Matt and the Hunters
Chapter 23 — The hound
Josh was having the dream again.
He already knew this dream, he knew it was a dream, and he hated it.
It was always the same dream: He was standing somewhere and Daniel was walking away from him, just far away enough to be out of reach, and even if he only could see him from behind he knew it was him.
He begged him to stop, he tried to run after him, but Daniel was just too far away and wasn’t looking behind or listening. He walked away and just kept walking away.
There was someone ahead and Daniel was walking towards him, and he knew what he was: A Tempter. A Tempter, and he was about to capture Daniel and he wouldn’t resist. He knew it. It was always the same dream.
Daniel didn’t look behind, perhaps he didn’t even hear him, he was just walking away towards the Tempter.
He could see the Tempter now. He couldn’t recognize his face, but he knew what it was. He had seen him before, the same one that had been tied to a chair in the test he had faced a couple years ago and Daniel a couple months ago.
The test that had taken Daniel away from him.
It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see his face. He knew who he was and he knew what he was, and Daniel was walking directly towards him.
He knew it was a dream, but that only made things worse. He was not in control, the dream was, and Daniel was next to the Tempter and was embracing him and then they kissed and...
...and he woke up.
His hands were trembling and there was a wet spot on his pillow, and he could felt entirely, absolutely not right.
Some things are not right, but you still have to deal with them anyway.
When Josh had first accepted to join the Hunters he had been told that and he had accepted it. He knew he would have to make sacrifices in his life, but he never imagined how hard it could get.
He breathed slowly and closed his eyes until the shaking went away.
It was almost time to start the day anyway, so he didn’t even try to fall asleep again. He got up, got dressed, and prepared for another day of trying not to think about a lot of things.
He was usually very good at not thinking about stuff, but recently it was getting difficult. There were so many things piling up in his head that some of them just had to surface, and the more he tried to bury them during the day, the more they would come back to haunt him during the night.
That was why he was having that dream. Daniel was gone, he probably would be captured by the Tempters, and there was nothing he could do about it.
His life just a few weeks ago had been so simple, so clear. Just that small family of three: He and Daniel, and Mr. Reginald as their teacher, training them and guiding them like a father. They knew soon they would become full Hunters, maybe hunt partners, and they would spend their lives helping to keep humanity safe from the Tempters...
...and then he came home one day and found that his teacher was dead and Daniel was gone.
How can your world crumble to ashes so easily in a single moment?
Mr. Jones had explained to him what had happened: How Daniel had turned out to be more sensitive than they thought and had been irreparably affected by the Tempter’s influence, and Mr. Reginald had been given the option to give him a mercy kill.
And then... apparently Daniel had overpowered Reginald, killed him and got on the run. Jones said it was just a matter of time that he would fall in the arms of the first Tempter he’d meet. Maybe it had happened already.
And there was, trapped in another school for Hunter apprentices, unable to do anything about it.
Breakfast. A first block of classes, just enough to pretend that this was a normal school. After Mr. Reginald had died, he had been assigned to another teacher and taken to another place to finish his training. It was not the old Master—and—apprentice style of Reginald, it was a bigger place with several teachers and students living and training together.
To the outside world, it was presented as a correctional center for troubled teens and somehow police left them alone, which meant someone knew someone in the government who took care of leaving them alone...
It looked like a prison and felt just the same.
A sudden hit on his chest knocked the air out of him and brought him back to reality. He was in the gym, in the middle of combat practice. Somehow he had lost the whole morning and this fight. And maybe his mind too.
He could take any of the other students one to one and they had learned it the hard way after the first couple days of sparring, but no one can win a fight when he’s in autopilot and his mind is in the past. This was not good.
He tried to get back to his feet, but it was too late. That redhead (What was his name? Jeremy? Pretty sure it was Jeremy) was already on top of him pinning him down to the floor.
And then practice was over and everyone was gone to the showers and he was sitting alone in a bench looking at his hands. A teacher tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t even understand what he was saying.
He knew he had to break out of this, but he couldn’t. There was simply way too much to think about. The teachers were patient with him, they let him go through all that at his own pace, but he knew they were worried about him.
He eventually managed to get up and go to the showers, right when everyone else was getting out to get dressed. The hot water helped him clear his thoughts and he lingered for a while, feeling himself slowly come back to reality. One day at a time, that was the only way to do this thing.
— Are you ok?
He turned so fast that he hit his elbow on the faucet.
— Ow!
Jeremy was standing at the entrance of his stall, with his towel draped over his shoulder. He smiled apologetically.
— Sorry, man. Are you okay?
— What do you mean?
He had a simple rule: You never, never look at other guys below the neck in the showers. You don’t want them to think the wrong things or get ideas that you are something that you aren’t. Look at their faces, it makes everything easier. It’s safer not think about it.
— You’ve been disconnected all day, man. You should see your face. I don’t know where you are, but you’re not here.
What was he even supposed to answer to that? He had been told to keep most of the details as a secret, the other guys had just been told that his teacher had died and that was why he was joining them.
— It’s been hard, you know? Sometimes it’s hard.
At least that wasn’t a lie. He just couldn’t and didn’t want to elaborate.
— Hey — said Jeremy, getting closer and putting a hand on his shoulder. — Just hang in there. It’s gonna get better. We’re your mates now and we can help you.
What was that hand doing on his shoulder? Why was he so close? He could almost feel the warmth of his body. Maybe on top of all, Jeremy was getting the wrong ideas about him? Maybe Jeremy was thinking that he was something he wasn’t? Or maybe he was...?
— Please... I don’t like when people touch me. — he shrugged to push his hand off.
