"There's no point in denying it," Huntsgirl says. "I know you're her father. At the very least, you're pretending to be him, and that's useful enough in its own way." She cocks her head at Jonathan. "But I also know you aren't a dragon, so is that it? Have you taken a potion to pretend to be him to lead me astray?"
Jonathan blinks at her.
He has no idea how she knows he isn't a dragon, but he suspects something over their time together gave him away.
She would be trained to notice such things.
"I won't force the truth of that out of you if you tell me where the American Dragon is."
Jonathan smiles with a confidence he doesn't have. "You're injured."
"I was injured back at the shop, too, and you don't hold yourself like someone who's been trained. I can manage." Something in her face and tone softens, and she adds, "Please. I need to speak with her. She's bound to protect all magical creatures, isn't she? She can help my friend."
Jonathan stares. Huntsgirl surely didn't intend it, but that last statement tells him far more than she realizes. Either she truly does believe he's some sort of shapeshifting magical creature or is using a potion to achieve the same effect or she hasn't accepted that her friend and his son are the same person.
Whatever the truth of it, he knows Haley is safe, and he knows that she isn't with her brother—and that the others intend to keep it that way.
"I expect you're right," he says carefully, "but she can only protect those she is in a position to protect." He has no doubt that Lao Shi will keep her well away from all of this for as long as he can, and Jonathan isn't foolish enough to think his father-in-law's power inconsiderable.
Huntsgirl's expression tightens. "And what if that position is protect my friend or risk losing you? Even if you aren't her true father, you have information about her, and I doubt you would have so much of that if you weren't important to her."
He takes a slow breath, in and out, to gather his thoughts before he speaks. "For her own protection, I don't know where she is. I think she would want to help you, regardless of the advice she'd receive on the matter, but I can't take you to her to ask. Leave her out of this until that changes."
"You don't think you have value to the Huntsclan even if that's true?"
"I think you wouldn't be in this position if you were so willing to call the Huntsclan down upon us." Against his better judgement, he picks up the shot glass of Susan's home remedy with his free hand and holds it out to Huntsgirl. His heart so often wins in situations like these. "Drink it. You'll feel better."
She looks at it like she expects he's poisoned it, so he takes a tiny sip before holding it out again.
"You drank my tea," he chides. "How is this any different? I poured it before you made any threats."
"You could have anticipated a change in the situation."
"I'm not that smart."
Her mouth twists. "I doubt that very much."
"If I were smart, I wouldn't have brought you here. Please. Drink it."
"Trying to lure me into a false sense of security before taking—"
"C'mon," he interrupts, lifting his arm slightly higher for emphasis, "down the hatch. You'll feel better."
She scowls at him but concedes, sticking the tip of her tongue into the glass and tasting it. He waits, and she downs the entire thing a minute later. The glass is put rather forcefully back onto the tray, but her expression doesn't betray her thoughts on its unpleasant taste. It's better than cod liver oil, he supposes, and he hasn't any idea what she's used to. If the Huntsclan has developed something similar, it might not be unexpected at all.
"Now that you've figured out who I really am," he says pleasantly, as if she weren't glaring at him for convincing her to take care of herself, "why don't you tell me a bit more about yourself? How long have you been Huntsgirl?"
"It's 93."
"And is that how you met Jakey? Because your numbers are close? Is that how the Huntsclan differentiates all of you?"
The anger forming in her furrowing brow shifts into confusion. "You aren't compelling answers from me."
She says it almost like a question.
"That was only meant to help you heal up, same as everything else," he says easily. "You'll know I'm telling you the truth soon enough."
She bites her lip. "Why?"
He doubts she's asking why she'll know, since that'll be obvious once she starts feeling better; she's asking why he's doing this. Again. He wonders what he can say to convince her when all he has to tell her is the truth.
"That answer hasn't changed. You need the help. You're friends with my son. You freed my daughter. Pick any of those; they're all true."
She says nothing, but she picks up one of the carrot sticks and takes a bite. The crunch as she chews fills the silence between them.
"If you don't want to talk specifics about yourself," he tries, "will you tell me more about what happened to you to have you looking like that? Or how you found the shop? I can't imagine you knew to come straight there if you didn't know the rest."
She doesn't meet his eyes, staring instead at her lap. "There was a glow in one of the upper rooms, the pale pink of early dawn." She hesitates. "And you were closed, even though your competition across the street was open. I picked the lock and flipped the sign."
He frowns. "Instead of coming in the back?"
"I'm not in any condition to fight." The admission is a quiet one. "I know what I said before, but I wouldn't fare well in a real fight. If the shop was what I suspected it might be, I couldn't risk facing the protector in my state. I didn't think I'd get a chance to explain. Pretending in case he was around was the best bet I had, and since he didn't seem to be…."
If by 'the protector', she means his father-in-law, he's not so sure she'd have gotten a chance to explain, either.
He probably shouldn't be surprised she'd decided he wasn't his daughter's protector, either.
He sets the travel mug back onto the tray. "You lost your last fight."
The sound that breaks out of her can hardly be called laughter. "You should see the other girl."
"What happened?" He wants to ask if it has anything to do with Jake, but he's afraid she'll shut down if he does. He doubts she'd appreciate him turning everything that's happened to her into something about his son.
Her head does that sideways nod again; she hasn't had the remedy in her system long enough for it to work its magic on her shoulder. "I don't have the details I need. I don't know how much the Huntsclan knows. But I— I think they know I've been compromised. They're acting accordingly."
"Meaning?"
"Compromised agents are a liability." The words come out as a whisper. "If the Huntsclan doesn't think threats will keep them in line, they're reassigned."
