Page 18 of Fire
The silence stretched, and Jake finally asked quietly, “Do you want to stop? We can.”
Tobias shook his head once, sharply. “It’s too late now.” His lips were compressed and his gaze angled to the floor beside Jake.
Jake took another careful breath. “So, back to research. Let’s find out the truth about the Wrights. Could be it had nothing to do with you?—”
“Could be that it did.”
Toby wasangry, Jake realized with a shock. His face was shadowed by the curtains, but he gripped his chair’s armrests until white knuckles showed.
Moving more slowly than he had in what felt like years, Jake spoke. “So let’s get this done. I’ll give Roger a call to get the ASC records. Let’s go over to the library in Bridgeport to check out their public ones.”
Tobias nodded once and pushed up out of his seat, already moving to pack a bag.
The librarian in Bridgeport was way less cool than Cathy had been, but it turned out that there was a whole stack of news articles about the mysterious deaths in 1988 and 1989. They had gotten a lot of attention.
There hadn’t been any concrete proof of anything supernatural about the deaths. It could’ve been an ordinary human serial killer, Jake pointed out. But this was less than five years after the Liberty Wolf Massacre. Literal witch hunts had become less common than they had been in 1985 and 1986, but they still happened.
In December 1989, the ASC descended onto Bridgeport. There was a flurry of activity including an actual car chase, all raptly reported on, then a quick throwaway mention of freaks apprehended and taken to Freak Camp.
As everyone knew, every monster in Freak Camp had a life sentence. So, case closed. Neat tidy ending.
Roger sent them the detailed case files from that time period. It had been led by a hunter by the name of Brian Stenton, who had ultimately discovered trace evidence of a shapeshifter. Some local news footage had caught the flash of shapeshifter silver eyes in a woman identified as Gina Wright.
“Shapeshifter pattern, my ass,” Jake muttered. “They don’t work like this.”
Toby’s jaw was locked tight, the way it had been for days. He made a small noise of disbelief, which Jake interpreted to mean that Toby suspected him of bias.
Jake eyed him. “Wanna make a bet?” That got him a furious glare, and he raised his hands in innocence. “This hunt sucks, okay? Just trying to find a way to make it fun.”
“Don’t,” Toby snapped.
* * *
They returnedto the library to research Gina Wright, who turned out not to exist, at least not anywhere in West Virginia. When they widened the search, they hit a promising lead with a Gina Wilde, who had an address outside of town. After a quick lunch at a sandwich shop, they turned the Eldorado west, following their printed-out map.
Gina Wilde’s cabin was hard to find. Jake and Toby spent more than an hour slowly crisscrossing country roads, peering for street addresses on rundown farmhouses.
For the first time in days, Tobias really saw the deep green, rolling wooded hills that appeared to go on endlessly. More than once they saw deer grazing alongside the road. Wisely, Jake drove a fraction slower than usual.
“It's beautiful," Tobias said finally.
Jake glanced at him, eyebrows quirked up.
Okay, so maybe those were the first words he'd said since his lunch order. He hadn’t felt like there was anything worth saying before, with his stomach in a knot and the hunt eating at his guts.
He shrugged a shoulder. “It's a beautiful state. I think . . . I can imagine being happy, growing up here.” He immediately felt self conscious. “You would've been happy, I mean.”
To his surprise, Jake answered quietly. “You really can't imagine having a life here?”
“No,” Tobias said at once, flatly.There's only one place I was ever supposed to grow up.
He wouldn't say it aloud. He didn't want to upset Jake. But for once, he wondered why he believed that so strongly.
The answer was easy. It was written in the scars over his skin. It was ground into his bones years before he ever met the Director. He could have taught the same lessons to his fellow freak inmates, but it wouldn’t have been worthwhile to extend their suffering. Sometimes he wondered if he’d done right by Kayla, passing those lessons on to her. The witch named Becca, the closest thing he’d had to a mother, had taught him as well:you are a monster, just the same as everyone around you, andmonsters don’t get to want things.
And then, of course, there was the Director and six months of Wednesdays. Why would the Director ever have spent so many painstaking hours with Tobias if he wasn't supposed to be there? The Director did not make mistakes like that.
“Well, I can see you here," Jake said, matter of fact, pulling Tobias back from the memories that made the whole beautiful countryside seem so much darker. “The resident bookworm in that high school we passed just now. Winning all the geek awards. Math, English, Econ. AP classes, probably a theater kid too. Soccer team, maybe."
