Page 2 of Fortress (A Monster By Any Other Name #4)

T hey left Roger’s a few days later. Jake had been itching to get behind the wheel again, but before they’d gotten fifty miles from Truth or Consequences, he had to admit that white-knuckling was not going to get him through the kinda-sorta agony of trying to drive with his bad leg.

“I think it’s my turn,” Toby said unexpectedly, and Jake threw him a look both disgruntled and admiring. Since he’d started teaching Toby to drive, they’d been trading seats halfway through each day so Toby could get more practice. They weren’t even close to lunch, and normally Jake would’ve argued for the sake of pride, but he couldn’t resist whenever Toby got assertive. It was pretty hot.

He grumbled a little to keep up appearances but took the next rest stop exit so they could switch places. As he handed over the keys, his hands fumbled just a little. “Head wherever you want. I could use a few more winks.”

He didn’t really think that he’d sleep, but he was out not ten minutes after they left the motel lot.

He jerked awake when Toby neatly braked the Eldorado outside a mom-and-pop diner called, creatively, Mam ’n’ Pops. Jake blinked blearily at the sign, pretty sure he shouldn’t have to think about it as hard as he was.

“Why’re we stopping?” he asked, fumbling with the seat belt Toby must have wrapped over him while he was out.

Toby shrugged. “I was hungry.”

And that, probably more than anything, made Jake give a tired grin and push open the door. “Good enough for me.”

The place was the sort of greasy spoon where Jake felt comfortable. The waitress wore over her jeans and T-shirt a stained apron emblazoned with the restaurant’s logo, and she chewed gum while she took their order of a double-decker burger and fries for Jake and a tuna salad on rye with a fruit cup for Toby.

After she walked away for Jake’s coffee and Toby’s Coke, Toby began unpicking the paper wrapper around his napkin and silverware. “I was thinking, maybe we should wait to look for a hunt until you’re u-up to it.”

Jake eyed him. “You think my leg’s gonna fall off?”

Toby shook his head. “It’s just a flesh wound, so—why are you laughing?”

“Nothing.” Jake wiped at his face. There was nothing there, but it felt like something had broken through anyway, like he’d walked through a cobweb and could brush away the strands. “Just remind me sometime to show you Monty Python and the Holy Grail .”

Toby’s mouth quirked. “So you think we can take it easy? Maybe go visit that park we heard about?”

“Sure. Unless we come across something slow and toothless. Maybe Roger can rustle us up a nice ghost, some kind of haunting, nothing that the... you know, not something no one’s ever laid eyes on before. You notice anything online that would fit the bill?”

“I’ve been kind of distracted,” Toby said. “And R-Roger’s internet wasn’t that fast.”

“I’ve been after him to get it revved, but he always says it’s just fine.”

The waitress returned in a few minutes, sliding the plates down in front of them, asking them if they wanted anything else even as she walked away before they could answer. Jake snorted toward her retreating back (the place was crowded, but not that crowded). He was about to take a bite of his more-grease-than-beef burger when his eyes skimmed over Toby’s plate, and he frowned and put the burger down.

“Didn’t you order tuna?”

Toby looked at the ham and cheese on white bread in his hands and chewed thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said at last. “I guess I did.”

Jake sighed. “They screwed up your order.” He leaned back, raised his hand, and looked pointedly at their waitress, who was taking an order three tables down.

“Jake—”

“No, look. They’re going to take that and bring back what you wanted. That’s their job , not that anybody seems to know it around here.”

“Jake, don’t ,” Toby said, just as their waitress sauntered back to their table.

“Is there a problem?” she asked, looking at Jake as though she knew perfectly well that there was a problem and really didn’t have time to deal with his crap.

Pointing at Toby’s plate, Jake began, “Well, unless you guys are breeding a whole new kind of tuna back there—”

“It’s fine ,” Toby said, loud enough to drown him out. He pulled the plate closer as though she were coming to take away his firstborn. “It’s the best ham and cheese sandwich I’ve ever had, I love it, I don’t want anything else. I don’t really like tuna. This is an excellent meal, thank you .”

The waitress blinked in confusion, then said, “Okay,” and backed away.

Jake stared at him, feeling stunned and unbalanced, as though he’d hit the Eldorado’s brakes hard enough to throw himself against the wheel. “Toby...”He hesitated as Toby bent his head over his plate and poked moodily at his fruit cup. “Sorry,” he said at last. “Didn’t mean to go all super-controlling asshole on you.”