He didn’t need to raise his voice. Jeremy just noticed how wrong it was and he took his hand off and turned away.
— Hey. — Josh called and Jeremy turned back. — Thank you.
Jeremy smiled, nodded at him, and left.
Josh set the water as cold as he could have it.
The feeling of that hand on his shoulder stayed with him the rest of the afternoon, while he was having dinner and that night when he was in bed. Alone in the dark with his own thoughts, the only moment he had a space truly for himself. Alone in the dark it was easy not to think about things, just relax and let them happen.
His clothes were falling and his cock was hard and his hand was going down and groping it while he tried as hard as he could not to think about what he was doing.
It was easy. He had a lifetime of practice not letting the left hand know what the right hand was doing...
He stroked his cock, feeling it beat in rhythm with his heart while he went to it as hard and fast as he could, feeling how the pressure was building up inside him. It had been days since the last time he did it.
This was not right. He was not supposed to be doing this, that’s how they get you. And yet, he was doing it because sometimes you just have to do it. He always tried to do it as fast as he could and not thinking about anything. His mind did strange things when he jerked off.
He couldn’t stop himself, he just thought about it: Jeremy standing in the shower. He had not looked down, but still he could remember the hand, the skin touching him, the warm air between them.
Another picture: Daniel. Daniel training with him, laughing with him, catching a ball in a park. Daniel, just Daniel...
...Daniel kissing the Tempter.
He had a lot of practice cumming in silence. He just tightened his abs, felt his cock twitching, and felt his cum falling on his stomach, warm and thick.
He felt dirty.
He cleaned himself with some toilet paper and rolled it into a small ball and then wrapped it with more toilet paper, and put his shorts on to go to the restroom across the hall and flush it, a little ball of shame going down the drain.
Sometimes he wished he could do the same with himself.
It was better not to think about it. He quickly washed himself, just a bit, just enough to pretend he hadn’t done anything, and came back to bed.
There was a phone, hidden in the middle of his clothes where no one would ever look for it. When he’d found Mr. Reginald dead and called Jones for help, he’d taken the phone and hid it and let them believe Daniel had stolen it.
It was not right, but he had to.
Daniel didn’t know and probably neither did they that Reginald had put a small tracker on his watch and Josh’s, that could be accessed from his phone. The only reason Josh knew was because he’d helped Reginald to set it up a couple months ago. But he knew if they found the cellphone, they could easily find Daniel and bring him back, and he was not ready to let them find him.
They had told him that: they had deemed that Daniel’s knowledge of them and their operations was not dangerous enough to launch a full scale manhunt for him, not when they were already pressed for resources and men, but whenever they found him he was to be killed on sight.
And they knew they would eventually find him. He would find a Tempter, attach himself to the Tempter, and then they would find both and kill them. The end of the story was already written, now they just had to wait for it.
But it was not right.
No matter how he tried to think about it, it was not right that someone like Daniel was killed. Daniel was in his own way so gentle, so... so sweet, and yet so strong. The world was a better place with Daniel in it.
He could not bring himself to give them the phone. And he knew it was not right to hide it, but he had to.
Every now and then he took the phone alone in his bed and turned it on, and that little dot on the screen was the only proof for him that Daniel was maybe still in the world. He’d seen it wander from place to place, from city to city, never finding a place to rest.
How could a single dot on a screen feel so lost and lonely?
But what was the alternative? The only thing worse than watching that dot wander would be watching it stop.
He remembered the dream: Daniel, forever taken away from him. Daniel, surrendering to the Tempter, willingly giving himself to him. Daniel’s body and mind taken by one of those vile creatures, corrupted and reveling in that corruption, becoming forever tainted by that darkness. It was... it was not right. It was even worse than letting the Hunters catch him.
And yet, so easy to picture in his mind. He could imagine all of it, skin and flesh and glances and sounds, all in excruciating detail, all the downfall of Daniel. And no matter how it happened, no matter how the story unfolded, the end would be the same: Daniel would be gone.
He felt the rage surge inside him to the point he could not take it anymore. That just was wrong, there was no way he could let Daniel fall into that kind of destiny. He knew he could not let that happen. Death was better than that.
Daniel had already killed Reginald. He couldn’t stand the thought of letting him go further down that path. Someone had to stop it, even if it was at the cost of his life. Even if it meant that he was punished for what he would become. Those feelings deserved punishment.
But not by the Hunters. If someone was going to punish Daniel, it would have to be someone who cared about Daniel, someone who wanted to save him, someone who was willing to sacrifice him to save him. It would have to be... him.
He could not take it anymore.
No one else was going to save Daniel, so it would have to be him. He would save Daniel, even if he had to kill him himself to do it.
He didn’t realize what he was doing until he was in the middle of doing it. He was getting dressed, packing his weapons, putting his stash of money in his pocket and moving as quietly as possibly across the house.
Everyone was asleep and the house was silent.
He had been trained for stealth, and he managed to get out without making any noise, without awakening anyone. Just him in the silence of the night. Two blocks down the road he managed to break into a car and find the spare keys in the glove compartment, and get on his way.
He was going in the first true hunt of his life.
He couldn’t help but laugh with a sudden sense of release and freedom. He was finally acting, he was finally doing what he was supposed to do. He was betraying all he had been taught in his life, his teachers, his mates, his mission, and he loved doing it.
He didn’t know if he would be able to return. The next time he met the Hunters, he may have to run away from them, but he didn’t care. That was in the future and he was determined not to think about it. It was easy, that was all he had to do. Stop thinking and just act, let things happen, get things done.
It was not right. He knew it was not right. And yet, he was doing it.
Because nothing he had ever done felt as right as this.
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