Freak camp, p.22
Freak Camp, page 22
Roger shook his head. “Another time.”
“Well, before you go, let me show you something I just picked up from Sloan. A neat trick for taking down the freaks with softer nervous systems. And it don’t even leave any marks.” He held up one of the thin, gleaming black prods and nodded to the room behind him. “Come check it out.” He pushed open the door, and Roger reluctantly stepped inside.
His stomach turned over at the sight inside. Tobias—he could still recognize Jake’s monster in the painfully thin teenager—lay on the floor, his hair and shirt soaked with sweat, wrists bound in front of his chest with plastic zip ties, and two chains stretching from either side of his collar to hooks set low in opposite walls. There was barely enough slack in the chains for him to rise up on his elbows, though he wouldn’t be able to do even that with the handcuffs. His glassy eyes didn’t move from the ceiling as Roger entered.
“Look how good this works.” Beam stabbed the prod toward Tobias’s chest, stopping several inches short of it making contact, but Tobias’s body spasmed violently in anticipation. Beam and the guard—Sloan, by the name on his uniform—roared with laughter. Panting, Tobias turned his face toward the wall, though his face showed no emotion.
“You sick fucks,” Roger muttered. “What’d he do?”
Beam looked at him, surprised. “C’mon, Harper, it’s a freak.”
Out of the kid’s line of sight, Sloan nudged Tobias’s thigh with his own prod. A guttural cry ripped from Tobias’s throat as his body seized, jerking for several moments before falling still again, facing the opposite direction. He choked and gasped for breath, and Roger realized his collar had half strangled him. Tobias’s chest rose and fell so rapidly he looked ready to have a heart attack. But most disconcerting of all was how—even as his limbs still twitched—Tobias’s face had smoothed over again to utter blankness.
“You’re a sadistic bastard.” Roger couldn’t keep his eyes off the kid on the floor, didn’t know when his right hand had crept to where his gun usually was. He forced himself to move his hand away. “What the hell did he do? You can’t pass this off as an interrogation.”
“I don’t know.” Beam glanced at Sloan. “What did he do?”
Sloan shrugged and stepped between the monster’s legs. “Getting careless with his teeth.”
A shudder worked down Tobias’s shoulders, but he made no attempt to close his legs, even as Sloan lifted his boot and slowly pressed down on his groin. Tobias keened, the sound slipping high and agonized from between his clenched teeth.
“Aww, what are you whining about?” Sloan cooed. “Monsters don’t need these, do they, Pre—”
“I’m having a hard time telling who the monster is!” Roger snapped.
Tobias’s eyes snapped open, and he looked at Roger—the first thing he had focused on in the room. Roger saw in his eyes no gratitude, pleading, or hatred—just a curious intentness as he looked at him. Roger swallowed, unable to break eye contact.
“What’d you say?” Beam said, face twisting ugly.
Roger scowled, raising his eyes. “You heard me. Bunch of tough guys, going after a malnourished freak kid with his hands tied. That how you get your rocks off?”
“Well,” Beam said, much cooler, “if you’re not enjoying yourself, Harper, you don’t have to stay.”
Roger glanced back at Tobias, but the kid’s gaze had moved to the ceiling again, lost and flat. Roger swallowed, fists clenching, bile sliding up his throat, then glared at Beam. “Lose my number. I don’t want to hear from you again, I don’t care what you need.” He slammed the door behind him.
Roger swore viciously under his breath with every step out of the complex, barely pausing to sign out and nod at the ever-so-sweet receptionist girl who bade him goodbye by name. As the security door swung shut behind him, he was dialing his cell phone.
“Hey, Rog, what’s up?” Jake sounded cheerful, oblivious, and it only increased the sick roiling in Roger’s stomach.
“Jake,” he growled. “You still interested in getting that Tobias kid out of the camp?”
“Wh—yeah, of course I am.”
“Well, you better start filing the paperwork. I don’t think he’ll make it another year.”