Toby still wouldn’t look at him, but the tense way his jaw was set was surprisingly nice to see. Finally, he lifted his head. “Don’t do that, Jake. It’s food. Re—good food, there’s nothing wrong with it. I don’t want anyone in trouble over it.”

Jake swallowed. “Hey. They wouldn’t have—nobody’s gonna be fired over a tuna sandwich. It happens.”

Toby shrugged. “It’s not worth the trouble. They would have just—thrown this one away. I don’t want two. I don’t want them to waste it. Can we please just talk about s-something else?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Jake said. They kept poking at their food, but they didn’t actually talk . They’d both lost most of their appetite, and Jake, wishing that he could figure out how to get them back to their easy banter, eventually gave up and helped himself to a couple of Styrofoam to-go boxes. He wasn’t sure that their waitress, now chatting with another set of customers she clearly knew and one guy that she might have been dating, even noticed.

On their way out, Toby, cradling their to-go boxes, stopped by the Eldorado’s door. “Jake, I’m s-sorry, I shouldn’t have—talked to you like that—”

“No no no,” Jake said, stopping short and turning to face him. “No, that is one of the things you do not get to apologize for. Seriously, Toby. Calling me on my bullshit is something I want you to get good at, okay?” He leaned against the Eldorado’s warm hood, one hand sliding as close to Toby as it could get with the car between them. “I told you,” he said with a wink. “It gets me all hot under the collar.”

Toby’s grin was easy and bright, and Jake realized how much he’d missed it.

They found a hunt in the snug little town of South Boston, Virginia, just shy of the North Carolina border. A string of semi-mysterious deaths following an estate sale had all the markings of a haunted object or curse.

Toby was the one who suggested splitting up. They had a list of potential witnesses as long as the Eldorado’s bumper and still only a handful of clues as to what was killing people or how it chose its targets. The victims weren’t falling into a particular type or dying in a particular place. There were some common denominators among the various death locations, families, and artifacts in the victims’ homes, but in a town with as much history as South Boston had, that wasn’t hard to manage. So Toby’s suggestion had seemed reasonable: he’d sift through the dusty archives of the two-story library while Jake made the rounds of the traumatized civilian survivors and witnesses.

But it wasn’t his favorite arrangement. Jake missed Toby’s steady presence as soon as he dropped him off in the morning, but he knew that this was the fastest way to wrap up the hunt. He managed to resist picking up his cell until it was a quarter to noon.

“Hey, Toby, how’s it shaking? Any luck?”

“Hey, Jake—hold on.” Toby’s voice was soft, almost a whisper. Jake heard the rustle and shift of the phone moving away from Toby’s ear, a couple steps, and then a thump. “I just stepped outside.”

Jake frowned. “Anyone hassling you? Because I can be there in like—”

But he was cut off by Toby’s short laugh. “No, I just didn’t want to make noise. It’s really quiet and nice in there. I’ve found a lot, though I don’t know how much is going to be helpful yet. I’m going to have to run it past your witness reports.”

“Sounds good. I guess that’s what libraries are for, right?” Jake had to smile. “So, you ready for some chow?I thought we could try that Mexican place we passed earlier.”

“Actually—” Toby paused. Jake could imagine him ducking his head, scuffing his feet on the edge of the concrete stairs. “I went down to the corner to get a sub. And a Sprite. I thought—I mean, you’re not done yet, are you?”

“Uh—no, nah, that last granny talked forever about her grandkids, and her kids, and her kids’ kids that somehow aren’t her grandkids, and her kids’ dogs until I was about falling asleep, before throwing in there that they haven’t owned that house on Barrigan Street for about ten years and change. I barely avoided keeling over from boredom the whole time and learned pretty much squat. There’s always one like her that’ll talk your ear off and not say much.”

“Ask the next one about the Rockwells. They seem to be showing up a lot in the records. Hey, maybe we can have Mexican tonight. You can keep going now while you’re on a roll with the grannies. I mean, if you want. I’m in the middle of one of the archive books they don’t let you check out, so I don’t really want... I mean, I would’ve liked to have lunch with you.”

