Page 6 of Fortress (A Monster By Any Other Name #4)

R ushing into the emergency room, all Jake knew was a blur of motion, shouting, and Tobias’s too-cold fingers in his hand. People were asking him questions, crowding too close, and his shoulder throbbed where the troll had clipped him, but none of that mattered.

He almost went for his knife when someone grabbed at his shoulder to try to pull him away from Tobias (thank fuck the grip was still tight and Tobias hadn’t let go, and Jake did not think about rigor, about all the things natural and supernatural that could freeze fingers in their last grip, fuck , he wasn’t fucking thinking it). Then someone snapped in his face, and he found himself back in a world that was made up of more (threats, allies, obstacles) than Tobias.

“You need to let him go,” the doctor barked. He was an older man with thinning hair and the ability to stare down a Hawthorne without blinking. “We need to get him into surgery.” His expression softened briefly, and he added, “You need to let us do our jobs.”

Jake stared at him, then took a shaky breath and nodded.

It was harder than it should have been to pry his fingers open, and thank God that wasn’t just him. Tobias’s fingers clenched convulsively on his before he could disentangle them, before he could brush a hand over Tobias’s blood-smeared face and let the doctor pull him away.

The doctor turned back, all business and orders, and Jake just stood there, dumb, coming about as close to prayer as he’d gotten since waiting all those months ago to see if the stupid fucking papers he’d signed would get Tobias out of Freak Camp. He shifted his weight and resisted the urge to keep a hand on his knife as they pulled the gurney back toward surgery.

One of the nurses reached forward with a pair of scissors, cutting open Tobias’s mud-covered shirt, baring his mangled collarbone and the rough scarring around his throat.

She stared for a long moment with the scraps hanging from her hand. Then she said, loud enough for everyone around to hear, “Oh, fuck, I think it’s a freak.”

The room froze, some personnel turning to stare, others just stuttering to a halt. Then a completely different kind of chaos erupted.

There was really no good way to run into a troll.

Well, Roger might have said that going fifty-five miles per hour in a semi was a decent way, and Jake would have had to agree, but that wasn’t how Toby and Jake managed it.

They’d heard rumors of strangers disappearing in a park outside of Sedona, Arizona, so they’d done their duty as hunters and had gone to check it out. The two bars Toby and Jake had hit up had been full of twitchy patrons, and the police station had been downright hostile. After a good day of searching and getting nothing as far as information or leads went, they’d decided to go tramping into the frosted state park to see what they could find. They left the Eldorado at the parking lot about a mile back, not willing to trust her wheels to the bitch of a rocky narrow road that angled sharply up a butte in this weather; Sedona was one of the few places in Arizona that rose high enough to get snow and ice in the winter.

They found what they were looking for after a ten-minute hike on a cold trail of packed earth. The wooden bridge was a rickety thing that looked overdue for a makeover with some fresh planks. Even from a distance, something was off about the darkness under the bridge, something that would have given Jake the heebie-jeebies even if they had come across it in the heart of summer.

Then again, the troll was also a damn good giveaway.

Jake had thought bridge trolls were half myth or at least didn’t get outside Europe, but there was no arguing with the reality of eight feet of rocky gray skin and hands the size of boulders trying to eat a family of four. Judging by the coolers and gear scattered over the thin snow, not to mention the high-pitched screaming from the pickup truck, a family of campers had been trucking their gear out of the park when they were waylaid by the monster under the bridge.

There was no good way to run into a troll, but Jake would have liked a few more weapons on them. A rocket launcher would’ve been nice.

The troll had already yanked off one of the doors on the rusty blue truck, shoved the vehicle over, and had seized the father by his arm, tugging him out the window. Between the broken glass and the monster’s ferocious grip, there was blood everywhere, the man screaming as he fought to stay inside the cab. The children in the car wailed and hung onto the man as though they could keep him from being dragged into the troll’s gaping maw. The fact that they had succeeded so far was damn impressive, given the size of the monster, but soon his arm would pop off or the troll was going to lose its temper and finish smashing the vehicle to bits. Either way, no one in that metal deathtrap would survive.

Jake had time to think Shit, we need a bigger gun , coming to a stop because running into that mess without a plan would obviously only get them killed alongside the civvies. Then he realized that Toby had not stopped. Toby was running full speed toward the mess.

Jake couldn’t have said he was surprised, but that didn’t help the horror stopping his breath.

Toby didn’t even try his gun, instead drawing his Bowie knife as he charged the creature. Jake raised his shotgun, wondering if he had the aim to hit the thing in a sensitive spot (assuming that trolls had sensitive spots) from this distance, and Toby, what hell are you doing? followed by Oh, fuck when Toby didn’t go for the body.

He hit the back of the truck, scrambled onto the top, and jumped straight toward the monster, driving his blade into the thing’s eye.

Trolls don’t scream. The sound they made in pain or rage was more of a basso grumble, the first harsh rumblings of an avalanche, or a semitruck engine that wouldn’t catch. The beast jerked away, taking Toby’s knife with it and drawing another scream from the father.

Then the scream abruptly stopped as the troll dropped the man and turned its attention to Toby.

The eye that had taken the knife was bleeding, a gory mess of reddish-black fluids with the hilt of Toby’s blade jutting from the center. Toby jumped out of the way of the first swing and dropped off of the truck with the second. The troll’s arm struck the old steel, bending it inward like a child popping bubble wrapping. The beast, following Toby with its one good eye, took a step toward him but got distracted by Jake emptying a clip into its back.

It probably felt the bullets, but when it turned and bared its broad, dull teeth in Jake’s direction, all Jake saw in its lone eye was rage.

“Get them out!” Toby screamed. “Take care of the civilians, I can—”

Neither of them was fast enough that time. The troll’s broad arm caught Toby in the side and sent him flying twenty feet into a white-crusted pine, where he crumpled beneath a shower of needles and snow.

Jake was pretty sure he was screaming. He was pretty sure he didn’t have the control needed to face off a monster that they weren’t prepared for. He picked up a small shovel from the scattered supplies and charged as the creature lumbered toward Toby. The troll didn’t seem to have a lot of speed, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. As Leon had said more than once: something slow and lucky could kill you just as easy as something smart and fast.

Jake stabbed the troll in the knee with the shovel and then backpedaled, almost falling as it swiped at his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the civilians struggling to get out of the vehicle. He scrambled backward to lead the troll away, barely dodging the next blow. When he caught sight of Toby, he almost sagged in relief to see him dragging himself to his knees.

And then Jake could’ve howled, because instead of retreating with the civilians, Toby headed back toward the battle with slow determination, one arm pressed to his side.

A boulder-like fist came out of nowhere. Jake flung himself sideways, but the fist clipped him, and the glancing blow sent him rolling, his whole body jarred, the wind knocked out of him.

“Hey, you stupid freak!” Toby’s voice was raspy with pain and not nearly as strong as usual in a fight. Jake started swearing nonstop because the monster was turning, slow as a mountain, deadly as an avalanche. “Yeah, you, rockhead, come and—” Toby broke off, but it wasn’t because of the troll. He was coughing, and Jake recognized that sound: the wet noise of something gone weird in the lungs, when ribs were poking into your organs, and Jake forced himself to his knees and then to his feet. He had to get over there. He had to get between Toby and the threat.

He’d only made it a few steps when Toby braced himself against the truck’s back end, smiling grimly as the troll stumped toward him, the family on a limping run down the path. Jake saw the lighter in Toby’s hand, but not the drop.

The explosion caught the troll full in the chest, and it roared, that hair-raising inhuman noise from deep within. Kind of like Jake was doing, except the troll wasn’t the one screaming, ”Toby!”

