Chapter Text
Most people were all too happy to believe their (Marco’s) version of the story. No one really wanted to delve too deep into the plot holes, the fallacies, the illogical stories. They wanted to believe the falsehoods, the accidents, the coincidences. They were too busy with their own losses to pry.
Marco was a good liar. But there were always exceptions to the rule.
“Who was it, Jake?” Aunt Ellen said softly. Her voice cracked on every word.
Jake remained silent, staring at the bloodless faces. They’d worn those same expressions at Saddler’s funeral.
“You—” Uncle George was getting agitated. Angry. The wooden table creaked underneath his clenched hands. He took a deep, shaking breath. “Damn you, Jake. You owe us this.”
Jake’s eyes flicked between his family members, weighing the costs. And it was aching and sick, how familiar this all was. One life against another. One falsehood against another. Half-truths vs. outright lies, the pros and cons of each, judging the consequences like he did so many times before.
He couldn’t tell them about David. No one could know about David. Not after all Marco’s efforts, not after everything. David’s family had already grieved.
They would take his word for it, whatever—whoever he said.
There was only one person who wasn’t around to call him out.
“It was Tobias.” Jake didn’t recognize his own voice. One more lie atop the rest. One more life.
Brooke blinked. “The bird boy?”
“Saddler was…he wasn’t going to make it. Tobias lost everything to this war, from the family he never knew to his own humanity.”
Jake thought of David. He still remembered, in his dreams, David’s long, wailing screams. And, just as clearly, he remembered that lone flash of vulnerability in David’s eyes when Cassie laid him bare in front of the others in the school cafeteria.
Jake thought of Tobias, out in the woods, out who-knew-where now. Loren on one side, amnesic and lost; Elfangor on the other, a dead alien legend. Billions of light-years between his homes and none of them truly his.
He had to complete the lie. But he wasn’t thinking of Saddler. He was thinking of a blond boy with tender, dreamy eyes. Thinking of a bird with fierce, golden eyes. One of six who’d found his purpose, his family, his calling in the war and never got back out. Tobias, who was a hawk, a human, and an alien all in one, who was glad enough to have people to call his own, species be damned.
“You wanted a son. Tobias wanted a family.”
A stunned silence…then the room exploded.
“How fucking dare—”
“Saddler was my brother!”
“When were you—”
And loudest of all, Justin bellowing, “he’s a freak! Ain’t even human!”
Jake closed his eyes. “He is human.” And so was I.