Page 61 of Fire
It all sounded melodramatic as hell, but it was true. He’d known it from the moment he heard the Director’s voice inside his apartment, and the way Jake had looked at him like a stranger when Tobias had pleaded with him to stop watching.
Everything was falling apart, but that was why the tapes had been sent, after all. The Director knew what he was doing, how to break a person or a freak into their component parts with precision and efficiency. Tobias just hoped that this time when the breaking was done there would still be enough of him and Jake left to put something together again.
He just wasn’t sure they would get that lucky twice.
* * *
For the nextcouple of days, Roger felt more like he had a couple of ghosts in his house than the boys. Jake watched the goddamn tapes, usually with an unopened beer in his hand, as though he needed the comfort, but even that much alcohol dulling the horror would be more than he deserved. Roger watched with him sometimes, until the nausea and crawling of his stomach forced him out of the room. Other times he listened from just outside the room. He wasn’t sure if it was better or worse to justhearwhat was being done to Tobias.
He would have felt guilty about not listening, not being a witness to that horror, and then he remembered that the person who really had the most say didn’t want anything to do with it.
Tobias stayed out of the house entirely.
When he had gone through them all, Jake brought the tapes out to the burn barrel in the heart of the junkyard. While Roger watched, warily, Jake salted them before pouring the kerosene over the heap and lighting the match. He stood back and watched the flames until every scrap of tape had been reduced to a fine, hot ash and the plastic bubbled.
“I can grab a garbage can for that,” Roger said when Jake had stared down at the ashes until they were barely smoldering.
“Nah.” Jake kicked the barrel over, scattering the coals over the packed dirt, then seemed to reconsider. “Where do you usually dump your toxic shit?”
Roger nodded toward the back end of the salvage yard. Jake scraped up the ashes and walked heavily in that direction with the air of a man going to bury a body he was sure would be found by the wrong people. Roger turned back toward the house.
Jake was calmer after that (still simmering with low-level fury, but less crazy in the eyes), and he actually managed to eat some real food and keep it down. That night after Tobias had returned from his daily library retreat, the three of them sat on Roger’s porch and drank. At least, Jake and Roger drank—Jake was working his way through his second six-pack of cheap cans, and Roger was on his third bottle (and grateful he had tucked the harder stuff out of sight). Tobias kept a beer in one hand as a show of solidarity, and the other hand on Jake’s knee. Even from across the porch, Roger could see the tension that Jake still carried, moving into Tobias like a slow current.
Drinking on a quiet porch shouldn’t have felt like waiting for a goddamn firestorm. It was almost a relief when Jake slammed his empty can onto the side of his chair, half crushing it in the process. “Goddammit, Roger, don’t you have anything stronger?”
“You don’t need to get wasted right now, kid.” Roger took a sip of beer to wet his lips and push down the dryness in his mouth. “Flying off the handle isn’t going to help anyone.”
“I’m not flying off the handle. I’ve got it fucking handled, thanks.” Jake popped open another beer and drained half of it before he had to come up for air. “What are we doing? We have to fucking dosomething.”
Roger saw Tobias twitch a little, and then his mouth tighten.
“We don’t have to do anything.” Tobias’s voice was barely above a whisper, as though he did not have much hope Jake would listen. “We can’t do anything. You have to let this go, Jake.” It was more words than Roger had heard from him since their conversation over his bruised jaw.
“Let it go!” Jake shouted. He pushed himself to his feet and turned on Tobias, arms wide.“I can’t fucking let it go!”
“Sit down, moron,” Roger snapped, but his words had none of the usual power. The tapes had drained him too. Some part of him wanted to speed to the camp and take a baseball bat to anyone who had hurt Tobias. That would be a supremely stupid decision, but ifhewanted to do it, he couldn’t blame Jake for wanting the same thing, if not more.
Tobias stood up too. Roger could see him pushing past the numbness to find some anger. “Too f-fucking bad,” he said. “That’s the only option.”
“Toby.” Jake’s voice dropped lower, almost pleading. “This isn’t just about you, though it’s that too. It’s... look, we’re hunters, right? Which means we hunt monsters. We kill things that hurt innocents. How can I look away from the worst damn monsters I’ve ever fucking found just because they hurt the person I love and not a fucking stranger? Roger, back me up here.”
Now both boys were looking at him, Jake defiant, Tobias desperately hopeful, like he expected Roger to be the voice of reason. Roger didn’t think that he had it in him.
He chugged the last of his beer. “I get it,” he said, ignoring Tobias’s wounded look. “But what the hell do you think you’re going to do, Jake? Start taking potshots at guards on the weekends? Start slitting throats in ASC? Freak Camp will still be there, and they’ll always find other sadistic bastards to take their place.”
“But notthese,” Jake said. “Not the fucks who hurtToby.”
Tobias reached for Jake, and Jake let Tobias take his hand. He leaned into him like Tobias was the only pillar in his world. And it was probably true. Damn morons.
“Hell, Jake,” Roger said. “Just... hell. I know what you mean, but what can we do about it? It’s not like you can firebomb the place.”
Jake pulled back from Tobias and stared. For a second, Roger thought he was going to get another punch in the face. Then Jake’s face broke into a manic smile. The rage slipped out of him through the curve of his lips, the baring of his teeth, and there was some unholy joy in his expression. He took a step forward.
“Roger,” he said. “That is an excellent idea.”
Roger stared. He slowly put his beer down, because he was pretty damned sure that his hand was shaking. “That wassarcasm, moron.”
The smile remained on Jake’s face. “That doesn’t mean it’s not an excellent idea.”
