Page 41 of Fortress
But Tobias shook his head. “Soon. Tomorrow. If it has to happen... then as soon as it can.”
“Okay, Toby.” Jake’s voice was quiet, his hand making careful contact between Tobias’s shoulders.
“I’ll call first thing in the morning,” Alex said. “I don’t know if she’ll be available tomorrow, but I’ll see what we can do. Do you want to meet here for the appointment? Or maybe the church?”
Tobias nodded without looking up. It wouldn’t matter that much if the doctor made a report to the ASC, but he could tell that she was trying to make him feel better.
Back in the garage apartment, the silence was unusually heavy. Tobias opened his tenth-grade science textbook, but he couldn’t make himself focus for more than a paragraph at a time. He couldn’t forget he was about to beexamined.
Finally, Jake broke the silence in an attempted offhand tone. “You mad at me?”
Tobias shook his head, not looking up. “I don’t get m-mad at you.”
“Seriously?” Now Jake sounded a little amused. “Think I don’t remember that time that diner gave you the wrong sandwich and I tried sending it back? Man, you were this close to decking me.”
To Tobias’s own surprise, his lips turned up in a smile. “I wasn’t about to deck you.”
“Please. You were about to flip tables. I was about to roll and cover. That diner is lucky to still be standing.”
Tobias ducked his head, still smiling. “I wasn’t that angry.”
“But you were pissed at me.” Jake sounded oddly satisfied.
Tobias hesitated. “Yeah. Yes.” He hesitated, then went ahead with the question. “D-did you... plan that in ad-advance with Alex?”
Jake glanced swiftly at him. “What, the doctor thing? Hell no. I mean, she mentioned that you might need a checkup and that she’d look into it, but I didn’t know she’d ambush us with it tonight.”
Tobias said nothing. That response didn’t ease the cold dread in him about the whole situation, but at least one knot had loosened. He relaxed a little into the mattress.
“Hey.” Jake extended one hand, palm up and without demand. Tobias took it, the firm, familiar grasp grounding him. “I’ll be there, okay? No one’s keeping me out of the room this time. And if we have to, we’ll clear out of here afterward, fuck, out of the whole state. Even if you just want to.”
Tobias took a deep breath and nodded. It wasn’t reassuring, exactly. Nothing could be reassuring with the prospect of more doctors, tests, examinations before him. But he had to trust Jake that this was yet another real test he could pass.
Alex knocked on the door the next morning as they were finishing their breakfast of cereal and toast. Jake was quick to answer the door, stepping back to let her in.
“Morning, boys.” She took a seat at the small table, facing Tobias. “I’ve been making some calls. Michelle Nguyen is an old friend of mine, a doctor who used to work with kids in Tucson, both at her practice and volunteering. She’s retired now, but she still knows her stuff and would be comfortable helping out for a simple checkup. I’ve known her for years and would trust her with anyone. Would you be okay meeting her?”
Tobias swallowed, his awareness of the room—the wooden chair underneath him, Jake’s worried glances—growing both more distant and sharper. “Yes,” he managed at last.
Alex nodded. “She’s free today, or she has time later this week. Do you and Jake want to talk it over and let me know?”
Tobias looked up, and it grounded him to meet Jake’s eyes, his expression tight with worry but focused unwaveringly on him. He didn’t need to ask. “Today.”
“All right. One p.m.? We could even do lunch together, all four of us—”
“No thank you,” Tobias said too quickly. He wouldn’t tell Jake, but a large part of him still recoiled at the thought of how a real would react when she realized she’d eaten at a table with a freak. “Wh-wh-wh—” He swallowed, clenching his teeth, and tried again more slowly. “What. Will. You. Tell. Her. About. Me?”
“That you’ve been through hell and don’t like to be touched by strangers,” she answered quietly. “Nothing more than that. She’ll understand, Tobias. Shame is that she’s seen hundreds of kids like that.”
“Okay.” It wasn’t okay, nothing about this would be okay, but it was going to happen. Tobias couldn’t doubt that, not with his bone-deep understanding that when hunters or other authorities made a decision, he wasn’t going to be able to change it.
Alex nodded and stood up. “All right, how about we meet at the church? Nice neutral space, it’s got all the usual protections so no baddies can slip through.”
After she left, Tobias dropped his head onto his folded arms on the table. He never wanted to move from this spot. He especially did not want to have a stranger, a doctor, looking at him in a few hours and spotting everything freakish in him, pointing it out so that Jake might also look at him in disgust and never touch him again.
Jake sat down next to him, scooting his chair over so he could rest a hand on Tobias’s back.
Tobias swallowed hard. “You’ll stay with me?”
