Page 38 of Fortress
“Bienvenido a casa.” Alex Rodriguez pushed open the door to her garage apartment, leading Jake and Toby inside. “I had some friends staying here recently, a mama with a couple young kids looking for a new start, but they did a nice job cleaning it up before they went on their way. We’ll need to restock the pantry, though. Tobias, you want to settle in and unpack while Jake and I head over to Walmart on a food run?”
Toby looked up, his eyes wide and startled in his pale face, and something in Jake’s chest constricted. He hadn’t seen that lost, hollow look on Toby’s face—or the body language radiating vulnerability and fear—since, well, probably the last time they’d met Alex. Life wasn’t fuckingfair, because if they’d run into herbeforethat damn troll, she could’ve seen the awesome, confident, kick-ass person Toby had really become.
Three days ago, Toby would have probably glanced at Jake before answering the question himself, even if it came from a stranger. Now, he just turned toward Jake, pleading with the minimal eye contact he dared. Jake forced a smile, and it hurt. “You’ll be okay, right? We’ll be quick, and you can take a breather.” The whole drive south, Toby had been struggling to find a comfortable position in the Eldorado and to hide his wince every time they hit a bump in the road.
Finally, Toby offered a hesitant nod, and Jake decided to take it as the victory they could get right now.
Jake handed Tobias the keys to the Eldorado and listened to him turn the locks inside the apartment before getting into Alex’s Honda Accord. As they pulled out of the driveway, Jake exhaled louder than he meant to, sagging back against his seat.
Alex glanced at him, her eyebrows raised. “That bad?”
Jake glowered at the road. “Goddamn hospital. If you’d seen him right before this—you wouldn’t have fucking recognized him. I’m telling you, you wouldn’t have.”
“Roger told me a little, after Christmas,” Alex said.
Jake glanced at him, surprised. “Yeah?”
“We catch up now and then. So what went down?”
Jake gave her the highlights, adding detail where necessary and trying not to think too much about the words. Telling the story again—relaying to Alex the ultimatums that he’d received, the reminder of what the goddamn papers said—made it impossible to ignore how close he’d come to losing control of everything. Losing Toby. Those fuckers at the goddamn hospital forced him to break every promise he’d made to Tobias, starting from the first day he’d gotten him out. He’d fucking promised that he would take care of Tobias, keep him safe, never let anyone treat him like that again—and now they both knew how worthless Jake’s word was.
“They took his clothes.” Jake forced himself to say it. “That’s all he said to me when he was fucking strapped to a hospital bed, wearing one of those fucking slips that don’t cover anything.They took my clothes. Fuck. And I don’t think he was even awake when they did it.”
Alex drew in a sharp breath. When Jake glanced over, her grip was tight on the steering wheel, lips pressed together. At the next red light, she said simply, “It’s good you got out of there.”
After the light turned green and they eased forward, she continued. “The way I see it is this: it’s important for him to have a safe space now, re-establish a sense of privacy, but I don’t wanthim to shut himself away completely, as good as it might feel in the short term. Get out and about, visit the library, go back to that park he liked last time. And it’d be nice if you drop by the church again this weekend, say hi to the abuelitas. They’ve missed him.”
Jake managed a crooked smile. “We’re not exactly the Sunday School type.”
“So come by at the end of the service for coffee and tacos. If the pastor doesn’t mind—and I hear she doesn’t—no one else can say anything.” She winked at him.
“Well, we never turn down a meal.” He wouldn’t admit it in so many words, but damn, it was nice to be with someone who had a plan or at least advice.
Alex switched on her turn signal for the Walmart entrance. “You made a fast exit from that hospital. I bet Tobias’ll need some check-ups to make sure those bones are healing properly.”
Jake bit back a groan, rubbing at his forehead. “Yeah, but—shit. How long do you think we can put that off?”
“You really want to find out you waited too long?” Alex turned into a parking spot and shut off the engine. That wasn’t a fair question, and Jake was still trying to come up with a retort when she asked, “So, how are you gonna keep busy while he’s on the mend?”
Jake shrugged. “Just, uh. My usual thing, I guess.” Alex gave him a skeptical look as she took hold of a shopping cart outside the front doors. “What, you got a suggestion?”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “the local auto shop is looking for another pair of hands.”
“Sure, I’ll check it out.” Jake had never been a fan of civvie jobs and only took them when absolutely necessary. Something about every boss he ever met made him reach new heights of creativity telling them how to fuck themselves, usually duringthe first shift. But he’d try to behave himself, if only out of respect for Alex.
The first week, Jake rummaged up supplies to make up a new pair of backup IDs so they could prove at the drop of a hat that they were Frank and Dan Hardy, a couple of brothers from Oklahoma. Toby barely spoke or moved from the couch, struggling to find a position that would put the least amount of stress on his injured bones and bruises, dozing when he could.
After finishing the ID job, Jake joined him at the other end, flipping through daytime soaps. Finally, he decided the only way out was through. “So, Alex mentioned that the neighborhood library is pretty cool, and they’ve got this really good Chinese restaurant. Wanna check it out?”
Toby focused on him more quickly than he had responded to anything else in days, and Jake had to steel himself against the blank dread on his face. For long seconds, he thought he might not even get a response, but finally Toby closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “If you want to.”
Jake groaned. “No fucking way, dude. You know that’s not how this works. We don’t do anything just ’cause I want to.”
“We do things all the time just because you want to,” Toby said, unexpectedly argumentative, even though his tone was quiet and his eyes were still closed. “That’s all we ever did at first.”
Wincing, Jake watched him, rubbing the heel of his hand against his jeans. He didn’t have a clear idea of where Toby’s head was at. It didn’t feel as bad as the early days, thank fuck, but he didn’t want to push. “Well, now you kick ass at bossing me around, right?”
Toby’s lips twitched in something that might’ve been a smile. “If we have to go, first thing in the morning. When it won’t be too crowded.”