“What?” Jake sounded like he had just been punched in the gut. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.” Roger hung up, seething too much to trust himself to keep talking. It was stupid on every level, he knew, to get emotional over a monster in Freak Camp. Couldn’t end well.
But he wasn’t able to just walk out on two sadists torturing a kid and not do a damn thing about it.
***
Jake stared down at the phone. That was… not what he had expected when he had seen that the call was from Roger.
The mobile phone was new. It still felt like a reward when someone called him, even though Dad mostly didn’t—unless they had to get together—and not many other people had his number. When Roger called, it was usually to point them in the direction of a new hunt, or sometimes just to say hi. Jake thought of it as checking up on him, but that didn’t mean it didn’t feel good to get the call.
He turned to see Dad watching him with a frown. It was one of their rare weeks together, when both of their respective hunts were over—or a different hunt had brought them back together—and Dad sat on the second bed in the hotel room cleaning his guns, getting polish all over the cheap, ratty bedspread.
“That was short. Harper in trouble?” His tone implied that Roger could go fuck himself, but his hands, hesitating over the weapon he was cleaning, said that if Jake said the word, they would be on their way.
Jake liked that, how Dad trusted him sometimes, how he’d pay attention when Jake brought him new information. Not that Jake ever really knew anything that Dad didn’t. Dad was still the best, and Jake loved working with him, not just because they were family, but because if Leon and Jake Hawthorne went after something, that sucker was going down. It was just a fact of life. Together the Hawthornes could stop anything.
Usually he liked that more. But then again, usually Roger had not just told him that he had to get Tobias out, get Tobias out now, in a tone that Jake had only ever heard before when he was telling some civilian to get the fuck down, it’s going for your heart.
Jake took a shaky breath, and then reached for his own guns. “Roger’s fine. You know how to get a monster out of Freak Camp?”
Leon Hawthorne froze and looked up from his gun. “Why would I know a fucking thing like that?”
Because you’re my dad and you know everything. “I’m getting Tobias out,” Jake said. “Figured I would ask you first because you usually know these things. I already called Leah Dixon in D.C., she hasn’t had any luck, so maybe I can try a different ASC resource hotline, and they can…”
With a scowl, Leon tossed a greasy rag to the floor, next to the trashcan. “Jake, I thought you were over this.”
Jake’s mind had been spinning, trying to find a starting place for how to get Toby out. Research always had a starting point, after which the monster’s profile and vulnerabilities would fall into place. Even if this was a hell of a lot bigger than confirming a werewolf attack from a list of fatal animal attacks, or pinning a string of strange deaths on a shapeshifter. At last, at last, you’re going to do it, you’re going to keep your promise and stop putting it off like a coward—but he came back to the here and now at his dad’s tone.
“Sir?”
“I thought you had stopped obsessing over that monster.”
Jake blinked and considered. He still thought about Toby. He still thought about him all the time. He still… but no, he hadn’t talked about him in a while, not to Dad. Not since the fight at Freak Camp and the eight-week suspension.
He and Dad had had an hour’s shouting match about appropriate behavior with other hunters and ASC personnel. Somehow the point Dad had landed on was that everyone ass-kissing the ASC really deserved a brand in their faces anyway, just for being Big Brother assholes, but Jake was still stupid and impulsive to do it. Dad hadn’t connected that fight with Tobias, and since then Jake had stopped mentioning Toby, because Toby was his, and talking about him just made Dad angry.
Actually, he hadn’t talked about Toby much since he turned sixteen. Everything he’d wanted to say about him to Dad, he had said then, even though the man hadn’t heard a word.
“Sir, I wouldn’t say obsessed.” Unless you mean I think about him every day. And I smile when I see M&M’s because he loves those, and I think about reading all these books just so I can share them with him. And my heart jumps every time I see boys who look like him.
“Yeah, what would you call it then?” Dad glanced at him for a second before turning his head away. “I can barely hold my head up in a hunter bar with sons of bitches cracking jokes about you mooning after that monster kid. Everyone knows, Jake, and you’re not ten anymore.”