As best he could figure out later, while he was wrapping Toby up and keeping an eye on the smoldering troll just to be sure that it wouldn’t get up again, the exploding gas tank had caught the troll squarely in the chest. Panicking, it had tried to beat it out, shoving the jagged edges of metal deeper into its own chest. Toby had thrown himself over the edge of the bridge, using the troll’s own home as cover from the explosion that had taken it out. Jake had fumbled with his cell phone to call 911 as he dragged Toby away from the disaster, his head bleeding all over the bumpy gravel path, but the civilians had already called an ambulance.

Jake fought the EMTs when they tried to take Toby away without him. He completely forgot about the IDs in their pockets and stumbled over brother , cousin , sister , until finally they let him ride along in the ambulance for the drive to Methodist Hospital. Jake held Toby’s limp hand the whole way.

And then they saw the scarring.

Ten minutes after the nurse’s discovery, Jake found himself trapped in a room with an enormous mahogany desk between himself and Dr. Judith Cunningham, CEO and director of Methodist Hospital. His knee wouldn’t stop bouncing, and adrenaline kept him twitching for the gun he’d released to the security guards outside her painstakingly arranged administrative office. Neither was a great sign for the conversation to come. Dr. Cunningham, leaning forward with her arms crossed on the desk, looked as though she had bitten into a lemon.

Sitting in an armchair to the left of the desk was Dr. Kendra Turner, the resident supernatural specialist for the hospital. She was a middle-aged Black woman with a headful of thick braids tied back, and she bore the demeanor of someone who knew she was the last calm before a storm.

Sup-specs were a required member of every hospital’s staff. In Jake’s experience, they ranged from overeducated eggheads jonesing for their first confirmed vamp sighting to low-level medical personnel who had taken just enough classes to get the certification and resultant bump in pay. Their job was to check every injury with any possible supernatural origin to judge its danger to the population. No facility wanted to host Patient Zero for the next big supernatural outbreak. And just sometimes, a facility would land itself a freak.

ASC procedure was to identify, quarantine, and transport the supernatural to Freak Camp without delay. Usually, the black vans arrived at the hospital the same day.

Figuring out a way to throw a wrench into “normal procedure” that wouldn’t end with him and Toby running from the law for the rest of their lives was going to be one hell of a trick.

Dr. Cunningham drummed her fingers over her arm, her expression growing even more pinched. “Tell me again exactly what kind of supernatural threat you’ve brought into my hospital, Mr. Hawthorne.”

“I told you already, if you’d listened the first time, he’s ‘unidentified,’ which means the ASC never could give him a fu—a label. He’s never showed any damn sign of being weird, much less dangerous. He’s probably less of a threat to your patients than your damn doctors, seeing as Toby doesn’t go around cutting into people. He’s not contagious, outrageous, or even conscious right now. You better hope to hell that he’s getting top-notch care, because he ain’t done a fu—a damn thing wrong.” Jake glowered at her, fingers clenching his chair’s armrests.

“I don’t like your attitude or your explanation.” Dr. Cunningham looked at Dr. Turner. “Catch me up. What does an ASC classification of ‘unidentified’ mean?”

Dr. Turner shook her head. “It could mean pretty much anything, depending on the supernatural in question.”

“Ballpark me a threat level.”

“Low to moderate, most likely,” Dr. Turner replied. “Provided this supernatural was legally released from ASC custody. To give you any kind of better assessment, I’m going to have to make some calls—”

“You won’t,” Jake said suddenly. He was aware his voice had hit a dangerous register that was all his father’s, but it was a toss-up if people would react to Jake’s gravelly threat-voice the same way they would to Leon’s. Though from the way the two women were looking at him now, he might have an ASC-graded threat level. They wouldn’t exactly be wrong.

He breathed in through his nose. Toby, unconscious on a fucking gurney right now, needed medical treatment to save his life , and that depended on whether Jake could keep his temper.

He gestured stiffly toward the ID he’d slapped face up on the desk. “Run my credentials if you want. I’m ASC-licensed and can give you references from other hunters. They’ll vouch for Toby too. They signed his release papers.” Thank God for Roger and Alex.

“I’ll take those references, names, and numbers,” Dr. Cunningham said immediately. “And we will need those papers.”

Jake froze in reaching for the pen on the desk. “What?”

Dr. Cunningham’s eyes narrowed. “The release papers you just mentioned? We’ll need those for our records, along with anything else explaining why a registered supernatural is here in my hospital instead of behind the walls of the FREACS facility. Until we hear back from the ASC and I am personally able to speak with someone who can provide a satisfactory answer, that documentation is the primary criteria I will use in deciding whether my staff is safe treating him or whether he should be here at all.”

Jake stood, and both women tensed in their seats. He felt more than saw (the ringing in his ears made it difficult to concentrate) Cunningham’s hand shift toward the edge of her desk. In another context he would’ve expected her to reach for a gun, though her goal was probably just an intercom. But for once, Jake wasn’t thinking of combat. “Papers,” he repeated. “Yeah, I’ll... I have those.”

Last week, as the short barren trees and snow-clogged fields of Iowa rolled past the Eldorado’s windows, Toby had asked, out of the blue, for those same papers.

It took a minute for Jake to process the request.

“Which papers, Toby?” There wasn’t a lot of paper in his life. Hawthornes tried not to leave a trail.

“The p-papers... from camp. From F-F-FREACS. The ones you signed to g-get me out.” The stutter was more pronounced than it had been lately, and Toby’s chin was tilted slightly down, but his eyes were focused on Jake.

Jake’s hand twitched, his mind going blank, only years of practice keeping them straight on the road. He couldn’t think of a response besides his own questions, but he caught Toby’s sidelong glance. He felt the silent query in it, wondering if Jake would pretend Toby hadn’t spoken at all.

“Why . . . What brought this up?”

Toby just shrugged. “If you don’t w-want me to see them, I underst—”

“No, fuck, it’s not—one sec.” Jake slowed down and pulled them to the side of the road. He took a shaky breath and hoped that it came across as thoughtful and not borderline panicked.

He hadn’t thought of those papers in months. Not since he’d shoved them into the glove box the day he’d sprung Toby from Freak Camp, before he’d beckoned Toby to take the shotgun seat for the very first time. He remembered the sheer euphoria of that hour, even overlaid with what happened that night and the following weeks.

Fuck , what did Toby want with those papers?

“It’s fine, I’m just... they’re in the glove box. I put them... yeah.” Jake gestured vaguely, but Toby was already opening it up, fishing the bent document envelope out of a debris of receipts and forged insurance forms. The sheaf of papers he withdrew from the envelope was way bigger than Jake remembered. Just to give himself something to do with his hands, he put the Eldorado back in gear and eased back into the highway lane.

He’d never read them. It hadn’t mattered, not that day with Toby standing against the wall where they’d leashed him. Not when signing where he was told was the last hurdle to yanking Tobias him out of there and putting as many miles as possible between them and that hellhole. In the days and weeks and months since, he’d had more important things to think about than some goddamn ASC papers. Things like Toby himself.

And what the fuck did it matter if Jake hadn’t read them? He would’ve signed the fucking things anyway. A contract for his soul wouldn’t have stopped him from planting his John Hancock. No, Jake wouldn’t say sorry even if Toby found some key paragraphs of those damn papers written in some kind of demonic dialect.

That had to be what Toby was looking for: the fine print that could bite them in the ass. The little details that, okay, maybe they should know about. But until Toby finished reading (much, much slower than his usual pace, and What the fuck could the ASC say that could be that goddamn important? ) and said anything, these were going to be some long. Ass. Miles.