"Reassignment surely isn't—"
"They don't return. Ever."
He turns her words over in his head for a few seconds before deciding he doesn't like any of those implications. "Jake, too?"
"That or worse, if they know."
If they know.
If they know about the family secret, she means.
He doesn't know what he can do to stop this, but he has to try. For the sake of his son—for all their sakes—he has to try.
"If they know," continues Huntsgirl, "then that's it. If they don't, the only thing that could possibly save us is turning over something of enough value that would make our breach of protocol acceptable."
He blinks. "You're back to threats?"
"It's a fact, not a threat."
Jonathan swallows. "And if you give them me?" He won't pretend he likes the idea, but if it saves his family—
She shakes her head. "That's not enough."
"I could pretend that I'm the American Dragon. Or her protector."
"Whatever you are, you're not a dragon, and that would be the first thing they verify."
He has no idea if there's a way to mimic whatever quality he seems to be missing, but she's not offering up any suggestions, so if such a thing exists, it's not part of her knowledge. That isn't so surprising when he thinks about it, really. The Huntsclan having the ability to mimic dragons would greatly increase their ability to infiltrate the magical world.
Lao Shi's cursed concoction isn't going to help him appear as a better prize, either, even if it will keep him from saying anything more incriminating than he already has.
There must be something he can do.
"I'm human," he says, since he can't see how honesty on that front will do anything but help right now, "but I'm also—" Somehow, admitting that he's new to all of this is more difficult than it should be. "I'm willing to try whatever you think is best. To protect everyone. The American Dragon, Jake, you…." Susan, Lao Shi, Fu Dog….
Her hands curl into fists in her lap. "I don't have a plan beyond finding my friend. After that…." Her voice dies. "We'd keep moving after that."
Her plan is to run and never stop.
He won't get to know his son if she finds Jake and convinces him to do that.
"It won't come to that. We'll find another way."
"You sound so certain." There's a hint of disbelieving laughter in her voice, a crazed sort of levity breaking through the bleakness of the situation. "It's an impossibility, but you're willing to move mountains if that's what it takes." She's quiet for a moment, and he lets the silence sit instead of breaking it. Before she speaks again, she looks towards the lone picture on the fireplace. "You really love him."
Her voice is thick now, and he knows better than to think she's speaking about his relationship with his father.
"I don't need to know him to love him." Jonathan has never stopped loving Jake; years of grieving do not diminish love. "Knowing Jake—really knowing him—will only increase my love for him. Right now, I can't imagine what that would feel like. It already feels like I love him as much as I possibly can, but earlier—" He swallows. "Earlier, when I spoke to him for the first time, I found that I loved him more than I had the memory of him the day before, and—"
He can't finish.
She looks back to him, blinking, but he can see tears brimming in her eyes. "You're really his family, and you love him."
He reaches forward to take her hand, and she doesn't jerk away. "All parents should love their children."
"But not all of them do."
Something that she's not quite saying clicks into place. "Yours love you. Surely you can see that?"
Another blink, and the tears are spilling down her cheeks.
He wishes he could remember her name.
She hadn't seemed unhappy the last time he'd seen her, but if he'd only seen a momentary escape—
No.
Her parents love her.
He's as certain of that as he is of his own love for Jake.
"My parents are dead." The words sound strained, as if they've been pulled from her throat without her permission. Given what he's learned of the magical world, given what she feared he would do to her, he's not so sure that's impossible under other circumstances. "At least, I thought— That's better than the alternative, though. If they are alive, they won't be like you."
He'd assumed her earlier confusion when he'd brought up take your child to work day was as much for show as it was jumbled stories, but she's talking like she's never met her parents, and he can't imagine why she'd lie about that, of all things. Is his memory really playing tricks on him? He'd swear the girl who'd been planning with Marnie is the spitting image of the one in front of him, but with Huntsgirl still insisting that he's thinking of someone else….
"We were always told—" She breaks off. "The Huntsclan is my family. Was my family. I— I don't have a family to claim anymore, except—" She shakes her head and doesn't finish.
"Except Jake." It's not hard to put the pieces together; the only future she's hoping for involves running away with him.
"Except Jake," she agrees softly, and it warms his heart to hear his son's name roll so easily off her tongue.
Maybe, just maybe, Jake will choose to use that name with pride.
But this, right now, is about Huntsgirl, not his son.
Jake is with Susan, and Huntsgirl thinks she has no one except a friend she cannot find. She doesn't think she has a family out there who doesn't know to hope for a miracle. She doesn't think any good will come of the Huntsclan finding her.
And she certainly doesn't think Jonathan can do anything of note to improve her situation, however much he will try.
He squeezes her hand. "It doesn't have to be only Jake. Even if your family isn't out there, you still have me."
He can't say us.
He's sure Susan and Haley wouldn't mind, but Lao Shi….
Huntsgirl's eyes are shut tight against the tears, but a sob escapes her. "You don't know me." The words are ragged and raw. "You shouldn't— I don't deserve—"
"Don't say that." He has no idea what else the Huntsclan has told her—what they have surely told Jake—but it's already worse than whatever he might have imagined. He's moving forward, carefully enveloping her in his arms like he would his own daughter, and she doesn't pull away.
She doesn't even flinch.
"You deserve to be loved, and you deserve to know that you are loved." He wants to call her by her name and almost adds Huntsgirl until he realizes that, maybe, the reason she's so adamant that she isn't Huntsgirl when she must be is because she chose to give up that—role? Title?—when she turned aside from the Huntsclan to help Jake.
He only has one other name he can call her, and it's not even a name.
"I'll help you find a way through this, 93. I promise."