Jake gritted his teeth before answering, “No, sir, I’m not ten. And I think that means that if I say something like this, it means that I know what I’m doing. Or that I’ve at least thought it through.”
Leon snorted. “You let me be the judge of that, Jake.”
The worst thing was that Jake would be perfectly happy letting Dad be the judge of things. When they hunted together, Jake let Dad take the lead, ask the questions, form the theories, send him out to do research or to flirt with a pretty girl or boy. Dad always knew the next step they should take. It didn’t make Jake angry, didn’t rattle him when Dad barked off orders without listening to his input. Jake had a lifetime of knowing that when Dad said to drop he should drop, when Dad said to run he should run.
Jake trusted him about everything but Tobias. Because on nights when Dad was gone, or too drunk to drive, or unconscious and bleeding, Toby had always been in Jake’s mind. He had never been able to fully explain, even to himself, even the night he turned sixteen, what Toby meant to him and why Jake knew he wasn’t just another monster. They might have only spent a couple of hours together at a time over the years, but Jake was sure about Toby like he was about precious little else in his life. He caught the same look on Toby’s face every visit, how Toby smiled at him—whenever Jake managed to coax one out. Nothing else in his life was like it. And while he couldn’t put into words what Toby meant to him, Jake knew with absolute certainty what he meant to Toby, and that rescuing Toby from Freak Camp now mattered more than any of the civilians he had managed to save.
Toby was his friend. Toby cared without demanding things from him—even though Jake would be willing to give him anything, anything at all. Toby was not a monster.
“You never ask me what I’ve thought,” Jake said slowly, “so how can you know when I’ve thought something through?”
Dad paused and looked up at him with something strange in his eyes. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said that you don’t listen,” Jake said. “I said that I have thought this through.”
“This being…?”
“I’m getting Tobias out,” Jake said. The words seemed to echo in the room, as though the space had suddenly expanded. “And you can help me, sir, or you can get the hell out of my way.”
Leon stared, and then carefully laid his gun on the bed. “You’re getting a monster out of Freak Camp.”
“Yes.”
“Are you feeling all right? Any dizziness or disorientation, any details not feeling right? Gaps in your memory? Any hesitation at all in making these decisions?”
It made Jake angry that Dad was still convinced that this could be some kind of monster trick. If Toby had the ability to twist Jake’s head around—in some supernatural way, and not just with his smile—then he would have done all he could to get out of that shithole earlier, maybe back when they were burning smiley faces into his arm.
“Yes, Dad, I feel fine,” he snapped. “It’s not like this is a new idea.”
“Are you telling me that you have been planning to remove a monster from Freak Camp longer than just tonight?”
Just the last six years, Dad. “Yes.”
“What—” Dad’s voice broke, but Jake couldn’t tell if it was from anger or worry. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What exactly would you do with the freak if you get him out?”
“Do?” Feed him, for one. Toby looked thinner every time he visited. Get him somewhere safe, more than anything.
“Yes. Do. Do! You can’t just want to have a monster with you.” Leon sounded disgusted, confused, almost desperate, like he wanted the situation to make sense, but no matter how many times he counted there were still not enough guns, too many monsters, one less salt bag than he had expected. “There has to be a purpose. Give me a reason, Jake.”
“Like, so I can stake him somewhere so other monsters will come and try to eat him? Am I fucking hunting deer now?” You think I get off on hurting things, on using evil to chase evil?
“Don’t use that language with me, boy. It’s a valid question, and if you can’t recognize that—”
“He’s a person, Dad. And he doesn’t deserve—”
“Shut your mouth, Jake. Right now, shut your mouth.”
