Page 70 of Fire
“I’d call you a twisted bastard who should’ve never been born,” Jake snapped.
“Am I? I prefer to think that I do what needs to be done. Unlike some, I don’t flinch at what others may deem excessive.”
“You tortured Toby?—”
“I made himuseful.” The Director’s voice was a whip, and Tobias cringed from it. “I made him worth the time of a hunter with your potential, Jake Hawthorne. Hasn’t it been nice to have an obedient boy at your beck and call? One that will throw himself between you and any danger without hesitation? One that cantakethe abuse of the hunter lifestyle and rarely slow down? His pain tolerance was something I paid special attention to,” he added with a note of pride. “He started with a tremendous immunity to pain, but I brought that up to something on par with monsters that can’t be injured by traditional weapons. Smart, educated in what he needed to know to be useful, functional with technology and with a few basic exorcisms under his belt, flawless memory. These are all things I gave him, Jake, so that he could be more than a body in your bed. Though I assume he is also satisfactory there. I wouldn’t know, I let others deal with that part of his education, as long as they left him untouched where it mattered. Though I assume, 89UI6703, that you’ve been obedient in bed as well?”
Tobias didn’t answer, wouldn’t share something so precious with the voice that haunted his nightmares and his flashbacks, but he couldn’t fully hide his flinch. The Director almost smiled again.
“So you see,” the Director said to Jake, “I gave you this freak, perfectly trained, and then you spent all these years undoing my hard work. But some of it still sticks.”
Kneel and crawl,his hands said. Tobias gritted his teeth and did not obey.
“I should shoot you right now,” Jake said, his voice breaking. It sounded like he was already breaking.
Tobias felt those words twist in his chest, like one of the Director’s knives. He couldn’t even raise his gun to stop it.
“Maybe you should.” The Director was easing back in his chair, hands drifting down out of sight. “Would prove once and for all you’re no better than the freak you fuck.”
“Damn right.” Jake took a step forward.
Tobias would have told him not to get closer, not to give the Director another opening, but Jonah Dixon was already speaking as he rose to his feet. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected better from a freakfucker and traitor like?—”
Tobias, attention fixed on the Director’s hands, saw the motion first. “Jake, getdown!”
The Director fired the handgun before the words were fully out of Tobias’s mouth. Jake’s arm shot upward, and then his entire upper body jerked back, a flash of blood splattering behind him as he dropped to the floor.
Tobias knew he was screaming. He could feel the vibration in his throat. But all he knew was the feel of the gun in his hand as he swung it up, the pressure of the trigger as he fired.
The Director got off another shot, but it went wide before Tobias’s bullet ripped into his chest.
Through dozens of Wednesday sessions, Tobias had never seen the Director unsettled, much less surprised. The shock on the man’s face when the bullet hit was the first time Tobias ever believed him to be truly mortal.
The Director toppled into his office chair, sending it crashing into the wall, and fell behind the massive desk.
Tobias took three steps forward and put three more bullets into the man’s chest, then spun back to Jake.
There was so much blood. Tobias dropped to his knees and pulled Jake to his chest, careful of the shattered mess of Jake’s arm and a face covered in blood. When Jake shuddered in his arms and whispered, “Fuck,” Tobias thought he would pass out from relief.He’s not dead. Not yet.
“Jake! You can hear me?”
“I’m fine, Toby. Oh fuck.” Jake’s eyes were wide and unfocused, eyes streaming from pain. Tobias could feel the agony in his shaking body and uneven breaths, but Jake didn’t scream. “My face still look okay?”
Tobias laughed, only so that he didn’t cry. “The blood really brings out the color of your eyes.” The bullet had gone through Jake’s arm and then cut a gory furrow through his scalp, above his temple. Jake’s eyes still weren’t focusing, though whether that was due to shock or a concussion from hitting his head against the floor when he fell, Tobias didn’t know.
The Director didn’t miss, with his bullets or his words. That would have been a headshot if Jake hadn’t flung his arm up in time. Tobias was glad, fiercely, that he himself had shot to kill.
“Let’s get that wrapped up and get out of here.”
* * *
The momentthey walked through the first door into Freak Camp, Tobias had turned on his watch’s timer. They’d agreed in advance that the whole mission should take no more than an hour and a half, and one quick glance now showed him that fifty-seven minutes of that time was gone. He took five more to administer quick first aid on the floor of the Director’s office, wrapping up Jake’s arm and head with the roll of gauze he had stored in his pants pocket. He tried not to think about the sounds of pain Jake fought to keep behind his teeth, or the way at least one bone in his arm was definitely broken, if not shattered. He used another length of gauze to press down on the furrow in his scalp and the gush of blood that came with a head wound. He finished by picking Jake’s gun off the floor and sliding it into Jake’s holster.
“Okay, that should hold.” Tobias pulled Jake up, and Jake screamed through clenched teeth.
Tobias hissed in sympathy. “Fuck, fuck, I’m sorry. You’re gonna be okay. C’mon, let’s go.”
“I want to make sure.” Jake tried to reach for his gun with his good arm and almost unbalanced both of them.
