Page 42 of Fear
Keeping calm was hard when the real girls talked so much louder and angrier, drowning out every attempt Tobias made to block them out and focus on something else.
“I swear to God, Tina, I saw them myself.”
One of the girls, numerous bangles dangling around her wrist, gestured dismissively—Tobias couldn’t stop himself from glancing up at the sound, instinct telling him that it could be some kind of attack. She sniffed. “Well, excuse me, but next time I see that ugly whore I’m gonna punch her face in!”
“Jeez, Tina,” another girl said, rolling her eyes. “Way to be harsh.”
“Whatever, I don’t care. She is a whore, and just thinking about her plastering those fat lips all over his face makes me sick. I’m gonna vomit, not even kidding. I mean, what the fuck makes her think she deserves . . . anything from a guy like Brad? Oh my God, someone needs to warn him before he gets a disease.”
The coffee shop lost focus, and Tobias couldn’t draw air or fight the sudden dizzy nausea in the pit of his stomach. He dropped his forehead into his hands, squeezed his eyes shut, and struggled to breathe. He couldn’t draw attention to himself, that was the last thing . . . the very last thing . . . and when Jake came back . . .
Tobias couldn’t finish the thought. Everything that had made him happy a second ago—the idea of looking into Jake’s face, the sweet taste of coffee—soured in his mouth, because he had remembered.
There was some dirty freak whore out there that these reals had discovered and despised as much as the Director had despised Tobias. He never should have forgotten.
It didn’t matter that none of the reals recognized him yet. It didn’t even matter that Jake didn’t seem to care that Tobias was nothing but a freak (how could Jake know and care and still hold him, touch him, even sleep next to him?). Jake had always known that Tobias was a monster—unidentified, yes, but that didn’t really make a difference—and had still treated him like a real, like he cared what happened to him. Tobias could almost believe that Jake’s kindness was permissible. Not deserved, but if Jake wanted to be kind to him, it wasn’t completely wrong, completely an abomination.
Jake had always known what Tobias was. But he couldn’t possibly know what Tobias had done.
If he did, he’d be . . . disgusted would be the best of it. Angry. Furious. Violent, and rightly so. Tobias had basically been lying every time he let Jake touch him, every second Tobias had tricked Jake into treating him like he was something clean.
The Director had said more than once that monsters corrupted as easily as they breathed, because it was what they did naturally. That he had to gag Tobias sometimes just to stop him from instinctively trying to deceive, manipulate, and warp the reals around him.
But what shredded Tobias now from the inside, what made him almost want a hunter to walk in and tell Jake everything, was because he knew now, again, what he was.
Not only did he not have the right to touch Jake, but he had to watch himself. If he didn’t have the strength or permission to relieve Jake of the danger of contact with him, he could at least—he had the obligation to—watch himself so that Jake wasn’t contaminated by a freak. So that he wasn’t being manipulated, corrupted, forced into that denigration.
JAKE FELT PRETTY GOOD as he came out of the bathroom—discovering a new thing Tobias liked always made it an awesome day—right up to the second he caught sight of Tobias. Then he sprinted the eight feet from the bathroom to the table, dodging chairs, adrenaline making him wish it were a hundred yards so maybe he could work out more of the panic before he had to try to be sensible for Tobias.
He was right where Jake had left him, his half-full coffee resting about the same place, but he was a different Tobias entirely from the cautiously happy, smiling, slightly nervous one Jake had left no more than five fucking minutes ago. This was the Tobias of last week: hunched in his chair, head in his hands, shoulders tight as he tried to make himself as small as possible.
Even before Jake had properly landed in his chair, he grabbed Tobias’s arm. “Tobias, are you hurt?”
Tobias dropped his hands, jerking back as though Jake’s fingers burned his skin. He would have fallen from the chair if he wasn’t wedged against the wall and if Jake was ready to let go of him that quickly. There could still be blood or an injury somewhere.
Jake swallowed painfully and forced himself to release Tobias’s arm. Sick, too-familiar panic was crawling in him, growing and twisting with every second.
Tobias didn’t move when Jake cautiously shifted away, didn’t make eye contact when Jake said his name. “Tobias. C’mon, man, look at me. Please.” Shit, what had happened? “Please look at me, Tobias. Tell me what happened.”
Tobias didn’t look up. He just shook his head quickly, breathing shaky and uneven. Another panic attack, then, or close enough. Jake felt lost, drowning. Every other time he’d had an idea of what set Tobias off. He had to know, he had to so he could stop it, so he could take out anyone or anything that so much as made Tobias cringe. “Did someone say something to you? Did someone—touch you? Tobias?”
Tobias shook his head again, frantically, and Jake knew he had lost him. There was nowhere good to go from here, and they had to retreat to familiar ground, now, before whatever the hell this was got worse.
Jake stood. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.” He moved back, making room for Tobias to pass between the wall and the cluster of gossiping girls.
Tobias rose stiffly, holding his cup of coffee between both hands, head bowed to his chest. When Jake followed, he laid a hand on Tobias’s back. That same move that had calmed him every single other time Tobias had been upset, but now he shuddered, so hard the coffee spilled over his fingers. He didn’t pull away, but the taut muscles jumped under Jake’s touch.
Jake jerked his hand back.
He couldn’t look at him in the car. Tobias didn’t look out the window, didn’t look at Jake, didn’t drink from the coffee cup cradled in his hands. Once they reached the apartment, Jake took his time putting away his keys and wallet and hanging his jacket before turning back in time to see Tobias carefully set the cup down on the breakfast bar and clamp his arms over his chest. His posture was too much like the night Jake had caught him scratching his arms. It looked too fucking much like Tobias was in pain and Jake could do nothing.
Moving forward, he grabbed Tobias’s hands—more forcefully than usual, but he had to break through this shell. He was determined to reach the Tobias he had had barely half an hour ago, who had met his eyes and wanted to move closer to him. But Tobias’s hands—after Jake unpinned them from Tobias’s chest—were limp in his, unresponsive.
“Tobias. If you don’t talk to me, I can’t—I want to help. If could just understand whatever the fuck—dammit, Tobias, look at me.”
Tobias pulled his head up, but his eyes were blank and fixed on some point beyond Jake, nowhere near his eyes. Then he spoke painfully. “You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t touch me, I should’ve never—”
With a sharp inhale, Jake let go and stepped back.