Leon stood, breathing hard. He glared at Jake. No longer down, a distant part of Jake’s mind noted. They were eye to eye. “There’s something that you’ve got to get through that thick skull of yours, something that you should have known a long time ago, but I guess you’re just not that bright, or I’ve raised you wrong, or something. That boy is not a person. He’s a monster. A monster, Jake. It doesn’t matter what they deserve or what they don’t deserve, any more than it matters what a rabid dog deserves. It should be put down. I don’t care if it hasn’t bitten anyone yet. Frankly, I don’t like the shit that goes down in Freak Camp. Some things are basically impossible to kill, but it would be better to put a bullet through everything that can be put down.”
“Toby is not a freak,” Jake said doggedly. “He’s just—”
“Jake.” Leon closed his eyes. “You can’t keep saying that. You can’t keep… you can’t keep being this stupid. You can tell me. You can tell me anything, and we’ll deal with it. You want to… to sleep with it? I know you’ve been going home with men and women, and I don’t care, but you could do so much better than a fucking monster.”
“Dad!” Jake turned away. “It’s not about that. This is about what’s right, and what I’ve known I wanted—”
“You can’t just tell me that you want to get a freak out of FREACS and it’s because you want to. That just makes me think you want a pet monster because I never bought you a dog.”
“Toby’s not a dog!” Jake spun around, anger cracking his voice. “And he’s not a fucking freak—”
“Jake, he is.”
“—and I’m getting him out of Freak Camp whether or not you approve. Roger said I don’t have much time if I want to—”
“I’m going to gut Harper,” Leon said abruptly.
“Why do you do that?” Jake asked, moving close enough that he could shove Dad if he wanted to. For the first time, he wanted to. “Why do you blame people for things that aren’t their fault?”
“If Harper told you to get a monster out of camp…”
“He said that Tobias might not last much longer, not that I should get him out. Jesus, Dad, don’t always blame other people for things that you—”
“Are you saying that it’s my fault my son wants a freak as a pet?” Leon roared.
Jake gritted his teeth and shoved. Not hard, but angry. More of a jerk. Dad’s chest against his hands felt the same as any other guy’s he’d shoved, maybe a little heavier, maybe a little less give. But there was nothing normal about this. It felt strange, wrong and right all at the same time. “I’m saying that maybe you should try listening to me for once.”
Leon swayed, put his hand to his chest, and stared like Jake had slugged him. “I don’t listen to you,” he said softly, almost shaking, “because you come up with fucking stupid ideas like this, ideas that will get us both killed.”
“Well, thanks, Dad.” Jake threw his arms out and stepped back before he really did slug the man. “If I’m that much of a screwup, why do you even hunt with me? You gave me the Eldorado even though I’m too much of a fuck-up to find my own hunts? When you went off to drink or torture demons or whatever shit—”
“Watch your tongue, or I’ll beat some sense into you.”
Like you could, Jake thought. “I’m getting Tobias out, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
The Hawthornes froze, staring into each other’s eyes. It was a breaking point for something they had never thought could break, for something they had never thought about much at all. A man didn’t think about his bones until he felt them on the edge of shattering.
“He’s a fucking monster, like what killed your mother,” Leon said at last. “He’ll get you killed.”
“No,” Jake said. He didn’t give a damn what Dad thought he was saying no to. Just… no. No to all of it. No to everything Dad had ever told him about Tobias, and a big fucking no to his ideas about what were right for them.
Jake went to his bed and shoved things into his duffel. He didn’t think about it; he didn’t bother reassembling the shotgun before dumping it in with half-eaten granola bars and his spare set of socks. He was waiting for Dad to say something, anything, and at the same time knew he wouldn’t say a fucking thing that Jake wanted to hear.
Jake had thrown his bag over his shoulder and reached for the doorknob when Leon’s voice snapped the silence, as sure and irrevocable as a silver round cutting through a shapeshifter’s heart.
“You walk out that door for a freak, don’t expect to come crawling back. Don’t come back at all.”
Jake froze, his hand on the doorknob. “You don’t mean that,” he said, but his voice wasn’t sure. Dad had never in his life patched up a relationship unless it was a life-or-death necessity. When the emotional waters got choppy, Leon Hawthorne ran like hell and didn’t send postcards.
