Page 17 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

The guards were noticing. Shit, the guards were looking at the werewolf and exchanging those looks and elbow nudges that meant they were deciding who would go beat some sense into the monsters who didn’t know their place.

“Sit down,” Tobias snapped. “They’re looking at you.”

Startled, the boy sat, even though he was older and a werewolf. Even when they weren’t in their wolf form, werewolves were usually stronger than a normal human and always stronger than Tobias.

“I’m Marco,” the boy blurted out. While Tobias tried to figure out exactly what he was supposed to do with this information, Marco looked over his shoulder at the guards who had decided that they weren’t interesting enough to be worth ending their own conversation.

After a moment, Tobias grudgingly shared his own name. “Tobias.”

If a few monsters ate together every day or seemed to talk too much, sometimes the guards would break it up or separate them.

A mostly naked vampire was chained right then out in the sun with her skin peeling off because she hadn’t stopped talking to a couple of other vamps when the guards told her not to.

But the guards didn’t care as much when the monsters were younger.

They had barely given him and Becca any—

Tobias cut off the thought by focusing on the boy in front of him, who reminded him in the briefest, least significant ways of Jake. “How long have you been here?”

Marco shrugged. “A few days? Maybe a week. I don’t know, it all runs together, and they . . .” He glanced at the guards again and swallowed. “I can’t ask them how long I’ve been here.”

It would never have occurred to Tobias to ask the guards anything like that. But maybe that was what came of thinking that you were a real person for your whole life. It gave you unrealistic expectations when you finally ended up in Freak Camp with the other monsters.

Tobias was grateful that he had never had ideas like that, that he’d never had anything to unlearn. That’s what made it all the more incredible and wonderful that Jake ever gave him a second of his time.

“You haven’t been here for a full moon yet,” Tobias said.

Marco looked nervous, and then his expression shifted into something like defiance.

Tobias’s hands clenched. He hardly ever saw defiance unless a monster was about to try to steal his meal—and he’d eaten the bread as soon as Marco sat down—or someone was about to do something stupid in front of a guard.

“Yeah,” Marco said. “Just wait. I’ll show them.” He glanced down at Tobias’s plate that held nothing but the disgusting slop, and stood again when the guards looked distracted. “Well, if you’re out of bread, I’m outta here.”

Tobias watched him walk away while spooning the last of his food into his mouth.

He wondered what exactly Marco thought that he would be showing the guards at the full moon.

Tobias had never been in Intensive Containment, where the more dangerous freaks were caged and where the werewolves went for a few days every month, but thinking about the possibilities distracted him from the taste in his mouth.

It made him sick, but at least it helped him choke down the food.

***

E very guard had his own little quirks, and smart monsters got to know them as individual tormentors.

Sometimes it kept you safer, and sometimes it didn’t do a damn thing to know that Karl smoked like a chimney and Victor liked to crack jokes that no one else cared about.

Sometimes you could hear them coming, or smell the smoke on their clothes, and do something —stand a certain way, hide, put on the expression that they liked—and avoid or at least minimize the pain.

Sometimes it just meant that you knew what to expect when one got a nasty look on his face.

Elmer liked his billy club. He liked handling it and hitting monsters with it. The other guards made jokes about that—when he was out of earshot.

Hank Allendale was the first one to slip up.

“Hey, Clubby,” he called, walking up to Elmer. “Boss wants to see you. He has some concerns about—”

Elmer let Hank get within arm’s distance before he grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the barracks wall, billy club pressed against his throat. Right in the middle of the barracks, in front of a bunch of monsters that Elmer had been inspecting before curfew.

Victor, who had been on inspection duty with Elmer—he was the only guard who seemed to like the new, crazy-eyed stranger—threw himself on his partner’s shoulder. “Fuck, man. Cool the fuck down, Sloan.”

Elmer leaned a little harder on his club, and Hank choked, eyes bulging. “Don’t call me that,” he snarled. “I’m not a fucking freak.”

“And we’re currently in front of a bunch of fucking freaks,” Victor hissed. “He didn’t mean it, didn’t mean anything by it. Come on, cool the fuck down. ”

Elmer put his hand on the other guard’s head, almost a caress. “I could crush your skull with my hands,” he said. “Remember that.”

