Page 23 of Sins of the Fathers

“That report I found was about Leroy finding a child. There’s not much to it, but there are a few words from Leroy. He said that he’d contacted people to find the child a home and that he and his wife were willing to adopt. He said that the child would be placed with them.”

“I feel like he skipped several things there,” Jasper said, pointing out the obvious. He sounded casual, but Archie knew that this was anything but casual to him. He knew they were talking about him. No other child involved in this mess.

“He definitely did. I don’t know exactly how the system works, but I doubt someone would’ve given him and your mother a child just because they asked for it. There has to be more.”

Jasper tapped his fingertips on the table. “But we don’t know what that more is.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever find out unless someone talks.”

“And the only person who has all the info we want is Leroy. Unfortunately, he won’t talk to me.”

“I’m not surprised. It’s clear that he was involved in what happened at the sanctuary and with your parents. He clearly doesn’t want you to know.”

“I don’t know why,” Jasper said with a snort. “Does he think I’m going to hate him if I do? Because I already do. I hate him because of the way he treated me when I was growing up. It has nothing to do with the sanctuary and my biological parents, although if he did have something to do with their deaths, I’m not going to be happy. I’m not going to hate him more, though. I don’t think I can hate him more.”

Maybe Jasper was convinced of what he was saying, but Archie had his doubts. Jasper still considered Leroy his father, even though Leroy had hurt him. Part of him probably always would. After all, Leroy might not be Jasper’s biological father, but he had raised him since he was a child. He was the only father figure Jasper had ever had. That wasn’t going to change, no matter what happened with him.

Jasper shook his head. “You know, I have something to tell you, too. It’s even more messed up.”

Archie’s stomach dropped. He wasn’t hungry anymore. He hadn’t been since they’d started talking. “What?”

“Kester visited me at work today. Luckily, I was alone, because it would’ve been a bloodbath otherwise. I’m still not sure what he wanted. He asked me if he could go to the sanctuary, and I told him to fuck off.”

“What’s his obsession with the sanctuary?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t think he’s going to tell us. I’m not even sure he actually wants something from there. Part of me thinks that he’s doing this to taunt us. He knows there’s no need for him to ask permission to go to the plot of land where the sanctuary was.”

“What he wants is for us to know that he wants to go there.”

“Yeah. I don’t know why, and I doubt he’s going to tell us even if we ask. He’s even worse than my father.”

“He didn’t hurt you?” Because if he had, Archie would hunt him down. He didn’t care how much stronger Kester was. He was going to defend his boyfriend, no matter what it cost him.

“He didn’t touch me. He taunted me, insinuated that he knew what happened to my birth parents and why I’d ended up with Leroy, but nothing concrete. He tried to bargain with me, but whatever he’s offering, there’s no price I’d be willing to pay for it, not to him. I’d rather never find out what happened that night.”

“I agree that it wouldn’t be worth it. He’s going to try to convince you otherwise, though.”

“I know. I’m incredibly curious, too, but I’m not willing to give him what he wants.”

They didn’t even know what Kester wanted. He seemed to have taken a shine to Jasper, and it was anyone’s guess why or what his final goal was. Was he taunting Jasper just because he could? Because he was having fun with it? Knowing him, there was a good chance that was the case, but they couldn’t know for sure.

Kester wasn’t wrong, though. Whatever Kester knew, they shouldn’t give him what he was asking for. That was a recipe for disaster, and they were already dealing with enough of those.

* * * *

THROUGHOUT THE EVENING, Jasper couldn’t stop thinking about Leroy and the kind of father he’d been over the years. Jasper had always had the impression that Leroy hadn’t wanted him. His mother hadn’t been particularly affectionate, either, but he was pretty sure that she’d loved him, or at least, he had been. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore, except for the fact that Leroy definitely had never loved him like a son. He hadn’t loved him at all.

He’d been an incredibly harsh father ever since Jasper was a child. Jasper had to be the best in school. He couldn’t allow other children to be better than him because that wasn’t the kind of people their family was. He had to be the best at training once he’d started, too. Leroy wouldn’t have it any other way, and he’d trained Jasper himself for hours at a time, pushing him until Jasper felt like he was about to faint and until he threw up. Jasper’s mother had been there, taking care of him after those training sessions, quiet but with steady hands. She’d never told Leroy to stop. She’d never even tried. Jasper had always thought it was because she approved, and he was even more convinced of that now. They might have wanted a child, maybe even desperately enough to adopt a monster child, but once they’d had him, they hadn’t known what to do with him. They hadn’t known how to be parents, especially to a child who wasn’t fully human. They’d put up a good front for the hunters, but Jasper had always known that their family wasn’t normal.

He turned his head to the side to watch Archie. He was sleeping peacefully, his mouth slightly open, his hair spilling around his head on the pillow. Jasper wished he could fall asleep, even if it wasn’t that peacefully. He’d rather take nightmares and bad dreams than be there staring at the ceiling like he had been for two hours.

He checked the time. It wasn’t that late, just after midnight, but he knew that staying in bed wouldn’t help. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure that anything would help. He couldn’t shut his brain down. He kept thinking about what happened at the sanctuary and how his father had known to find him there.

Or had it been by chance? Maybe that night, Leroy had found Jasper and had decided to take the opportunity to get an instant family. Maybe he hadn’t even known that Jasper was there.

That didn’t sound right. Leroy was a powerful hunter. He’d been in charge of several teams even back then. Before they moved in, they would’ve known exactly how many people were in the building and possibly where they were located. They would’ve had a plan to deal with all of them.

That was why it didn’t make sense that the operation had gone so badly that everyone involved had died and the building had been razed to the ground. That wasn’t how hunters behaved, no matter how big an operation was. If Jasper thought about it, this felt like rage, but how had none of the hunters stepped in to stop what was going on?