Jack Templar Monster Hunter by Jeff Gunhus Page B

of dust and let it slide through his fingers, mumbling something quietly under his breath. I know it sounds crazy, but if I didn’t know that he was the one who killed her, I would have said that he was mourning her death.
    A rock troll wandered into the yard and Ren Lucre quickly threw down the rest of the ash, stood and strode out from the backyard.
    “That was weird,” T-Rex whispered.
    “Yeah,” I replied, fighting hard to fight down the emotions churning inside me. “But what about tonight isn’t weird? Come on, we need to find the others.”
    We crawled along the roof, keeping our profile low enough that any Creach in the backyard would not have been able to see us. We got to the far end of the roof, but were in the same situation as before with the jump in front of us. When I turned back, T-Rex was already in tears.
    “I’m sorry, Jack,” T-Rex said. “I know I’m ruining everything. I can’t go any further.”
    “You can do this,” I said.
    “You don’t get it,” T-Rex said. “I can’t get caught. My grandma will—”
    “You’re grandma will what? Get mad at you?” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Listen, she wouldn’t want you to get eaten by monsters, would she?”
    “You don’t understand. They’re going to take my grandma away,” T-Rex blurted out.
    The words were like a dam breaking inside of T-Rex. He just stood there, shaking and crying.
    “Who’s taking her?” I said. “The Creach?”
    “No, no…it’s not like that. Just these people. From the government. They came last week for a meeting. Told me she can’t take care of herself anymore. That she can’t take care of me. If I get caught out here…doing all this…they’re gonna take her away for sure.”
    I heard grunts coming from monsters below us in the courtyard. I put my arm around T-Rex, to both comfort him but to stifle the sound a bit. “Why didn’t you tell me last week?” I said. “You know, she is getting really old. Did you ever think maybe it might be better for her in a nursing home? You know, safer?”
    “You’re still not getting it,” T-Rex said. “If they put her in a home, they’re going to take me away too. Probably put me in foster care in a different town.”
    He buried his face into his hands and cried softly. This was almost too much for my brain to process. This night just couldn’t get any worse.
    “It’s gonna be OK. I promise. I won’t let them take you away, you hear me? I won’t let them.” T-Rex nodded and wiped his nose on my shoulder. The grunting below us got louder. “But do you think we could talk about this after we put a little distance between us and those monsters?”
    T-Rex wiped the tears off his face. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be safer if we just stayed here and hid? You know, wait the whole thing out?”
    “No,” I said, “if we stay on this roof, they’re gonna catch us for sure. If you really want to help your grandma, we’ve gotta make this jump.”
    T-Rex eyed the distance again between the roof and the tree. “You really think I can do it?”
    “I know for a fact that you can make this jump,” I said. It has nothing to do with the muscles in your legs.” I tapped his head. “It’s all in here. We believe something because we’ve decided to believe in it, no other reason.” I grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him toward me. “All I’m asking is that you believe in yourself this one time, TRex. Believe in yourself as much as I do. Can you do that?”
    T-Rex slowly looked over at the jump, then back at me. He nodded.
    “All right, good,” I said. “I want you to get a running start, take off right from the edge. I’m going to jump first so I can help you when you land in the tree, OK? I’m not going to be able to jump back over if you change your mind, so we’re good, right?”
    “We’re good,” T-Rex said. “I’ve got this.”
    “Good man,” I said. I did a quick survey to make sure the backyard was clear,