When Elmer let Hank go, the other man bolted.

Elmer turned and continued the inspection.

The monsters pretended that they hadn’t seen anything.

Elmer was one that, even if you knew what he liked, knew what he sounded like approaching, you couldn’t always predict what he would do when he had that look in his eyes.

They all expected pain, expected him to take his anger out on one of the monsters in their bunks. Instead, under Victor’s sharp eyes, Elmer was almost gentle, making sure that every monster was safe in their cot, a pleased, distracted look in his eyes.

“Night night, darlings,” he said, before the security cameras turned to their active, watching position. He and Victor stepped outside, locking the door behind them.

***

T obias didn’t see Marco again until next week, when the werewolf was assigned to help him with research.

Not many young monsters got to work with the old books or were trusted not to sabotage the information, but since Tobias had been there longer than most, never made any trouble, and always presented his work clearly and error-free, he got the fairly light—and air-conditioned—library duty most of the time.

Still, he never took it for granted. Especially when stupid new monsters were assigned to help him.

Marco was more subdued than he had been in the mess hall, and his eyes darted around the room.

Tobias explained what they were doing—it wasn’t hard, just making a comprehensive list of all the different ways certain monsters and weapons were used in different lore—but the boy was fidgeting, and Tobias didn’t know if he had fully understood.

That irritated him, because if Marco missed something, Tobias would get in trouble too and might lose his place in the library.

He made sure to check all of Marco’s work.

A guard had been stationed by the door, but he disappeared around noon. Tobias kept working. Monsters never knew when the guards would come back, and Tobias knew it was worth a beating if the guard didn’t find them still working.

Then Marco blurted out, “Aren’t you starving?”

Tobias looked up slowly. “I got breakfast this morning. Didn’t you?”

Marco snorted. “If you can call that breakfast. No, I mean—lunch! Don’t you ever get lunch?” He sounded desperate.

Tobias sighed and reminded himself that new monsters couldn’t help being so stupid. “Lunch is for reals. Not monsters. We’re lucky we get meals twice a day.”

Marco studied him closely in a way Tobias didn’t like, but all he said was, “How long have you been here?”

Tobias tugged down his shirt to reveal his ID number. “Since ’89.”

“How’d you get caught?”

Tobias shrugged, turning back to his book. “Don’t remember.”

“Nothing? Nothing at all? But what are you?”

“Not a werewolf,” Tobias said shortly. “Nothing you’ve seen before, so don’t mess with me.” That was his newest line to keep monsters off his back. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it just made them want to test him more.

Marco made a derisive noise. “But you’re just a kid. How’d you last here this long?”

Tobias had had enough. “By not asking stupid questions,” he snapped, and he picked up his pen.

Marco didn’t try to talk to him again for a few days.

Friday, Tobias was sent back to the Workhouse to help pack salt rounds for a special hunter shipment.

Marco was only a couple of spots down the table from him, but apart from a flicker of his eyes every time Marco wiped sweat off his forehead, Tobias didn’t look at him.

They’d only been at it for an hour or so—silence in the workroom, apart from the guards’ boots pacing down the wooden floors, the sifting salt and the click of metal casings—when Victor appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Baby Freak! You got a visitor in the yard.”

Tobias stopped, catching all of his thoughts and instincts that screamed Jake , refusing to let them take off.

He focused instead on the one task of not letting the casing slip from between his fingers.

Deliberately he set it on the table, and just as deliberately he stood up, keeping his chin tucked to his chest so no one could see his face. This was the most dangerous part.

He walked stiffly around the table, until Victor yelled, “Pick up your feet, freak, you don’t want to keep Hawthorne waiting,” and then Tobias broke into a run. It was an order, wasn’t it? Everyone had heard it, of course you had better do what the guards said.

Slowing down just enough at the door so he wouldn’t bump into Victor, he skidded to the stairs, jumping down two or three at a time to the next landing, then bursting out the door into the staggering July heat.

The brightness overwhelmed him, and he had to stop, squinting hard.

“Hey, Toby!”