Storm Season (14 page)

Are you… did that… should I… do you…?
He raked his hair back from his forehead and sighed, his shoulders slumping as he peered into Jasper’s eyes, looking for the answer to a question Jasper didn’t understand.

“I don’t know.” It was the only honest answer he could give. He was glad Tobias had gotten them out of Durrysville, didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Tobias hadn’t been able to make the burly man leave him alone, but he didn’t like what he’d felt, what he’d seen, what Tobias had showed him. He didn’t like the idea of Tobias making people do things, no matter the justification,
really
didn’t like the idea of his own vulnerability to this particular talent Tobias possessed. He didn’t want to know how much of the drive out was feelings Tobias had projected onto him.

Or maybe he did. “What did you do to me?” he asked, immediately regretting it as his stomach tightened and his heart rate increased, but unable to take the words back.

Um.
Tobias furrowed his brow, sucked his bottom lip further into his mouth.
Are you sure you want me to show you?

“I don’t want you to show me. I’d be happier not knowing about this at all. But now that I do, I need to know how much of what I did back there was from me and how much of it was from you. I don’t drive like that, Tobias! I almost hit people! I know I damaged the truck, damaged things in the town!” He wanted to get up, to pace the cave and rant and scream, but the thought of the worse headache he would end up with if Tobias tried to respond stopped him, and he made himself sit still, made himself keep his hand under Tobias’s.

We needed to go.

“So that makes it okay? We had to get out of Durrysville so as long as we managed that it didn’t matter how we did it?”

They were going to separate us, keep you there or take you back home and force me out into the woods, into the storms! You don’t know what they were thinking, what they wanted to do, what they thought I was! They wanted to drive me out of town and into the storms. I would have had to find my own shelter, find my own way to the next, try to find someone else who would help me, try to get to Shaleton
—
to Samantha—on my own.
Tobias squeezed Jasper’s hand, looked at him with a desperate expression.
I couldn’t—can’t—do that.

“I know what they wanted to do. They told me.” Jasper kept his voice harsh, focused on the churning in his gut and the way he’d plowed through the barrier at the edge of town rather than the pleading brown eyes that could have melted his heart. “It doesn’t mean that making them―making
me
―do things is okay. There had to be another way!”

I didn’t make anyone
do
anything. I can’t. I can only make people feel things, not do them!

“And think things? What about that?”

Tobias’s eyes closed and his shoulders fell forward, making Jasper’s stomach drop.
Sometimes. My thoughts sound too much like me, not them. It’s hard to match patterns and tone and if you don’t get it exactly right, they just hear me in their head like you do now instead of believing that they thought something. Maybe I’d be better if I practiced, but
I haven’t even tried in years.

“But you make people feel things all the time?”

No!
Tobias’s eyes snapped open and he shook his head violently.
I did something like it with thoughts when I escaped the men who had me, but other than that, yesterday in that town was the only time I’ve done it on purpose since I left home. I don’t like to do it, didn’t want to do it, I just couldn’t think of any other way.

“All right.” Jasper nodded, started to smile, but then something about what Tobias had just said hit him hard like a punch to the gut and he grabbed Tobias’s wrist to stop him from pulling away. “You said ‘on purpose’.”

Tobias looked at him blankly.
Yeah… so?

“Does that mean….” He stopped, swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Does that mean you’ve done it accidentally?” The small nod was sufficient answer to make his heart sink and his gut twist. “Is that why I was so anxious to leave Darius’s? Why I was so desperate to be off with you that I would barely listen to my best friend?”

Tobias tore his gaze away, pulled his knees back up to his chest. Jasper could practically feel the nervousness radiating off him.
I don’t know. Some of it, maybe.

Jasper jerked his hand back, unable to handle the contact for one second longer. “When were you going to tell me? After I drove you across half the continent? Or maybe after I’d gotten you and your sister home? Or never? Were you just planning on using me to accomplish your little scheme and then leave me to wonder why I felt the way I did?” He rose, stalking away so he wouldn’t have to look at Tobias, wouldn’t have to hear him.

If I did, it wasn’t intentional!
Tobias lunged forward, catching Jasper’s ankle and holding on tightly.
At home, I have to try to make people feel things. We all resist it some, we all send our emotions if we can so we all know what our friends really think and feel and want. I didn’t know you weren’t resisting, didn’t know it was making you feel anything, didn’t know you were acting on my feelings. I’m sorry.

Jasper looked down, jerked his foot free. “Yeah. I bet you are.”

T
HE
cave was too small. No matter where Jasper moved, he could still see Tobias sitting on the pallet, the blanket draped around his shoulders and his eyes following Jasper as he paced. Even going to the truck didn’t provide relief, and sliding back the cover over the small opening on the door only confirmed that too much of the day had been wasted sleeping and arguing for them to leave before the next morning. They were stuck here for another sixteen or so hours and then there was the drive to the next town, trapped together in the cab of the truck. Jasper was going to be crazy by the time he was able to get any real distance from Tobias.

He spun around so he could pace back to the other end of the cave, but stopped short when he saw Tobias had risen and crossed the distance between them. “What?” he snapped in a tone far harsher than any he was accustomed to using.

Tobias reached out, but Jasper jerked away, unwilling to be touched right then. He backed up a few steps, his eyes never leaving Tobias. It was only so he wouldn’t be surprised again, he told himself, though his eyes were drawn to the exposed collarbone where the blanket was slipping down Tobias’s shoulder. He wasn’t―wouldn’t― think those thoughts, especially not after what he’d been told. He couldn’t trust that the feeling was his, couldn’t trust that any of his feelings were his.

