywhere near—before bringing Toby out a side door and jogging back to the alley where he’dparked. He kept his head down, trying to keep behind dumpsters and turns when he could, and Toby ducked his head too. He followed Jake’s instruction to lie down flat on the Eldorado’s bench seat without a word or question, like this was something they practiced every day.
Back at their motel, he left Toby in the car with a pistol and a knife while he dashed into their room for their duffels and computer bag, holding the shotgun at the ready the whole time and caring fuck all who saw as long as it wasn’thim.
Only ten minutes later and fifteen miles outside city limits did he tell Toby it was okay to sit up.
Toby settled back against the seat and didn’t ask questions. Jake knew he should offer some explanation, tell Toby why they’d bolted like a couple of jumpy rabbits—fuck, hewasscared, but that was just fucking smart when you were up against a fucking Hawthorne—but he couldn’t, his jaw locked tight. Hard enough to keep his eyes on the highway, burning past other vehicles like they were standing still. At some point he realized they were going twenty over the limit, but he didn’t slow down. Fast, faster, fastest, never fucking fast or far enough. How far would they have to go to be safe from Leon Hawthorne?
But every mile he put between them and—fuck, it was just a truck, he didn’t reallyknowthat his dad had been in that town, hunting them down—every mile tightened the pressure on his chest, fed the feeling he was trapped, running into an ambush.
He would face any of the bastards who had hurt Toby, right down to his fuckingrelations. He would face them head-on, barehanded, point-blank, without hesitation. But from Leon fucking Hawthorne he ran. And he would run every day for the rest of his life if he had to.
Jake had learned everything he knew about hunting monsters from his father, and there was nothing he could do to keep Toby safe from that man if he caught them. Leon didn’tmake empty threats, and that last one had been a hell of a promise.
You’re not my fucking son. I see you, I’m putting it down and you with it.
Toby was a tight, silent figure beside him, one hand on Jake’s knee, the other clenched in his lap. Jake knew he wasthere; he was far more conscious of Toby than of the mile markers zipping past, one after another, but it took a while before he realized Toby was saying, quietly but urgently, “Jake. Jake.”
It took an effort to unlock his jaw, get his throat to work. When it did, his voice sounded nothing like it did comforting Toby in the night. “Yeah, Toby?”
Toby didn’t flinch. His grip tightened on Jake’s knee. “Jake, there’s a r-r-rest stop coming up. I, I think we should stop. We’re almost si-sixty miles out of South Boston. I think... I think we can stop, just for a minute.”
Fuck. Toby had no fucking idea, but he could see how wigged out Jake was, how little fuckingcontrolJake had. And Toby was telling him tostop.
With a jerk on the wheel, Jake moved into the right-hand lane, then switched to the brakes, applying them slow and easy all the way until they rolled into the rest stop.
He pulled into the first empty parking space, killed the engine, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw fireworks bursting across the inside of his lids. He still couldn’t talk to Toby. What was he going to say?See, this is what a shit excuse I have for a father. This is how I’ve endangered you. Ain’t it nice to be a fucking Hawthorne?
Toby sat, just breathing, for a long minute after the Eldorado had come to a stop. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt, moved closer, and gently touched the back of Jake’s hands.
It took a second for Jake to be able to release his fists. Toby held his hands as though they were fragile, delicate, likely asa wild bird to fly out of his hands. Jake swallowed and looked down at his fingers: broken a handful of times, scarred and callused and just about the same size as Toby’s. He closed his eyes tight when Toby leaned close and his chin brushed Jake’s shoulder.