Tobias read each page slowly. The language was stilted, formal, and sometimes he reread a section multiple times to be sure that he understood. The paperwork for removing a freak from camp was pretty standard, as he’d seen it a couple times in Wednesday sessions with the Director. Not common, but there were provisions in place. Where applicable, someone had written neat notes in the margins for Jake’s specific situation. At one point, the document referenced an attached file for more information on “the supernatural,” but no file was attached.

Jake had initialed each page. At the very bottom of the last page was Jake’s messy scrawl, directly across from the Director’s steadier, distinct signature.

Tobias looked at those two names for a long time before folding the papers back into their envelope. He placed it into the glove compartment, on top of the title to the Eldorado that he’d glimpsed when Jake had asked him to find his spare sunglasses. Proof of ownership for Jake’s most beloved possessions , he couldn’t help but think. Jake wouldn’t agree, but it was hard to let the thought go, especially with the cold, precise ASC terms and conditions of his release into Jake’s custody echoing in his head (the Director’s words; whether or not they’d been written by him, he had approved every word in that document, and Tobias had read every line in his voice).

Tobias turned to watch the landscape flash past his window—too quick to take in, like so much of the entire real world—like all of America had been.

He’d almost grown to believe that this was his, to share with Jake, forever. That it couldn’t be taken away. Distantly, he marveled at his own outward calm, hands resting in his lap, still breathing normally. That wouldn’t have been the case a few months ago. What had changed?

It wasn’t that he believed Jake invulnerable from the ASC. Jake was fast and smart and always took care to keep Tobias and himself safe, but there were so many hunters in the ASC. And many of them were Dixons. They would never ever stop searching for them if they wanted Tobias back. If they knew Jake was being irresponsible with him.

According to that contract, Jake was being pretty damned irresponsible. From giving him weaponry and education to permitting him to interact with reals (“ care must be taken to avoid contact between the supernatural and civilian populations, both for the protection of the citizenry and the maintenance of the supernatural’s control ”), Jake had been breaking the rules from day one.

But he understood, now as he wouldn’t have so long ago, why Jake hadn’t kept to the terms. Jake never could have abided by what the ASC had wanted, how they had expected him to treat Tobias. And as dangerous as it was—as certain as it was that, one day, they would find out that Jake had broken the rules—Tobias understood that Jake could not have acted any other way.

It would have been safer, yes, if Jake had bowed to the ASC’s demands. Maybe even the Tobias from four or five months ago would have preferred that safety over the danger of disobedience.

But that kind of safety was nothing compared to what he and Jake had now. How Tobias had begun to understand that they could be equals . And more importantly, understand that the Jake that he’d grown to know and love would never compromise on his belief in Tobias as a person or treat him as anything less.

Knowing that made the trade-off worth it. This amazing, beautiful ride might not last as long as it would have if Jake had stuck to the letter of the agreement, but Tobias wouldn’t choose the other way now.

When Tobias struggled back to consciousness, aware first of bright lights against his eyelids and voices in the background, he wondered blurrily if Jake was okay. Is he in the bathroom? What TV channel did he leave on, this isn’t Discovery . . . They weren’t in the motel they’d left; the mattress was different, the sheets were wrong in a way he couldn’t pin down through the heavy fog in his head and the stiff pressure over his collarbone and side.

It had to have been one hell of a hunt. Though the details were blurred, fading, that must be the reason for the pain that throbbed through his body. He tried to raise his hands to wipe at his gummed-up eyes, and they caught short, just a few inches from his sides.

No. Tobias’s eyes snapped open as he tried to sit up, but he couldn’t, this time stopped by a band across his chest.

No, no, no.

The voices had changed, were getting louder. They had seen him and were coming closer.

NO.

Tobias tried harder to yank his hands and body free. Not because he believed it was possible, but because he couldn’t not , any more than a rat caught in a cage could stop throwing itself against the bars of the cage as it was placed in the furnace.

They had caught him.

He’d known, maybe he’d always known, but it had been clearer when he’d seen those papers, the ones that neatly laid out all the ways Jake had been too kind to him. Good as Jake was, as much hope as he had infused in Tobias’s soul, the ASC would never let a freak go.

Worse, fucking worse, maybe they had always had him, each fragmented memory of a life with Jake nothing but a hallucination brought on by head damage and blood loss. Maybe Jake had never come for him after all, because no freak would be worth it.

A sob wrenched through him, even as Tobias yanked and yanked and yanked on the restraints. Hell was being tied to a bed (though his legs weren’t spread, his skin was not yet aflame), not sure when the real pain would begin. Maybe this was Special Research already, only a prelude to the hell where all monsters went. Maybe it was just the infirmary. Maybe he was still a salvageable freak.

Tobias knew he was making sharp, desperate noises, sounds that would only excite the guards and make the Director’s mouth tighten, but he couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t hold down the panic, not here, not here not here again, please fuck I would rather die .

The world had gone white in panic. He didn’t know where they were, he couldn’t track motion, he couldn’t control himself, and when they touched him, grabbing his shoulder and arm, he screamed and kept screaming, unable to stop ( useless, useless, just as useless to be still and silent, it was all the same ), until someone clamped a cloth over his mouth and jabbed a needle into his arm, and the world went black again.

The papers were exactly where Jake remembered, crammed into the glove box. With the plain manila envelope resting in his hands, Jake took five shaky breaths before he yanked out his phone and hit Roger’s number on speed dial. He shoved the other crap back into the glove box with one hand while it rang.

Roger picked up on the third ring. “Harper Salvage.”

“Hey, Roger.”

“Jake.” A heartbeat of a pause, and then, “What’s wrong?”

“Toby’s...” Jake swallowed, forcing back the truth that he didn’t fucking know how Tobias was, not without getting a single update or being able to check on him for the past hour. “We’re in Arizona. At a hospital.”

“Oh hell, what happened? Jake, what are we talking here, head injury? Broken bones?”

Jake inhaled, one hand locked tight on the steering wheel. “A fucking troll threw him twenty feet, Roger. I was so fucking—he’s got some broken bones. Maybe a concussion. There was a lot of blood, but I—the guy in the ambulance said shallow head wounds bleed a lot. I know that, of course I fucking know that.”

“All right.” Roger’s voice was calmer, grounding. “You did good getting him to the hospital.”

Jake hit the steering wheel hard with the palm of his hand. “Fuck, Roger, they got him locked up somewhere. They saw the scarring around his throat, and they won’t let me see him—they’re treating him like he’s fucking radioactive. They—” Jake pulled in another breath, forcing himself to focus. “Look, that’s why I’m calling. They want to talk to an ASC representative before they’ll even treat him, and I need you—please, Roger. Shit, they want to see his goddamn papers.”

“Of course,” Roger said quietly. “’Course I’ll vouch for you, kid. You don’t even got to ask. You got those papers?”

Jake swallowed hard, glancing at the envelope next to him. “Yeah. I gotta—I need to get back inside, the sooner the suit who runs this joint gets these, the sooner she’ll let Tobias get some goddamn medical assistance.”

“Go on. I’ll stick right here by my phone, not going anywhere. And Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“ Keep your head. Do you hear me? Whatever it takes, do not fly off the handle. Watch your language, and remember that reaching for a gun can weird out civilians faster than even freaks can. You can do this, but you gotta do it right.”

Jake huffed out his breath and, with effort, moved his hand away from the pistol under the seat. “Yeah. Thanks, Roger. I got it.”

“Good luck,” Roger said, and Jake hung up.

He picked up the papers, braced himself, and pushed out of the car, into the cold, and back up toward the hospital and its fucking director. The hospital personnel let him go directly to her office. Dr. Cunningham silently took the envelope when he shoved it onto her desk.