Jake was still smiling, drumming his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. “Nah, it’s cool. We’ll have Mexican tonight and catch up. Keep plugging away, and call me if you get any other names or new leads. Or, you know, anytime, if you want.”

“I will. Jake . . .”

“Yeah?”

He heard Toby sigh against the phone, soft and relaxed. “It’s a nice day.”

Jake looked out the window at the blue sky and picturesque oaks shading Main Street. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Once he’d hung up, Jake cranked up the radio and sang along while beating time on the wheel. Santana wasn’t normally his jam, but today was an exception.

Sure, he’d miss Toby for lunch, and that kind of sucked because he’d been looking forward to seeing him. But instead of waiting for Jake to remind him to eat or anything , Toby had walked away on his own from where Jake had left him, to buy food without Jake telling him to, because he had wanted to eat. Everything about today rocked as hard as Hendrix on a Stratocaster.

He downed a burger and fries from the local Mickey D’s, then hit up the next few names on his list. Witness One from the second death wasn’t home, Witness Two was about as useful as the morning granny had been, and Jake got lost trying to find the third place, eating the last handful of cold fries from the bag and grumbling under his breath. There was no way in hell a town of this size needed to have a Misty Meadow Road and a Misty Meadow Drive. It was fucking redundant.

So on his third circuit through the edge of town, he pulled up at the same old stoplight (the town had a total of three) and scowled at the red light. It was the longest damn stoplight he’d met in the last six states.

As the Eldorado idled, he glanced over at the dinky motel at the side of the road.

He’d put Toby and him up in the classier joint across town, but the Two Dollar Motel, with its peeling paint and rusty red-brown doors, each room with its own pull-up parking space in the lot, was a match for the string of rooms that had framed his childhood. And his adulthood, for that matter. He was trying to do better for Toby, but he could understand sometimes his dad’s struggle over using ASC money to spring for a better place or scraping by on what they had.

Then all the good vibes he’d gotten from his call with Toby turned to cold dread.

A black truck was parked in the motel lot.

It gleamed a perfect, predatory ebony in the sunlight, the plates just a little too worn to match the gleaming bumper. An unmarked Sierra Grande, in every way identical to the one Leon Hawthorne drove.

The cars honking behind him snapped Jake forward to see that the light had changed. He slammed on the gas and almost rear-ended the Jeep in front of him. He turned hard into the first driveway he saw, not giving a damn if it were private or public property, if he should be aware of a goddamn dog. The second after he parked, he fumbled with shaking fingers for his phone, sliding over the numbers before he remembered the speed dial.

When Toby answered before the second ring, Jake didn’t pause to try to keep his voice down, control it, think of a way to keep from scaring Toby or any fucking thing because they may not have that kind of time. “Don’t go outside. Don’t leave. Where—where are you right now ?”

After a moment, Toby answered, voice quiet and tight. “Library. Archive room. What’s wrong?”

Jake sucked in a breath, pressing his hand to his forehead, trying to think when it was fucking hard even to keep his hand steady on the phone and the phone to his ear. “You need to move. Go to the fiction section. Stay out of sight of the front door, of any windows. If you can see him, he can—they can see you and—just wait for me. I’ll be there in five. Don’t move unless—just call me if you have to, but s tay there .”

“Okay, Jake. I will.”

He made it to the library in four, retaining just enough sense to scout out the block—the Eldorado was a big fucking beacon, Leon wouldn’t miss it if he were anywhere near—before bringing Toby out a side door and jogging back to the alley where he’d parked. He kept his head down, trying to keep behind dumpsters and turns when he could, and Toby ducked his head too. He followed Jake’s instruction to lie down flat on the Eldorado’s bench seat without a word or question, like this was something they practiced every day.

Back at their motel, he left Toby in the car with a pistol and a knife while he dashed into their room for their duffels and computer bag, holding the shotgun at the ready the whole time and caring fuck all who saw as long as it wasn’t him .

Only ten minutes later and fifteen miles outside city limits did he tell Toby it was okay to sit up.

Toby settled back against the seat and didn’t ask questions. Jake knew he should offer some explanation, tell Toby why they’d bolted like a couple of jumpy rabbits—fuck, he was scared, but that was just fucking smart when you were up against a fucking Hawthorne—but he couldn’t, his jaw locked tight. Hard enough to keep his eyes on the highway, burning past other vehicles like they were standing still. At some point he realized they were going twenty over the limit, but he didn’t slow down. Fast, faster, fastest, never fucking fast or far enough. How far would they have to go to be safe from Leon Hawthorne?

