“Are the kids all asleep?” Duncan asked.
“Yeah,” Carl said.
The old shifter made a shooing motion with his hands. “Then the three of you go outside and talk. I’ll stay here. If they wake up, I’ll take care of them.”
“Thanks, Duncan,” Carl said. They all moved out to the patio and settled at the table there, Carl now holding Mateo’s hand.
“I…I don’t even know where to start, Dad.”
He slowly nodded. “It’s been a journey. Peyton said I could tell some of the story, but you have to keep everything a secret, for now.”
“Wait, what?” Carl said. “Peyton’s alive?”
“Oh, shit.” Jake stood and waved at the house. Duncan emerged from the rear sliders seconds later.
“What’s wrong?”
“I, uh, accidentally spilled the beans about Peyton.”
Duncan motioned for Jake to sit down. “No worries. I’ll fill them in once you’re done and Prime them about what they need to keep quiet.”
“Sorry.”
Duncan shook his head, but he smiled as he returned to the house and closed the sliders behind him.
Mateo and Carl exchanged another stunned look. “How long has Peyton been back?” Carl asked. “No one told us he was found!”
“No one’s supposed to know he’s been found. Let me start at the beginning…”
Mateo sat there in shock as Jake told them about what happened after he left Hawaii, and skimmed his way through his escape and wilderness survival before taking a deep breath. “Long story short, I spent twenty years hiding, eventually ending up with a little spider hole in the middle of a wilderness preserve. That’s where Peyton and I crossed paths a couple of weeks ago…”
Both he and Carl sat there…processing.
Stunned.
“So while yes, I am ‘back,’ Peyton still needs my help and needs me to remain missing, for now. They want me to stay at Dewi’s house since no one else is there. “I will probably have to go back over to Europe soon, when they attack the lab.” He wiped his eyes. “And believe me, I will do my damnedest to come back in one piece and breathing once the worst is over.”
“That’s fucking insane,” Mateo said. “Why do they need you? You’ve suffered enough! How can they ask you to go back?”
“I volunteered, son.” He looked at Carl. “There are some things I cannot tell you yet. I don’t even want to tell you, because I don’t have answers.”
Carl, however, looked like he wanted to set fire to the world. “I think what really needs to happen is I go pay a visit to ‘Uncle Ray’ and?—”
“No,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. Peyton, Dewi, and Badger are planning to get him to Idaho, interrogate him, and then take the appropriate steps.”
“Hopefully that involves running him through a wood chipper while he’s alive, feet-first,” Carl growled.
Jake laid a hand over Carl’s on the table. “If he’s involved. And if he’s involved, yeah, Peyton said we get a crack at him if it’s safe to let us.”
“I just…” Carl drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t want to believe you were dead,” he said, “but I honestly didn’t have hope.”
“Well, there were a few times I wasn’t holding out much hope for me, either,” Jake said. “I wish I’d been there for you guys. But as Peyton, Badger, Duncan, and the others keep reminding me, there’s no way to change the past, and we have to make the best of the time we have going forward.”
“Please tell me you’ll be living with us once all this bullshit is settled?” Carl asked.
“Absofuckinglutely,” Jake said, misting up again. “Just try getting rid of me.”
Carl