While she read, an assistant came in to check Jake’s ID, gave him a skeptical look when he presented the shiny ASC badge, and asked him if he wanted a cup of coffee before leaving with the ID in hand. Jake forced himself not to fidget. He’d already told them he was Jake fucking Hawthorne. Were these really the only people in the damn country who didn’t recognize his goddamn name and think that maybe, yeah, he was a fucking real hunter, thank you very much?

Just let her try to give him shit about Tobias’s papers. Jake could stare down any fucking civvie, and he had Roger and Alex to back him up if needed (and enough fireworks for a jailbreak, if it came to that).

Besides, she couldn’t accuse him of violating any of the biggest red flags. He was too much on the fucking edge to think about what would have happened if Tobias had gotten hurt this bad before last week.

At least now he knew what she was looking at.

He’d read every damn word of those papers himself just a few hours after Tobias had asked to see them, once they’d settled into a motel after dinner. Tobias had stretched out on the bed with a book, and Jake had spread the papers over the small table by the window. He could feel Tobias watching him, but he didn’t make a single comment.

No weapons. No civilian contact. No “disobedience.” No fucking rights. Jake might not have been a fucking lawyer to figure out a damn contract, but he could read between these lines well enough to know exactly what kind of shit he’d signed. He could practically see and don’t let them catch you fucking or torturing it scrawled through the neatly typed paragraphs.

Afterward, the taste in his mouth bitter as blood and bile, he’d folded the damning documents back up and walked out to put them back inside the Eldorado. He’d never been so tempted to burn something in his life. Never so tempted without actually pulling out a lighter.

When he came back in, Tobias was watching him, both hands resting on the book, eyes expectant but not afraid. Jake took a seat beside him.

“So that fucking piece of a dead tree that thinks it can tell us what we can and can’t do, what our lives are supposed to look like, like some fucking—” Jake stopped himself and took a breath. “You need to know why we don’t listen to it?”

Tobias had blinked at him. “No, Jake. I know why.”

“You... know?” Dammit, that shouldn’t have come out like a question, but Jake had been dreading a lot of answers. His stomach was still clenched. Part of him didn’t want to know why.

“Yes.” Tobias’s mouth crooked up in a smile. “You see me as a real person.”

To you, I am a real person.

But now in the hospital CEO’s office, Jake was just grateful he had read the damn thing and had had the presence of mind to take Tobias’s weapons off of him before the paramedics showed up. Shitstorm though this was, no one here could prove that he had offended the almighty ASC.

Finally, Dr. Cunningham folded up the papers without comment, then fixed him with a hard stare. “Mr. Hawthorne, I have to say the circumstances of your arrival here raise a number of questions. Let’s start with why your supernatural was involved in an attack on a family while there have been numerous disappearances and supernatural attacks in recent months?”

Jake stared at her. It was a good thing Roger had given him that talk about guns and cursing or he might have shot his mouth off. Or just fucking shot her. “Tobias and I,” he said at last, in what he thought was a remarkably even tone, “saved the lives of that family. Toby, actually, deserves most of the credit, because he’s the one who threw himself onto the troll and he’s the one who blew a fu—fudge-ton of shrapnel into its chest so the Brady Bunch could get away. Usually, you’d give that kind of balls a medal.”

“Very heroic,” Dr. Cunningham said, though she did not sound convinced. “But I’d still like to know why an ASC-identified supernatural was assisting a hunter in fighting another supernatural?”

Again, Jake counted to ten as he stared at her. When he knew that the first words out of his mouth weren’t going to be related to her parentage or her intelligence, he said, “Toby and I are hunters. I’m the one with the ID, but Tobias’s out there in the field as much as me. He does it ’cause he doesn’t like monsters hurting people any more than you do, than I do. He’s not any more dangerous than you or me.” Less , Jake thought. Less, because Tobias would never hurt someone who wasn’t physically threatening someone else, and he couldn’t say the same about the woman across from him. Or about himself.

Dr. Cunningham sighed. “Well, Dr. Turner will examine him, and we’ll work from her conclusions about the threat he poses to my patients and staff. And she’ll check for abnormalities in his physiology that would make our standard treatments ineffective or damaging. He’s stable now,” she added. “We’re keeping him restrained and sedated, but his vitals are steady.”

Jake stood up. “Can I talk to her?”

Dr. Cunningham’s eyes narrowed, and then she took a breath and visibly relaxed her shoulders. “Dr. Turner? After she’s done her examination.” She paused. “And in an open conference room.”

From behind the observation glass, gripping a clipboard tight to her chest, Dr. Kendra Turner watched the team sedate the supernatural.

She had had just a couple months of medical school under her belt when the Liberty Wolf Massacre rocked the nation in 1984. The science and medical communities had been particularly shaken as one night annihilated much of what they’d known as “fact” and “science” and opened up a lot of possibilities that no one had seriously considered before without getting their license revoked. Twenty years later, even with modern research and the help of centuries-old texts that had shed light on the supernatural phenomenon, the situation was barely improved.

Kendra had decided on the nascent field of supernatural-related medicine shortly after that attack on the president in spite of her family’s and mentors’ concerns. There were enough barriers for a woman of color to succeed in medicine and no real guarantee that the new field would be taken seriously after the furor died down, but to this day, Dr. Turner had rarely regretted that decision.

Seven years later, she had finished her master’s in werewolf bites. She rotated through a few hospitals before landing the job of chief supernatural specialist at Methodist Hospital.

Like most resident sup-specs, her job was uneventful ninety-five percent of the time, and she spent a lot of time in research at the local university. The hospital called her in to examine a variety of bites or flesh wounds, anything that could have been contaminated or caused by something supernatural. Only once in the last seven years out of school had she seen and confirmed a werewolf case. The ASC had arrived within an hour of her call to whisk the werewolf away. They had also confiscated all samples, measurements, records, and bedding he might have touched or bled upon. They had been in and out in less than an hour. She’d been impressed by their efficiency.

This situation was something else entirely.

The boy—it was hard not to think of him as a boy, despite all her training to stick with neutral language like the patient or the individual —had been unconscious when they’d brought him in. From the safety of her hazmat suit, she’d cleaned his head wound (abrasions from a fall and impact with a blunt object rather than teeth or claws; probably a tree, given the dirt and bark she had removed), set the broken bones, and checked for signs of hypothermia or frostbite. Blood samples had been taken and sent to the lab to check for mysterious or supernatural-related contamination.

But a nurse had seen and recognized the scarring across his throat—hard to miss, as it was right next to the broken collarbone. Impossible not to recognize, thanks to ASC messaging (public service announcements or propaganda, depending on whom you asked) fifteen years ago, which had demonstrated some of the safety features built into the processing of supernaturals at the Facility for Research, Elimination, and Containment of Supernaturals. The nurse had probably been in elementary school at the time. You didn’t forget at that age.

The flow of information from the ASC about their methods had dried up after a couple years of aggressive publicity, but the photos of inmates with their heavy leather collars had circulated widely. Everyone knew that supernaturals could look just like ordinary humans, that they could even take on the likeness of any neighbor or family member. But once the ASC caught them, that monster would never roam freely again.

That raised the question of how this one, this boy , was walking around apparently unrestricted in the company of a young man identifying himself as Jake Hawthorne .

She had looked for a likely explanation during her examination. The tattoo on his chest had been the only obvious tie to the supernatural, but it had been far from the only mark on his body.

She was familiar with abuse and its visible and invisible evidence. In her own way, she had specialized in differentiating injuries like these, and her master’s had refined that skill, so on the map of his skin she could pick each of them out: brand, claw, blade, whip, taser.

She had to stop when she found the cigarette burns in the precise shape of a smiley face on his arm. She had to physically stop, put his thin arm gently by his side (restrained to the bed, in spite of the sedation), and step away.