He forced his eyes up to Tobias’s face. “I don’t particularly want to talk to you right now.” He received no response, but with the distance between them, he didn’t want or expect one. “It’s too late in the day to go anywhere. We’ll leave in the morning and I’ll take you to the next town.” As tempting as the idea was, he wouldn’t abandon Tobias out in the wilds. Once he was in civilization, however, there was no need to be concerned any longer. He’d have done far more than most would have given under the circumstances and would have no need to worry about Tobias any longer.

Long seconds passed as they stared at each other, neither moving. Seconds turned into minutes and still Jasper waited, his arms crossed across his chest, his body tense and poised to flee at the first sign of movement toward him. He wasn’t backing down, wasn’t moving, wasn’t going to give in no matter how long Tobias waited.

Tobias reached forward, stopped when Jasper jerked back, and let his hand drop to his side as his shoulders slumped forward and the corners of his mouth drooped. He turned, surprising Jasper by limping back to the pallet and lying down, his face to the wall and the blanket that had been draped over his shoulder pulled up over his ears.

Jasper watched him, alert for any sign of subterfuge, but he just lay there, unmoving, his breathing slowly evening out until it was clear even from a distance that he had fallen asleep and wouldn’t be attempting conversation or influencing anyone for some time. So why, then, was it so hard to resume his angry pacing? Why was it so hard to tear his gaze away from the sleeping figure, to stay mad instead of giving into the desire welling up inside?

J
ASPER
’
S
body had mixed up day and night. The rain was pounding against the door outside, loud enough that Jasper could hear it even deep in the cave where he lay on his pallet, trying hard not to think about how much warmer it would be if he’d left it next to Tobias’s, trying not to remember the way Tobias had pressed close and used his chest as a pillow the night before. He opened his eyes and stared into the dark, telling himself that he was looking toward the entrance, toward the truck, toward anything other than Tobias.

A noise against the other wall caught his attention, and he rummaged for the lantern, flicking the switch with a fast twist of his wrist, creating a small pool of light near his pallet. Tobias was still in shadow, but Jasper could see that he was sitting up, his elbows on his knees and the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. It was a position Jasper recognized, having suffered from far too many headaches over the past few weeks, and he was halfway across the cave, lantern in hand, before he’d consciously decided to move.

Please leave the light over there.

Jasper paused, his own head bursting into pain at the soft intrusion, and set the lantern down. It was too bright for his eyes as well now, but he wasn’t willing to turn it off and plunge the cave into complete darkness. Though it was empty except for the two of them and some sparse supplies, the floor was rough and uneven, and it would be far too easy to trip in the dark.

He sat on the edge of Tobias’s pallet, as far from the other man as he could manage without crouching on the cold stone of the cavern floor, and bent his head so he could see Tobias’s face. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t want to acknowledge the worry he felt, didn’t want to admit that it might be real, but he was unable to leave anyone, even Tobias, in physical pain if there was any chance he could do something to fix it.

Tobias looked up, blinking blearily and keeping his eyes averted from the small pool of light in the center of the cave. He locked eyes with Jasper as he extended one hand and let it hover between them, his palm up and fingers slightly curled. He didn’t need to say anything for Jasper to know that it was up to him to complete the contact.

Slowly, Jasper reached out and took Tobias’s outstretched hand. He tensed as his grip was returned but resisted the sudden urge to step back. Immediately, he felt soothing pressure in his head and neck, the pain fading completely from his head and his tense muscles relaxing, despite his nervousness. The pressure faded as Tobias’s hand relaxed in Jasper’s, leaving the contact completely in Jasper’s control.

“Thank you.”

You’re welcome.
Tobias clenched and unclenched his fist, and his free hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Jasper repeated his earlier question. “What’s wrong?”

Headache.
Tobias looked up around his fingers, his eyes catching Jasper’s.
I did a lot I’ve never done before yesterday, and I’m paying for it now.

“Good.”

Tobias wilted, his hand falling from his nose to his lap, and his gaze following it.
I’m sorry. I know you don’t care, but for whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry. I was panicking, and I didn’t know what else to do.

Jasper regarded him incredulously; unable to believe the words he heard echoing inside his skull. “Is that really what you think I’m upset about?” He shook his head, amazed at Tobias’s naïveté. “That’s not it at all.”

Then what?
Tobias’s brow furrowed, his dark eyebrows forming a deep V-shape.
Why are you upset with me?

The realization hit Jasper hard, sending his head spinning as he tried to process the information. “You really don’t know.”

No. I don’t.

It would have been easy to give in to the lost look, to lose himself in those confused brown eyes, to just give in and go on as though he hadn’t learned what he had the previous evening. He couldn’t, though, couldn’t forget it, couldn’t risk the chance that it would happen again, and so he focused on the things he’d done, the things he’d felt since meeting Tobias, and reminded himself that he didn’t know which of those feelings had been his own, and likely never would. His lips turned down into a frown at the thought.

“I can understand what you did in Durrysville,” he began, speaking slowly and distinctly as though he were talking to an idiot or a small child. “I don’t like it, and I’m sure there was another way for us to leave, but I understand your reaction.”

Tobias sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, a habit that could quickly become endearing if Jasper let it.
Okay….
He sighed, ran his free hand through his hair, brushing the ear-length brown curls back from his forehead.
Then why?