But every mile he put between them and—fuck, it was just a truck, he didn’t really know that his dad had been in that town, hunting them down—every mile tightened the pressure on his chest, fed the feeling he was trapped, running into an ambush.

He would face any of the bastards who had hurt Toby, right down to his fucking relations . He would face them head-on, barehanded, point-blank, without hesitation. But from Leon fucking Hawthorne he ran. And he would run every day for the rest of his life if he had to.

Jake had learned everything he knew about hunting monsters from his father, and there was nothing he could do to keep Toby safe from that man if he caught them. Leon didn’t make empty threats, and that last one had been a hell of a promise.

You’re not my fucking son. I see you, I’m putting it down and you with it.

Toby was a tight, silent figure beside him, one hand on Jake’s knee, the other clenched in his lap. Jake knew he was there ; he was far more conscious of Toby than of the mile markers zipping past, one after another, but it took a while before he realized Toby was saying, quietly but urgently, “Jake. Jake.”

It took an effort to unlock his jaw, get his throat to work. When it did, his voice sounded nothing like it did comforting Toby in the night. “Yeah, Toby?”

Toby didn’t flinch. His grip tightened on Jake’s knee. “Jake, there’s a r-r-rest stop coming up. I, I think we should stop. We’re almost si-sixty miles out of South Boston. I think... I think we can stop, just for a minute.”

Fuck. Toby had no fucking idea, but he could see how wigged out Jake was, how little fucking control Jake had. And Toby was telling him to stop .

With a jerk on the wheel, Jake moved into the right-hand lane, then switched to the brakes, applying them slow and easy all the way until they rolled into the rest stop.

He pulled into the first empty parking space, killed the engine, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw fireworks bursting across the inside of his lids. He still couldn’t talk to Toby. What was he going to say? See, this is what a shit excuse I have for a father. This is how I’ve endangered you. Ain’t it nice to be a fucking Hawthorne?

Toby sat, just breathing, for a long minute after the Eldorado had come to a stop. Then he unbuckled his seatbelt, moved closer, and gently touched the back of Jake’s hands.

It took a second for Jake to be able to release his fists. Toby held his hands as though they were fragile, delicate, likely as a wild bird to fly out of his hands. Jake swallowed and looked down at his fingers: broken a handful of times, scarred and callused and just about the same size as Toby’s. He closed his eyes tight when Toby leaned close and his chin brushed Jake’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he whispered. “Hey, we’re okay. It’s okay. We’re safe, you got us out. We’re going to be okay, Jake.”

That was the fucking last straw. That Toby —his Toby, who had suffered months and years in that fucking hellhole, torture and shit he couldn’t even imagine even in the nightmares that tried some nights to show him what a bastard Jake Hawthorne was, hunting and whoring and fucking around before even trying to get Toby out—was comforting him because Jake’s fucking father would kill them both if he saw them. Not just Jake (he could fucking well understand sometimes that he fucked up, maybe that he deserved a hell of a lot more shit than had come to him), but Toby, whom Jake didn’t deserve to begin with and had done fuck all to deserve that kind of death.

He might have tried to say something—he didn’t know what, Toby’s name at least—but all that came out was a choked grunt, and he twisted so he could wrap his arms around Toby, pulling him close, and closer, and tight as he could get. It wasn’t words to tell him that Jake never deserved to have him, that Toby deserved someone without a fuckton of failures and a psycho father to boot, but Jake wasn’t capable of anything else.

It was a mark of the progress they’d made that even though there was nothing gentle about the embrace—Jake was fucking clinging , and he would be ashamed of that later, when he felt like his world wasn’t going to fall apart with a shotgun blast—Toby didn’t tense up, only shifted enough to wiggle his own arms out to hold him, tight, in turn.

Jake pressed his face against Toby’s head, breathing in the smell of his hair—even the little hairs tickling his chin a reminder that Toby was here , not back in Freak Camp or lost or bleeding out in a parking lot—and maybe rubbing the dampness (fucking sweat or rain or some shit) from his cheeks. Then he kissed Toby’s temple, long and hard. And he said it, because if they were both going to die tomorrow, or someday soon, Jake had to know that Toby knew , because he was the best thing in Jake’s life. And just because Jake couldn’t fucking take care of him, keep him safe like he should, didn’t make it any less true.