She didn’t know when those marks had been made or how vicious monsters could be to each other in FREACS, but between those marks and his underweight frame—it affected her judgment. More than it should. She had a twelve-year-old son at home who had scars of his own, and it was easy enough to imagine him lying on a similar hospital bed, anonymous and starved and hurt by those who should have protected him.

This boy certainly had been hurt. But it didn’t look like Jake Hawthorne had inflicted the damage.

And hadn’t that been a surprise, to see the legendary son of Sally Dixon-Hawthorne in Methodist Hospital, wild-eyed, dirty, bruised, jumpy as a spooked cat, and with a twitchy finger (she’d seen him flinch for his gun more than once during his meeting with Dr. Cunningham). All of that focus, all of that fear was for , rather thanbecause of , the supernatural boy lying sedated and bound in isolation.

“Dr. Turner?”

She turned. Erik, one of their biggest orderlies, a formidable young man with his own scars, stood in the doorway. “Hawthorne’s here to see you. He’s in the hall. Should I... ?” Erik made a gesture that could either have indicated showing him in or stabbing him.

“You can let him in, thank you.” Dr. Turner took a seat at the conference room table.

Jake ignored her, striding first to the observation window. Jaw clenched, he set his palm to the glass, other hand fisted by his side. Dr. Turner watched him as she would have watched any angry and dangerous individual, with no intention of interrupting.

He was so young. As young or younger that most of the undergrads who roamed her university. Too young, in many ways, to be a full-fledged hunter on his own. He seemed younger with panic and fear draining the ferocity and tough-guy image he’d projected before.

But when he at last turned to her, with a visible effort, that fire had returned. “You gotta let me in to see him.” The plea was desperate, sincere, and not really a request.

Dr. Turner motioned to the chair across from her. “We need to talk first.”

Anger flashed across his face, but he tamped it down, smoothing his expression into something more stoic. Slowly, he walked over to the chair and took a seat.

“I know who you are, and you’ve presumably learned about me, but introductions may be helpful to start again.” Dr. Turner folded her hands over her clipboard. “I’m Dr. Kendra Turner, supernatural specialist for Methodist Hospital and research associate at Arizona State University.”

“Jake Hawthorne.” He bit out the words grudgingly; he clearly didn’t like admitting who he was. He jerked his head toward the window. “That’s Tobias Hawthorne.”

Dr. Turner wanted very much to ask what the relation was, but she held back. Considering who he was, the question would surely be offensive. Instead she asked, “How old is Tobias?”

“Sixteen.” He grimaced a little. “Seventeen in May.”

She blinked in surprise. “How do you know his birthday?”

Jake glared at her. “I looked it up. I asked. They keep records.”

They must be the Agency for Supernatural Control. Dr. Turner had a hundred follow-up questions— How long had he known Tobias? How did they meet? Why take him out of FREACS? —but she kept them behind her teeth. He was already rattled and antagonistic, and a smart woman would stick to the necessary points.

“I’m only trying to get a complete picture of who Tobias is and how he came to be here. The sooner I understand that, the sooner we can treat and release him. Dr. Cunningham has informed me that your papers are legitimate—no one’s challenging your rights here.”

Jake drew in a long breath, rubbing his face and pushing his fingers through his hair. Then he straightened and met her eyes—still strained, but more focused. “What do you need to know?”

Dr. Turner picked up her pen. “When was he released from FREACS?”

“Last summer,” Jake said quietly, and swallowed. “July of 2000.”

Less than a year, then. “His ID number listed in the papers is 89UI6703. That verifies what you’ve told us, as far as him being unidentified. The first two numerals indicate the year he was admitted—1989? Is that correct?”

Jake nodded stiffly.

“But that was—” Dr. Turner glanced toward Tobias’s room again, bewildered. “If he’s sixteen now, he would have been...”

“Five. Yeah.” Turning her head, Dr. Turner caught his expression: hard again with anger, but edged with grief and pain.

She chose her next question carefully. “Do you know why Tobias was admitted to FREACS, Jake?”

His jaw jumped. “No.”

“They didn’t even tell you when they released him to you? That seems like poor planning.”

Jake snorted. “Well, they’re not hiring from Mensa, I can tell you that.”

“I’ll take you at your word that he’s shown no sign of supernatural ability while in your care.” She had worked with hunters before. A phrase like take you at your word or on your honor tended to either piss them off or read as exactly their due. Jake took it with another tight nod. “Has he had any medical treatment before? He’s showing signs of past malnourishment.”

More anger—not directed at her—and something like guilt crossed Jake’s face. He shifted in his chair. “When I first got him out, I wanted... Tobias didn’t want to see a doctor. Like, really didn’t want to, like he might actually stop breathing if I made him.” Jake glanced toward him through the window. “So I patched him up when other hunts went bad. He had the flu once, and I took care of him. Nothing came out of him that doesn’t come out of me when I feel like shit.”

Dr. Turner hesitated. This last question could be pushing it, but she needed to know. “Was the purpose of retrieving him from FREACS to hunt with you?”

Jake leaned forward, making a sound close to a growl, and her fingers clenched on the clipboard on her desk. Maintaining eye contact, she prepared to spring for the panic button on the wall if he lunged.

After a moment, he sat back down, fists clenched on his knees and jaw locked. “Yeah,” he lied through his pretty, even teeth. “That’s why.”

Dr. Turner stared at him, heart still pumping fast. “Yes, you got him out to hunt with you?”

“Yep.” Jake looked like he might rupture something critical as he said it, but he didn’t blink. She didn’t think he was usually a bad liar, but if anyone believed that delivery, she would eat her stethoscope. “I’m a hunter. I hunt. But I wanted Toby, too, because he’s smart and fast and cares about people enough to do stupid shit like throw himself barehanded at a troll to keep it from stomping all over that truck of kids. And I didn’t fucking want him to do that, though I’d’ve done it too. I want to keep him alive, okay? There’s not one fucking thing supernatural about him, and he didn’t belong in that camp, not when the worst fucking thing he’s ever wanted to do is save people.”

Dr. Turner blinked and pretended to mark something on her clipboard. That hadn’t been a standardized question, and fortunately for the young man before her, she was under no obligation to record his answer. “Thank you for your cooperation. I may have more questions for you later as more information—”

“Can I fucking see him now?”

His patience seemed all used up. That was okay; she was rapidly losing her stomach for this line of questioning as well. “Yes. We have protective gear if you—”

Jake had already bolted to the door that led into the isolation room, and he just threw her a dirty look when she mentioned the PPE. She hadn’t expected him to want it but felt professionally obliged to offer. His expression grew darker still when the door wouldn’t budge.

It felt dangerous to walk up beside him, to leave vulnerable wrists and body exposed within striking distance while she keyed open the door. But he didn’t hang around to take out the anger and impatience boiling under his skin. As soon as the lock clicked open, Jake Hawthorne was through the door and to the bedside of his charge.

Toby had looked unconscious through the window, lying goddamn still with his head turned away.

But as Jake rounded the bed, he saw Toby’s eyes were partially open, staring at nothing.

Jake had seen Toby’s face that blank once before: years ago, in that goddamn camp, when Toby had sat down before him in the interrogation room. Though even then, he’d been able to stare at his hands. Now...

“Toby, Toby, hey. Hey, I’m here.” Jake grabbed his hand, then recoiled at the cuff strapping Toby’s wrist to the side rail. “Fuck—what the fuck did they—” He stopped himself, trying to rein in climbing panic and fury. He wasn’t going to lose it, especially now. He struggled to undo the strap but couldn’t release it.

Motherfucking sonofabitch . . .

