“You’re not wrong,” Kester drawled as he got to his feet.
Jasper took a step back and reached for the door.He hoped he’d be fast enough to run when Kester attacked.
Kester waved at Jasper’s hand.“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Why are you here, then?”Because it was the only reason Jasper could think of for Kester being here talking to him instead of out there looking for Cullen.
Kester grinned again, exposing his fangs.“I just wanted to see how you were doing now that the past is catching up to you.”
Jasper glared.He wanted to demand an explanation, but he already knew that Kester wouldn’t give him one.He was enjoying himself.He might not be torturing Jasper physically, but mentally?He knew exactly what he was doing, which was probably why he was doing it in the first place.
“You know, back then, I was curious about what Leroy would do when he got you.I expected him to kill you, even though you were a baby.Imagine my surprise when years later, I realized he raised you as a hunter.”
Kester clearly knew something about Jasper’s past.Jasper was desperate to ask, even though he knew Kester wouldn’t tell him anything unless it benefited him.At the same time, he didn’t want to give Kester the satisfaction of begging for information.He didn’t know if he’d ever find anything about his family and what had happened after he was born, but asking Kester felt like one step too far.The only thing Jasper should want to do to the monster was kill him, something he knew he wouldn’t be able to do.
“Why are you here?”Jasper asked.
“I just wanted to say hello and to warn you that I was back in town.”
It was good that Cullen didn’t seem to be in the apartment.He’d been staying with Jasper, Corey, and Kerry, but Jasper wasn’t used to it yet.He had no idea where Cullen was or if he’d been here when Kester had arrived.Had Kester hurt him?Jasper wasn’t going to ask because he knew that Kester would either lie or find a way to get information about his son out of him.If Cullen wasn’t here, and if Kester didn’t know this was where he was staying, Jasper wanted to keep things that way.He just hoped no one would come home before Kester left.
He didn’t know if Kester was here to kill him, but something told him that the monster wasn’t done with him yet.He was having too much fun.He also seemed interested in what Jasper’s father had done, which made two of them.
“You could just leave again,” Jasper suggested.
“Now, where would be the fun in that?”Kester drawled as he moved toward the door.
Even though every single one of Jasper’s instincts was screaming at him to open the door and run, he didn’t.Instead, he stepped aside, putting as much space between himself and Kester as he could.Kester didn’t try to catch him or come after him.He just smiled as if he thought that Jasper’s reaction was funny and opened the door.
“I’ll see you around, little hunter.”
“I’m not a hunter,” Jasper snapped.
“I suppose you don’t hunt monsters anymore, but does that mean you’re not a hunter?Once a hunter, always a hunter.”
“Unless you were born a monster.”
Kester grinned.“Interesting conundrum, isn’t it?”
Before Jasper could tell Kester to fuck off, Kester was out the door.Jasper only waited a few seconds before he lunged forward and slammed the door shut.He locked it, even though he wasn’t sure it would help much when it came to Kester.He was pretty sure it wouldn’t take much for the monster to beat the door down, but it would still give Jasper precious seconds to escape.
He pressed his back against the door and waited.He could hear footsteps fading in the hallway, but he didn’t move right away.He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, but eventually, he reached for his phone with trembling fingers.
Archie was going to bepissed.
Chapter Five
––––––––
ARCHIE WAS STARTINGto dread getting texts from Jasper.After what had happened with Cullen, his heart jumped every time he saw one on his screen.He always expected Jasper to be in some kind of trouble, which wasn’t great because he wanted to hear from his boyfriend.He just wished it was better for his heart.
He read Jasper’s last text and stared at the screen.He had to have read that wrong, right?
“What happened now?”Braith asked from the driver’s seat.
He sounded grim, but then, that was how both he and Archie felt.They’d wanted to help Finn and the other kids, but it wouldn’t have been possible for them to.The only thing they’d have managed was to be captured or possibly killed, and while Archie had wanted to call Jasper and his friends so they could help, he knew it wasn’t something they could do without a plan.They needed to meet and talk about how they’d do it, which meant not attracting more attention than they already had at the warehouse.They needed the people organizing the fights to continue doing so and not move them, which meant that they had to leave the kids behind.
But not for long.Jasper wanted to be involved, as did his friends.If they were lucky, they’d be back at the warehouse tomorrow to save Finn.