“I love you.”

Toby froze—he didn’t stiffen, just stopped the slow motions of his hands over Jake’s back with a hitch in his breath—then he pressed close again, turning his head to nuzzle at Jake’s neck, and Jake sighed, closing his eyes. Okay. That was okay. He hadn’t expected Toby to respond. He knew Toby wanted to stay with him, and, yeah, maybe because Toby didn’t know anything better, but now he knew he was loved. That shabby truth was the best Jake had to give him.

They kept driving, though Jake eventually dropped the Eldorado’s speed down to his usual ten over. They skipped dinner—there were PowerBars in the back seat for Toby if he needed anything, and Jake couldn’t think about pulling over for some grub, not that close to the threat—and didn’t stop until they were two states away and two hours shy of midnight.

The motel they stopped at was plain but serviceable, on the edge of a town with maybe eight hundred souls. He stopped in front long enough to get a room, then drove the Eldorado around to park in the back before they walked with the bags to their room. It had a view of the parking lot’s entrance and a quick escape to their getaway.

Toby didn’t ask why they’d parked in the back, just as he hadn’t questioned why Jake had yanked them out of the middle of a hunt. Jake wished he could feel flattered that Toby trusted him that much, but he was afraid it was just another symptom of the mindfuck he’d received in camp. That didn’t stop him from taking Toby’s hand in the parking lot and not letting go until he had shut and bolted their door.

Locks thrown, curtains closed—except for a lean slip of space where hopefully they would be able to see Leon before he saw them—and bags in the corner, Jake fell backward onto the single big bed, arm crossed over his eyes. After a moment of silence, he heard Toby shuffling around. Lifting his arm an inch, he saw Toby laying a thin line of salt before the windows and door. Jake had thought he was burned out today, as far as emotions went, but that made his chest ache enough that he re-covered his eyes and swallowed convulsively.

He listened to Toby unzipping a bag in the bathroom—probably laying out their toiletries like a surgeon’s tools, toothbrushes and paste in neat parallel lines on the left, combs and razors on the right—and a moment later, the bed dipped beside him. Slowly, as though he still thought Jake would bolt from any sudden movements, Toby stretched out next to him. He tucked his head onto Jake’s shoulder and rested his hand, ever so lightly, over Jake’s heart.

“We’re okay,” he whispered, as he had hours earlier. “You and me. We can—we take care of each other.”

Jake ran his fingers over the back of Toby’s head. Toby shivered slightly, and Jake dropped his hand to cover Toby’s over his chest. He could almost believe that. It was easy to forget sometimes, the way Toby flinched away from radio ads and clueless civilian conversation, that he had a reservoir of strength that Jake couldn’t tap and shouldn’t underestimate. He could almost believe that together, they were a match for Leon Hawthorne.

Rubbing his thumb back and forth slowly across Toby’s hand, he answered not because he believed it, but because the words were something they both needed to hear. “Yeah, Toby. We will.”

Toby shifted, and Jake thought he felt Toby’s lips press through his shirt. Then he said, very soft: “What about—the case? Who’s going to take care of the... the artifact? Or ghost? I th-think from the r-research it was an artifact, or a s-set of them. Who’s going to s-stop it now?”

Jake exhaled. Of the two of them, Toby was always the better, the more human and compassionate . He hadn’t forgotten. “You’re right.” Jake sat up, reluctantly slipping out from under Toby’s arm. Toby watched him, tense and worried, as Jake dug for the phone in his jacket.

Jake stopped before the door, resting a hand against the door frame. He should leave, he really should, so Toby wouldn’t have to worry so much, so he wouldn’t hear, so that Jake could break down if he had to without the person he cared about most in the world watching. But in the end, he couldn’t.

Outside, he wouldn’t be able to see the road or Toby. He’d be too exposed.

So he tucked himself instead by the sink, where he could see every corner of the room. It didn’t matter if he knew that the position wouldn’t save him or Toby. He was doing what he could now to hold back the fear, keep the jitters where they belonged.

Maybe this was what Toby felt like all the time, so fucking afraid of his past coming back to lay hands on him.

He punched the speed dial for Roger’s and held the phone tight to his ear, tight enough that it hurt, and tried to breathe.