He had to focus. Focus on what was important, which was comforting Toby. Even though he didn’t fucking know how. This, all of this, was exactly what Jake had sworn would never happen—and now, with every pretense of safety collapsed around them, Jake couldn’t get the fucking straps off Toby’s wrists.

At least he was in the same room now, and they were alone, even if Dr. Turner was sure as hell watching them from behind that goddamn glass. Jake pulled up a chair and sat as close as he could. Toby hadn’t moved his head at all since Jake had arrived. “Toby, I’m—I fucked up, and I can’t even start making that up to you, but look—we’re going to get out of here ASAP and drive real fucking far away, I promise you that, and whatever else you want or need, we’ll get it. I mean it.” Swallowing wasn’t usually this painful, not unless he was sick. Fucking hospitals. “Toby, can you hear me? Just, you don’t gotta talk to me, just look or something, please .”

For a long minute, nothing. Then Toby blinked once. That could’ve meant nothing, but Toby’s gaze shifted, away from that god-awful nothing , toward Jake.

Jake’s breath caught, and he squeezed Toby’s hand. Not much, but he’d take it. “Hey, Toby,” he said again, and hoped his voice didn’t sound as strangled to Toby as it did to him. “I’m—I’m here. Not going anywhere until we get you out, as quick as I can, I swear.” Promises cheap and hollow as an empty bottle of beer flung into a barroom corner, but Jake had nothing else to offer.

Toby’s hand didn’t so much as twitch within Jake’s, and the blankness didn’t flicker. For all Jake knew, Toby hadn’t even recognized him. But Toby’s eyes stayed on him, which was something. Everything.

Then Toby spoke—or, more accurately, his lips moved, and Jake bent close to hear.

“They won’t let you.”

Jake jerked away and stared down at Toby’s face. Twelve hours ago, Toby had carried the quiet confidence he’d learned through the last several months. There wasn’t a shred of that now. All there was now was that hopelessness, that bleakest despair, from Freak Camp.

Then Toby swallowed and said, with a terrible quiet anguish, “They took my clothes.”

Oh, fuck . Jake rocked back in his chair, even as his hand on Toby’s tightened. He hadn’t at first realized the significance of Toby in that goddamn paper-thin hospital gown, but now he had to swallow hard to keep from being sick.

Finally, Jake took a shaky breath. “I’ll get them back for you.”

Nothing in Toby’s face changed. Why should it? Jake had done nothing to prevent this, so why should Toby have the smallest confidence that he could now make it right?

The door swung open. Jake jumped. Toby’s hand twitched in Jake’s, and his eyes squeezed shut.

The nurse stood stiffly in her heavy protective gear, face guarded behind the clear plastic visor. “I need to check his vitals.”

It wasn’t exactly asking permission, but she didn’t move any closer. Jake looked at Toby, but his eyes were closed, head rigidly turned away. Jake nodded stiffly to her, and she approached, laid two fingers of her gloved hand on the inside of Toby’s wrist, and lifted her other arm to see her watch. Toby kept his eyes squeezed shut; Jake wasn’t even sure if he was breathing, which probably wouldn’t be good for her measurements.

Then the door opened again, and Turner, also wearing protective equipment, looked into the room. “Is Tobias awake? The director wants to speak with him.”

All at once, Toby came alive. His whole body jerked, his grip crushing Jake’s fingers. “No,” he gasped, turning to Jake with wild eyes, snapping his wrists against the restraints. “No, he can’t—he won’t—Jake, run! Run, you have to run you have to go you have to— RUN! ”

“Toby, it’s not—” Jake reached for him, trying to calm him down, but he almost got punched. Toby grabbed his arm as well as he could with the restraints and pulled him down, only to shove him away. He was almost sobbing, pulling so hard against the bonds that his back arched and the thick restraints dug into the skin around his wrists.

“He’s—stop, Toby, stop .” Jake looked up, about to ask the nurse to let him go, to help him, but she had backed up to the wall, staring at Toby in horror, one hand clutching a cross at her throat.

“Run,” Toby gasped, voice already a rasp, a restrained scream, eyes blown wide. “Go, window, door, run, I’ll—please, Jake, don’t stay, don’t watch, don’t let him, d-don’t.” He pulled at the straps one more time, muscles bunching beneath the thin gown. “ Run. ”

Jake stared at Toby, mouth dry, his own heart pounding double time. He had never seen Toby this panicked. In the early months, Toby had often been afraid or distraught to the point of tears over some hurdle—but this was different. This fear wasn’t abstract or unknown; it had certainty . Whatever Toby was afraid of now, he had faced before.

Toby, who didn’t flinch before snarling yetis or giant spiders or goddamn trolls , was terrified. That scared Jake more than anything had since his first surprise solo hunt at age eleven.

But he couldn’t quite figure how the thing driving Toby wild, half-crazed with fear now, begging Jake to save himself, was... Judith Cunningham? Had he missed something?

Turner moved swiftly to Toby’s side, one hand running a scanner over his body, the other taking hold of his arm (light, not rough, still not what Toby needed) as she spoke in a calm, firm voice. “Tobias, calm down, you’re just aggravating your injuries. We’re here to help. What’s wrong? Is something hurting you?”

“He doesn’t need you touching him,” Jake snapped, leaning across the bed to shove her hand off. “I’ll calm him down—”

The door burst open, and Cunningham strode through, eyes narrowed, two armed security personnel escorting her. “I thought you said he was borderline catatonic.”

“He was calm,” Turner said tersely. “I just told them you were coming.”

Toby went quiet between one scream and the next, staring at the short, stocky woman in her hazmat suit. “D-Director?” His eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed down on the gurney.

Cunningham stared at Toby’s prone body with thinned lips. Then she shook her head sharply and turned for the door. “I need to speak to both of you.”

Turner caught Jake’s eye and nodded for him to follow. He gritted his teeth, but Toby was completely out. He still didn’t want to leave—what if Toby woke while he was gone, still terrified and fighting and so fucking helpless?—but it didn’t look like he had much of a choice.

Cunningham led them back toward her office, but a nurse stopped her halfway down the hall. She glanced at Jake and Turner, then back to Cunningham. “Doctor, there’s a patient at the nurse’s station who wants to talk to the hunters who came in with him. He shouldn’t even be out of bed yet, but he insisted on getting a wheelchair and his wife brought him over. They’re very determined.”

Cunningham shot a glare back at Jake, then nodded to the nurse. “All right, then, let’s see what he wants.”

They found the man white-faced in a wheelchair, one arm in a sling, bandages forming a patchwork over his face and neck. A tall woman with red-rimmed eyes stood behind the chair.

Jake wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup, but the man’s eyes widened, and he raised his hand as soon as he saw Jake. “Him. That’s the hunter who saved me and my kids. He and the skinny boy.”

Jake winced. Even though the cat had long since shredded the bag at Methodist Hospital, it never felt good to be outed as a hunter in public. On a research mission, that could clam up the contacts. Surrounded by monsters, that could get you killed. With the nurses behind the counter stopping to watch and Cunningham looking like she wanted to lock him in a room like they had with Toby, this felt more like the second scenario.

Forcing a smile, Jake gave a little modest wave. “Nah, we were just in the right place at the right time, anyone would’ve done it,” he said loudly, then ducked into the nearest empty exam room, hoping they would follow him. He appreciated a good word as much as the next guy (okay, maybe less because of the whole incognito thing), but he really didn’t want to do this in public.

The couple was Jane and Matt Hoffman. Matt was a sallow, middle-aged man with gangly limbs and thinning hair. By the look of him and his rapidly-blinking eyes, he was a desk worker whose biggest outdoor experience was the semi-annual fishing trip with the boys. Jake introduced himself as “Jake, just Jake, no last name. Makes it harder for the monsters to find you.”

