Jackson Humes is Not a Superhero

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was still angry on Marv's behalf an hour later and took out my rage on the bathroom toilet while I scrubbed it. My brain also hadn't stopped spinning with questions. Why had my mom's pregnancy been kept from us? I wanted to confront my aunt about it, but then I would have had to explain how I'd come by that information. My instinct told me that I should speak to Tanner first and see what he knew. By the time Jesse arrived, I still owed my aunt an hour of work, but she must have sensed my bad mood because she agreed to let me make it up later.

Jesse was busy typing when I sat down and joined him. He'd sent me a message earlier letting me know that Wendy was going to be a little late. He openly peered at my face for a few seconds. As someone who I suspected wore makeup on occasion, I knew Jesse could see where I had applied some of my aunt's concealer to hide the large purple bruise on my cheek. It was still somewhat swollen, but I thought I'd done a pretty good job of covering it up. I decided to pretend like nothing was wrong.

"So," he said slowly, not shifting his focus from my cheek, "did you have an eventful night?"

The cops had made us promise not to tell anyone about the men in the woods. They were afraid it would set off a panic if the news got out. I couldn't really blame them for their precaution; the people in our town were total gun nuts. If anyone got wind that two armed men were wandering around, the scared inhabitants would arm themselves like it was the apocalypse and probably end up shooting some innocent bystander.

"Nothing too exciting," I replied casually. I sensed he was giving me an opening to spill my guts, but there was no way I was going to delve into that particular conversation.

"Things are getting really weird around here," he said tentatively. "There's a rumor going around town that two armed men are hiding somewhere in the woods. People are saying there was some sort of confrontation out by the abandoned cabin. Do you know anything about that? Did you hear anything? You live around there, don't you?"

I kept my face composed, but his rapid-fire questions just about made my heart stop. My brain worked triple time trying to come up with a reasonable explanation until I realized I didn't need to provide one. In fact, the more I feigned ignorance the easier things would go.

"Oh," I lifted my eyebrows, trying to convey surprise, "I didn't hear anything."

"Really?" He didn't seem convinced by my response. "Because I heard your street was swarmed with cops."

"Oh, is that why they were there?" I channeled every ditzy character I'd ever seen in movies and TV. "They told us they were doing some sort of emergency drill up in the woods. I figured it had something to do with that mountain lion they still haven't caught yet." I was about to switch topics when I had a realization. "How did you hear about it?"

Jesse gave a non-committal shrug and flipped through his notes. "Just something I heard."

As far as I knew, Jesse didn't have any family that worked in law enforcement. It was my turn to examine him closely. The more I stared, the more he fidgeted. His blue eyes darted back and forth, landing on nothing in particular but avidly avoiding me. Jesse clearly knew more than he was letting on. I wanted to grill him on where he'd gotten his information, but I worried I might incriminate myself in the process so I let it drop.

"So..." he must've had a similar thought because he shifted the conversation onto something else. "What did you think of the dinosaur video?"

"THE WHAT?!?!" I was completely caught off guard. My outburst was so loud that a few heads turned in our direction. It's a good thing my aunt wasn't in earshot or she probably would have added another month to my punishment for disturbing the peace.