“Harper Salvage, need junk, we’ve got it by the trunkful.”

Jake cleared his throat. “Hey, Rog.”

“Kid. How’s the leg treating you?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, we’re fine. Listen, I need you to pass the word for someone to pick up a hunt in South Boston, Virginia. It looks like some kind of haunted object or ghost-related death-curse thing, so there might be an artifact bounty. It’s definitely a repeating pattern, and the last two deaths were within the last month, so someone had better jump on it. We didn’t get much done, but I can tell you which witnesses you don’t need to hit up.”

“Okay,” Roger said slowly. “I got the info. But that begs the question, why aren’t you boys wrapping it up?”

Jake pressed his lips in a line, unable to keep his shoulders from hunching. “We had to clear out.”

“O–kay.” There was a pause, and Jake could hear Roger’s breathing, could almost hear him thinking . Then, “How’s Tobias doing?”

Jake rubbed his face. “He’s good. Really, really good, he’s doing—great. No, seriously, this isn’t about him, Roger, this has nothing to do with him.”

“Uh- huh ,” Roger drawled. “Then why’re you bolting from a Hunting 101 case? You do something stupid, like KO the sheriff’s kid?”

“Nah, nothing like... nothing like that.” Jake took a breath and braced himself. “Hey, one hunter you definitely shouldn’t call... I mean, do you know where my—you know where Leon is?” As much as he was trying not to watch, out of the corner of his eye he saw Toby stiffen.

“Why, you got something you wanna say to his face?”

“No,” Jake said shortly. “I just need to know, Roger. It’s important. Like, even if you can... can you rule out Virginia?”

“Hm.” Jake heard a few papers shifting, the thump of a book. “We don’t talk , you understand, but last I heard of him he was down in Florida hunting some kind of fire monster. That was... about a week ago. That help?”

“Maybe. It doesn’t rule out... anyway, just keep me posted, Roger.”

“All right, I’ll keep an eye out. Not like I don’t got enough shit to do. So what’re you and the brain up to now if you’re done clearing out?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Well, don’t do anything crazy. You get any hare-brained schemes, run it past Tobias first, and maybe you’ll be in one piece when I next see your ugly mug.”

Jake hung up and tucked his phone into his pocket before he could force himself to look Toby in the eye.

Then his stomach dropped because Toby was staring at him, eyes wide in his plaster-white face, hands gripping the sheets like they were the only thing keeping him from being swept away.

“Y-y-you s-saw your f-f-father ?”

Only then did he realize that he hadn’t actually told Toby what they were running from.

“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Toby, I’m sorry.”

“ H - Hawthorne ?” Toby’s chest was working like a bellows: short, sharp, desperate breaths that he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes, fixed on Jake’s, held terrified, barely controlled panic.

“I—maybe. I saw him, maybe, okay?” Jake moved forward, hands extended, but didn’t make contact, not sure what would happen if he tried his usual calming tactics. “Not even him, just his truck, but it was his truck, the exact model, and I didn’t know... yeah, I ran because I thought it was him.”

They were both inches from a panic attack, and he wasn’t sure this time if he’d be able to calm Toby down or if he’d join him in the meltdown and the paralyzing dread. But Toby closed his eyes, drew in two slow, labored breaths, and released one hand from the covers to grab Jake’s hand. But instead of tugging him to the bed, Toby used him to pull himself to his feet, then let go. He paced toward the window and back.

“Fuck,” he said. “Fucking fuck. But—just the truck, you said?”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “There have to be, what, fucking hundreds of those?”

“Thousands,” Toby agreed. “Maybe thousands. Might not be him.”

“Yeah, probably not him. And we’re here , you know, so...”

“Yeah.” Toby nodded. His hands twisted together. “So it probably wasn’t H-Hawthorne—I mean, your dad.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Jake said. He found his own hands clenching at his sides.

Toby stopped dead still, then nodded sharply once. “Oh.” Then, “We’ll be okay. We’re here, so we’ll be okay.”

“Yeah.” Jake tried to sound confident. “He’s... he’s not going to follow us here.”

“Right. We’ll be fine.”

Toby had said that more than a dozen times since they’d bolted from South Boston earlier that day. This was the first time that Jake suspected Toby couldn’t wholeheartedly believe it either.