“Yes, of course,” Matt rasped. “I’m sorry, I’ve heard that hunters like to stay undercover, but I had to see you, I had to thank you in person, I couldn’t—”

“It’s... I’m just doing my job. Glad it didn’t turn out worse.” Though he personally felt it couldn’t get much worse than this (but Toby was going to live; he was going to be okay, they’d get past this). For Toby’s sake, and the sake of everything he’d risked, Jake supposed he should be glad that it hadn’t been a worse shitstorm.

“But it is everything—you saved not just my life, but my two sons, and my nephews—the whole clan.” He offered a feeble smile. “But where’s—the other boy, your partner, who struck that... that thing first?”

“Toby’s getting patched up,” Jake said curtly. “Got kinda beat up, but he’ll pull through.” He didn’t look at either of the doctors, but he silently dared them to say anything about Toby’s past. Just let them try .

Matt shook his head in disbelief. “It all happened so quickly. I can’t remember much, but I can still see the way he leaped onto the truck to stick that knife in the creature’s eye...” He shuddered. “I’ve heard about heroism like that, but I’d never actually seen it before today. I wanted to shake his hand and say thank you.”

Jake swallowed hard, but he managed to say, “That’s Toby.”

“You can’t see him at the moment,” Cunningham said. She glanced at Jake and then met the patient’s eyes. “His condition won’t allow visitors who aren’t family.”

Jake nodded stiffly toward her, then addressed Matt. “I’ll tell him for you.”

Alice Dixon (twenty-seven, brunette, better with a firearm than with makeup) was playing solitaire at her desk. She used an old-fashioned deck of cards. She liked computers, but there was something comforting and pleasantly untraceable about the weight of the cards sliding through her fingers.

Then the alarm at her elbow sounded.

Swearing under her breath, Alice dropped her handful of cards and checked the message. Someone had flashed their ASC badge in a hospital outside Phoenix, Arizona. She almost shut off the alarm and finished her game (they had to follow up on all notices, and she would because the work the family did was important, but not always urgent). But then, dutifully, she keyed in a query for the badge.

Holy shit. Jake fucking Hawthorne?

The Hawthornes (Leon, Jake, plus Sally Dixon) were practically mythical in hunter circles, and especially for the Dixons: the woman whose death had marked the dawn of a new age of supernatural awareness in the world; the civilian who became a hunter because of her; and the child of that union, said to be as fierce as his mama and stubborn as his old man. Hawthornes were like the most elusive ghosts; no matter how good you were, they could stay a couple steps ahead.

Some had suggested that Hawthorne Sr. had made a deal that no self-respecting hunter would in order to stay out of the Dixon radar the way he had for the last twenty years, and that the son had inherited the perks. Alice had to admit that, after seeing a few old photographs of the Hawthorne family vehicle (a 1967 Cadillac Eldorado would not have been her first choice for going under the radar. It wouldn’t have made the top seventy, honestly), she was inclined to believe that either Hawthornes were damn clever sons of bitches or luckier than sin.

In addition to being sneaky and extremely averse to using his ASC badge, Jake Hawthorne was listed as a high priority on Director Jonah Dixon’s list. The list unofficially known as “I want to know everything going on in this person’s life and talk to them at the next opportunity.”

Alice found herself grinning. In addition to admiring the way Jonah Dixon had created streamlined, bureaucratic efficiency out of an unruly band of hunters who more often than not refused to talk to each other, she had always appreciated the times her cousin Jonah helped her out, whether with some well-placed advice to help her through basic hunter training or hiring her for this job. Most people wanted to make Director Dixon happy, but she honestly liked being able to help.

She didn’t mind getting noticed by the higher ranks of the ASC either. Her current position of Regional Public Relations Manager was a new one, but it was an important job overseeing responses to complaints about the ASC and dealing with any unpleasant incidents (and ideally preventing them). There had already been rumors of redirecting her work to DC. That was good because frankly, Alice didn’t want to be stuck chasing down local idiots waving fake ASC badges, black market amulets sold with a counterfeit ASC logo, and hysterical reactions to freaks on a case-by-case basis.

A Hawthorne alert was exciting. And worth a field trip.

She swept up the cards, dumped them in her bag (a large purse barely on the good side of stylish and feminine, with room for her semiautomatic, salt bag, lighter, and a few other necessities), typed a quick update to the Director, and then picked up her phone to ask for the first flight to Phoenix.

After Cunningham and Dr. Turner persuaded the Hoffmans to go back to their room, they more unceremoniously kicked Jake out for the remainder of the night.

“Go get some sleep and a solid meal,” Dr. Turner told him. “You can’t do anything more for Tobias right now.”

Jake disagreed, but he knew they weren’t giving him a choice. Exhaustion was hitting him now like a dropped piano, and he suspected that if he tried to stand his ground, getting dragged out by security guards would just look pathetic.

He made Dr. Turner promise not to let anyone into Tobias’s room besides herself and the night nurse, and she agreed. Then Jake went to the Eldorado, made a quick trip through a McDonald’s drive-thru, and returned to the hospital parking lot. He shoved food into his mouth without tasting any of it, and when the greasy hamburger and lukewarm fries were gone, he punched the speed dial for Roger’s.

“Hey there, kid. How’s Tobias?”

Jake rubbed at his forehead. “Not good. Not fucking good.” He summarized, in choppy detail, his conversation with the hospital director and the supernatural specialist, and his too-brief visit with Tobias before his panic attack and Cunningham’s arrival. It was hard to describe that part because he still didn’t understand Tobias’s reaction.

When Jake finished, there was silence, followed by a long exhalation. “Aw, hell.”

“We can’t.” Jake had to swallow before continuing. What he was saying didn’t really make sense, but he had to say it anyway. “We can’t do this again, Roger.”

“What?” Roger asked suspiciously. “A troll hunt?”

“No, this—” Jake knocked the side of his fist against the steering wheel. “Putting him through this at the hospital. They tied him down , Roger. Treating him like he’s—I promised him it wouldn’t happen to him again. Ever.”

Roger sighed again. “You think big, kid. That’s a hell of a promise to make to anyone.”

“I’m serious, Roger. I need to know how we can stop this happening again.”

“Retire?”

Jake groaned, letting his head fall back. “Besides that .”

“There ain’t nothing besides that . You’re hunters.” Roger’s voice was quieter, gruff enough to take the finish off an old chair. “You can take bets on when you two are going to end up injured again, but it’s gonna happen. And sometimes that’s going to land you with the bone saws.”

Jake knew Roger was right. He’d known there wasn’t any way around it, but he’d had to ask. “Can we... can we swing past your place? As soon as Tobias’s cleared for checkout, we’re going, I don’t think that he’s okay here”—and Jake knew he sure as fuck wasn’t either—”but I don’t think that we can make it all the way back to Boulder.”

“Hell, for a reason like that, you could stop at Alex’s. She’s got that nice garage apartment you stayed in last time, right? I’ll give her a call to see if it’s available. You get some shut-eye.”

“Thanks, Roger.” Jake snapped the phone shut and hunkered down on the bench seat, staring up at the headliner of the Eldorado in the parking lot’s lights. Close by, he could hear the growing siren of an ambulance, bringing another sorry soul in.

Early the next morning, Jake met Dr. Turner outside the isolation ward. She looked tired too, though unlike Jake, she’d changed more than her shirt. She gestured Jake toward her office.

He didn’t move. “I want to see Tobias.”

“He’s sleeping.” She gestured more emphatically.

Jake gritted his teeth, but he followed.

Dr. Turner sat down, picked up her coffee mug, drained it, then frowned at the bottom. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No.” Not now, anyway. Coffee would come later.

