Page 21 of Fire
He couldn’t bring himself to speak, but Jake asked for him. “Can you tell us about them?”
Gina’s gaze rested on Tobias. “Yeah. ’Course I can.”
* * *
Thankfully,Jake didn’t try to get him to talk during the drive back to the motel, which was good because Tobias didn’t feel capable of saying a word. Instead he just slid in one of their Bowie cassettes and kept the volume moderately low by his usual standards.
When they parked in front of their door in the motel lot and Jake shut the engine off, neither moved nor spoke for a long time, until the motel’s lights flickered on before them.
Tobias licked his lips and tried for words. They were hard to shape and push into sound. “Do you expect me to be different?”
He could feel Jake’s glance. “What do you mean, Toby?”
Tobias shut his eyes and shook his head. “I mean . . . I kn-know this is important. But w-what do you expect to happen now? Do you think I’m going to be d-different?”
Jake half-raised his hands, as though in protest. “Dude. No.”
“You wanted this,” Tobias pressed on, “so badly. But I’m still just—” He snapped his mouth shut before he could saya freak from Freak Camp.
Jake didn’t hesitate. “You’re Toby. The boy I love, right?” His voice actually cracked a little, and Tobias finally looked at him. Jake’s face was shockingly vulnerable, and something clenched around Tobias’s heart. “Hell no, I don’t think you need to be different now. I want you to be the same badass nerd I’ve known my whole life. I want you to be whoever you want to be, wherever you want to be. That can change or not, today or tomorrow or ten years from now. It’s up to you.”
Tobias let out a shaky exhale, closing his eyes and dropping his head back. “I don’t know who I am.”
“I do,” Jake said.
* * *
The next day,they visited the West Virginia National Cemetery. It was a beautiful September day, the sky cloudless and a breeze blowing. The cemetery had acres of green grass spotted with neat rows of older tombstones, all arranged around a central garden of flowers, white and pink and yellow.
As they walked up the neat stone path leading to the cemetery gardens, Tobias tried for a lighter tone. “Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’?”
Jake shot him a quick look. “Don’t think I need my ass kicked today.”
Tobias rolled his eyes.
It was just like any other walk they’d taken to see a garden. Which his mother had liked too.
It was a good thing Jake had been there through the whole interview with Gina, because otherwise Tobias would’ve written off all of yesterday as a hallucination. Maybe one sparked by a malfunction of his deceitful, freakish brain.
He could still hear the Director’s voice, cold and merciless as it spelled out the truths about him. That still felt as real and authoritative as it had before. He wondered if that would ever change.
Yesterday felt like it had happened to someone else. Like Gina and Jake had been talking about someone else. And really, they had been.
He was Tobias Wright.
89UI6703 of Freak Camp.
Tobias Hawthorne.
Maybe one day it would feel real.
5
One month later
Roger’s personal phone rang just as he was about to sit down to a dinner of ham sandwiches and beans. With a groan, he debated letting it go to voicemail. Telemarketers liked to call that damn line this time of night, but it might also be some asshole green-as-little-apples hunter doing something that would get him bled out if he didn’t get Roger’s help. Probably no one Roger would miss anyway.
Still, he picked up the phone on the fourth ring. Sucker that he was, he always did. “Harper.”
