Page 7 of Fire
“No,” he whispered at last. It was all he could get out.
Jake gave one nod, never looking away. “I knew. It doesn’t change anything. It’s okay. I still love you just as much as always. Nothing’s gonna change that.”
Tobias let out a low keening moan, pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead. “Y-you don’t u-understand.”
“I do,” Jake said levelly. “I heard you, Toby, I swear.”
Tobias could only swing his head from side to side in denial. No, no, no.
“I get that those—evil motherfuckers made you sell yourself to survive.” Jake’s voice cracked. “And I hatethemfor it. Never you. Fuck, Toby, I’d have done the same in your place.”
“No!” Tobias’s head jerked up, forgetting himself as he looked at Jake in horror. “You can’t—don’t say?—”
“I would have,” Jake said flatly. “In a fucking heartbeat. And I wouldn’t have lasted as long as you?—”
“Stop it.” Tobias put his hands to either side of his head. “Stop, stop,please.” He struggled to breathe normally while Jake remained, thankfully, quiet.Jake doesn’t belong in Freak Camp. He would never, never be there, never know. He couldn’t.
After a few minutes, Jake said, “Toby,” and Tobias forced his hands away from his ears and turned to look at him. “I heard you,” he repeated.
That repetition, that steadiness, finally hit Tobias. Maybe it was true. Maybe he could believe that Jake had known for so long and hadn’t walked away. No matter how little Tobias thought he deserved, Jake was still there. And heknew.
Something broke inside Tobias, something big and awful, and he didn’t know what was on the other side. His shoulders shook, raw sobs tearing through him. Ever so gently, Jake put his arm around Toby’s shoulders. Toby sagged against him, and Jake tightened his grip, holding him close as he always did after each nightmare.
* * *
Tobias didn’t sleep,not even after Jake had settled again beside him, his breathing easing into the steady rhythm of deep sleep. Tobias lay there, keeping his breathing even and slow so as to not wake Jake, and tried to make sense of what the fuck had just happened.
He couldn’t think about it, couldn’t wrap his head around it. Jake had learned Tobias’s biggest, dirtiest secret, and instead of calling him what he was (whore, slut, monster), he had said he loved him, that he was perfect. That he’dalready known.
To hear that, after knowing that Jake understood what he had done in the camp, Tobias would have walked through fire without hesitation. It was hard to parse how he should feel now when he had expected so little.
He laughed at that, perilously close to tears again.
Jake shifted in his sleep, pulling him closer. Tobias relaxed, burrowing into his warmth and breathing in the heat and familiarity of him.
He didn’t know where they were going from here. He still felt shaken and halfway to panic thinking of the revelation. But beneath that was the knowledge that two of his worst fears (the hunter pinning him to that chair, and himself confessing the worst to Jake) had come to pass, yet he was still here, sharing Jake’s bed. He wasn’t in any pain other than the echoes of his own fear.
Tobias had never expected to come through either of those experiences intact. Now that he had survived them, he didn’t know where he was going or what waited ahead, but something had changed.
Strange and remarkable as it seemed, the future glimmered with real hope now. Hope that stretched further than the here and now.
2
“I’m gonna call the number.” Jake flicked the reporter’s card back and forth between his fingers.
Tobias watched him with concern. Jake was restless, amped up the way he got before a showdown with an angry spirit, especially when the spirit had been giving them the run-around. This version of Jake was prone to shooting first and rushing into an abandoned house without a well-thought-out plan.
“I want to go with you,” Tobias said.
He didn’t actually want to. It was hard not to shudder at the memory of the hunter’s breath, words, and grip on him. Every instinct and nerve screamed at him to stay inside and hidden from strangers’ eyes. But he wasn’t about to stay behind in the motel room while Jake confronted an unknown threat.
Jake shook his head. He rarely told Tobias no directly, but Tobias could see that he wanted to. “This dickweed has been asking questions about you specifically. No way we’re dangling you on a stick for him before we get the lay of the land.”
Tobias pressed his lips together before saying coolly, “Well, there’s also no way I’m waiting here or in another diner for you to go it alone. We just tried that.”
“Okay, compromise. You stay in the Eldorado.”
Tobias considered that, then nodded. “Eyes on you at all times.”