She set the mug down. “Tobias’s collarbone break is almost directly in the middle, and the ends are aligned—which is lucky, as otherwise it would require surgery. He’s going to need a sling for six to eight weeks. Ice packs applied for twenty-minute intervals may help with the pain and swelling for both the collarbone and his three fractured ribs. Over-the-counter pain meds, such as Tylenol or Advil, are essential for managing the pain, especially for his ribs. He needs to be able to breathe normally and cough lightly, as that will prevent lung infections. Do you understand?”

Jake blinked at her. Maybe he should have taken the offer for coffee after all. “Uh, maybe.”

She held up a packet of papers. “Here are some handouts. They’ll tell you what to expect. It’s highly important that he see a bone specialist over the course of his recovery to ensure nothing’s out of place. Physical therapy would also be beneficial. If you can find those resources outside of a hospital, I strongly advise you to make use of them, for his sake.”

He really should have taken the coffee. “Are you—kicking us out?”

Dr. Turner sat back. “I’m recommending him for early discharge. It’s highly unorthodox, but this is an unorthodox situation, and I believe it’s for the best. For everyone.” As Jake stared, her expression softened. “Particularly for Tobias. Staying in this hospital is only going to worsen his condition, and that defeats the purpose. If you can provide him with the care he needs over the next couple of months, including other doctors to monitor the healing process, that would be the best option.”

Jake realized he was gaping. He shut his mouth and tried to get his brain back online, to find a little focus so he could be sure he was reading this right. “I, uh—that would be awesome. But what... what’s the catch?”

Dr. Turner blinked at him. “Catch? I’m not sure what you mean. This is a recommendation for early checkout. You don’t have to come back here for any follow-ups.”

“Yeah, but...” Jake groped for the right question. “Does Cunningham know?”

“She isn’t involved in discharge decisions,” Dr. Turner said coolly, “but I’m sure she’ll be relieved to learn she no longer has an unidentified supernatural in her hospital. Is there a problem?”

“No, no no no, we’ll be out of here before your next refill. Just, uh.” He hesitated, the next words awkward in his mouth. “Thanks. For thinking of Toby.”

Dr. Turner nodded curtly and pushed the papers across to him. “Review these and let me know if you have any questions. If you tell me where you’re headed, I could see if I have colleagues in the area who would understand the situation. Oh, also—the lab is rushing his blood work, but the results won’t be done until later today at the earliest. Here’s my card. You can call me later this week for the results.”

Jake folded the papers around the card and stood up. “I appreciate it, doc.”

A little under an hour later, without so much as a glimpse of Dr. Cunningham, Jake was helping Toby out the door of the hospital. He knew it wasn’t possible for Toby to have lost a ton of weight in under twenty-four hours, but he felt as thin and fragile as he did in those brutal first weeks in Boulder. Or maybe it was Toby’s hunched posture, how he wouldn’t look at anyone, hadn’t spoken more than a couple of syllables as Jake got him out of the restraints and helped him change into real goddamn clothes, how he’d let himself be adjusted like a doll as the nurse—still in her stupid protective gear—gingerly fixed the sling for his right arm.

Toby was white as a sheet and breathing shallowly by the time Jake got him into the Eldorado’s shotgun seat, clutching an ice pack to his side despite the cold outside. Jake had pulled out all their spare coats and blankets to bundle around Toby, but he still cast him a worried glance as he started the engine. No way they’d make hundreds of miles today, as much as he wanted to put distance between them and the hospital. He’d have to take Roger’s advice, see if Alex could harbor them, because Toby needed somewhere safe for the next few weeks at least, and he needed it now.

Alice arrived in Sedona late in the morning. She’d booked the red-eye the night before, but a weather delay had kept that one on the ground, and flashing her ASC badge wouldn’t have done a damn thing to speed up the process. Besides, as Director Jonah always said, showing the badge was often just showing their hand, and it sent civilians into a panic besides. Though a couple times through the interminable lines, she had really wanted to.

At least the rental car in Phoenix was ready to go, and by keeping precisely to the speed limit, she walked into Methodist Hospital less than two hours later.

She did display the badge at the front desk, this being official business. “I’m Alice Dixon with the Agency for Supernatural Control. I got a report that you had a supernatural incident that brought in a freak. I’m going to need to see that freak and also Hunter Jake Hawthorne.”

The receptionist gave her a wide-eyed look. “Oh—let me—I’ll call Dr. Turner right away.” She picked up the phone, and Alice resisted the temptation to tap her foot. Arrogance was important for the Dixon image, but it could backfire. If she wanted to succeed in public relations, it would be good not to alienate too many staffs.

A second later, a formidable-looking woman strode through the doors. “You’re the ASC representative?” she asked, offering her hand. “I’m Dr. Kendra Turner, sup-spec for Methodist Hospital.”

“Alice Dixon, Regional Public Relations Manager,” she answered. “I need to see Hunter Hawthorne and the freak he brought in immediately.”

The woman’s mouth tightened. “You’re going to have to speak to Dr. Cunningham.” Nodding for Alice to accompany her, she turned back for the doors. Irritated, Alice followed.

Cunningham was the typical curt executive in her fifties with no patience for distractions from the usual business of her day. She also seemed to know without explanation why Alice was there. “I can’t help you,” she said unapologetically. “Hawthorne and his supernatural left without clearing the front desk three hours ago.”

Alice blinked. “Excuse me?”

“They weren’t officially discharged,” Dr. Turner explained. “They left anyway. Preliminary examination showed that the supernatural wasn’t a threat. Actually, it seems like he was instrumental in saving the lives of—”

“If Hawthorne’s gone, I need to know everything,” Alice said, cutting her off. “All your reports, all your notes, any surveillance footage you have. I need access to all your records and a list of personnel who interacted with them, and all this in a place where I can work.”

Neither Cunningham nor Turner seemed particularly pleased about that, but Cunningham nodded without argument. “Of course we’ll assist the ASC however we can.” The two women exchanged a glance (Cunningham angry, Turner defensive) that implied more than Alice could parse this early into the game.

It took far too long to get everything she wanted. She pored over the records of the hospital visit, interviewed the survivors of the troll hunt, talked to all the staff who’d seen Hawthorne and his behavior around the freak. She had more than one interview with Turner, who was definitely hiding something, but the best that Alice could figure was that for a supernatural specialist, she had something of an unprofessional soft spot for the monster that Hawthorne had brought in.

When she found out all that she could, she called Director Jonah.

“Cousin.” His voice was fond, precise, confident. “What do you have for me?”

Wishing it was more, Alice outlined the hunt and the steps the hospital had taken to contain the supernatural, her inferences about Hawthorne’s behavior (he certainly had a soft spot for his pet monster as well), the general impressions that both had been in good health and had apparently been hunting. She passed along the results from the blood work (frustratingly incomplete due to some incompetence in the lab), their injuries, and how shortly before her arrival they had left.

Alice concluded with her recommendation that a squad be sent out to make sure the troll was actually dead (they could get up after a lot of damage, and even if they didn’t, that corpse would be valuable for study; the existence of trolls had been debated for years) and that there was nothing more to learn where she was.

Director Jonah listened carefully, hmm ed, asked a couple careful questions, and at the end thanked her.

“Keep an eye on those alerts for Jake Hawthorne,” he said. “Actually, keep an eye on both Hawthornes.”

“Should I flag anything in particular, sir?”

“No, nothing in particular. You’ve done well,” Jonah said. “Hopefully you will be faster next time. Thank you for your thoroughness on this visit.” He hung up before she could respond.

Alice replaced the receiver and sat back in her appropriated hospital office, staring out at the wintry parking lot. Next time, she would be faster.