Page 29 of Fire
Thembeing the ASC, Roger guessed. He stopped to work through a whole mess of feelings before venturing to respond. “It’s gotta be disorienting, in your shoes.”
“Can I...” Tobias closed his eyes and swallowed. “Can I admit—I don’t want to say this to Jake—it’s, it’s almost like being betrayed. I know how fucked up that is.”
“Nah,” Roger said quietly. “Well, it is, but it ain’t your fault you feel that way.”
“The ASC was supposed to beright,” Tobias repeated. His tone was bleak. “Because if they aren’t?—”
“They ain’t,” Roger said.
A spasm of something crossed Tobias’s face. “Then I guess it’s something I have to be angry about.” He finally met Roger’s eyes with a rueful start of a smile. “I’m not used to feeling angry.”
“Well. You have time to practice. Don’t need to Hulk out on us all at once.”
Tobias released something like a laugh that ended in a less harsh cough, and Roger’s own shoulders eased.
“But seriously,” Tobias said after a minute, pushing his knuckles against his temples. “How—how do you deal with it? Knowing they could have been... that theywere... wrong about so much? About—who knows how many other... maybe-freaks in there? Or freaks who didn’t do anything wrong?”
Roger had been unprepared for that gut punch of a question. Tobias might as well have asked how Roger had been able to sleep at night for the last decade, ever since a certain rougarou hunt.
“Hell, kid,” he said at last. “You don’t pull punches with questions like that.”
Tobias offered a smile that was only half apologetic.
“And I get the irony, hypocrisy, whatever you call it, if I tell you that Jack in a bottle helps. But of course it doesn’t, it just helps dull the truth and facts that you want to forget. Not even a good temporary solution, considering how you feel the next day.” Roger paused, looking for some kind of honest answer that was the very beginning of what he owed Tobias.
At last he said, “I’ve got shit behind me that I don’t know can be forgiven.” That included a scene involving the kid before him now, years ago. “But that has to do with me knowingly making a bargain with the devil that is the ASC. That ain’t on you.”
Tobias’s brow furrowed. “But Jake’s and my hunts... just because we never turned anyone over to them?—”
“I know how Jake Hawthorne picks his hunts,” Roger said firmly. “I know how you two hunt together. You’ve never hunted anyone because of who they were. Only ’cause of what they were up to.”
Tobias’s hazel eyes looked like they were a million miles away, considering the truth of Roger’s words. Finally he shook his head, expelling a breath. “I’m not innocent either, no matter what you think. No one gets through Freak Camp innocent, trust me.”
“Jesus.” Roger looked at the ceiling, searching for self-control and wisdom. “Kid—Tobias.”
“I’m not saying I had a choice in everything,” Tobias interjected quickly, which did not help Roger’s urge to bash his own face onto the table. “Look, I’m just telling you—” He grimaced, looking down and then back up, an intent light in his eyes. “This is hard. I haven’t told Jake this.”
Roger opened his hands on the table, gesturing for him to continue. He was listening.
Half a minute later, Tobias continued in a low voice. “There were other kids. Like me. Some were actually supernatural, but I don’t think... I don’t think it made a difference. In whether they should’ve been there. And look—Jake fought for me, to get me out, for years. And I’ve never... I don’t even talk about them. I never have. I don’t say their names, even the ones who are maybe still alive. I’venever saidthey deserve as much as me. Or that maybe we should fight for them.” He swallowed and looked away, his face stricken.
Roger exhaled slowly.Balls. “You’re right that no one who steps foot in that place can come out feeling innocent ever again. But I ain’t buying that that’s on you. It took Jake Hawthorne being Jake Hawthorne, pulling all the strings he could, to get you out. You ain’t crazy for thinking there’s nothing you could’ve done for the others. That’s too much for any one person’s shoulders—let alone yours.”
After a moment, Tobias nodded. “It makes sense when you say it.”
“But it’s another thing to feel it, right?”
Tobias managed a crooked smile.
Roger pushed his chair back, grabbing his empty plate and mug. “There’s a thing called survivor’s guilt, you know. Might help to read about it with that big brain of yours.”
“If you say so. And hey, let me get those.”
Tobias finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes, insisting he felt better, and he looked it enough that Roger relented and gave him a stack of texts to peruse for any references to rougarous.
Less than an hour in, they heard a car turn down the driveway.
Roger and Tobias froze, looking at each other, then moved in unison toward the window. Roger pushed aside the curtain to peer out, while Tobias sidled toward the wall, out of direct view.
