Page 25 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

That was how the arguments with Dad started too. Jake met his eyes. Roger wasn’t Dad. Jake didn’t know how he would handle the argument with someone other than Dad. No one else—other than the guards who Jake didn’t give a shit about—had ever noticed.

“His name’s Tobias,” Jake said.

Roger ran a hand over his head. “Kid . . .”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Toby come around the corner at a trot.

He tried not to look. He had never fought with Dad at Freak Camp—they kept an absolutely united front against other hunters and ASC personnel—but he had long ago decided that there was no way in hell that he would get Toby involved in that fight.

But Roger saw Tobias at the same time, and Jake had to look over. He couldn’t just let Roger look at Toby without acknowledging him too.

He put himself between other hunters, other guards, and Toby, and he knew that he would step between Toby and Dad too. And if he would do that to family, he knew without a doubt that he would get between Toby and Roger. Turning, he stepped away from Roger, toward Toby.

Toby didn’t stop, didn’t seem to see Roger. Jake couldn’t hold back his smile, had to fist his hand around his bag strap to stop himself from reaching out.

His heart jumped when a bright smile lit up Toby’s face, wider than Jake could remember seeing it, so big he could actually see a flash of teeth.

In that moment, Toby looked happy , just like any other kid.

Then Toby’s eyes moved to Roger, and in a second the smile and all his emotion vanished, wiped clean from his face.

Jake knew that they hadn’t gone away, that the feelings were still inside of Tobias somewhere, but looking at his blank face, skin peeling a little from the eternal sunburn, it was hard to imagine ever finding that smile again.

Tobias had stopped, suddenly hesitant and unwilling to come any closer. He looked down at his feet and then to the side, as though trying to convince anyone watching that his eagerness had been an illusion.

Jake glanced around. A couple of guards were watching and smirking. In that second he hated them and almost hated Roger too.

***

R oger looked at the monster called Tobias. Damn, the kid looked maybe ten and thin enough that Roger could fold him in the bag with his rifles.

Roger didn’t like monsters, didn’t like Freak Camp, didn’t like the new hunters who were in it for bounties. Hell, he sometimes hated monsters with a passion that he didn’t like to look at too closely—but that kid didn’t look like he could threaten a fly.

And the way he had smiled at Jake, for just a second before it vanished from his face, squeezed Roger’s heart in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“That’s Tobias?” Roger hadn’t missed the way that Jake had stepped away from him, toward the boy.

He wondered if Jake and Leon argued about this often, if the kid ever put up any kind of fight with his father.

Roger argued with Leon often enough that he found it hard to believe that anyone could live with the man and not want to knock his skull open so that some sense might creep in.

But even at his angriest, Jake worshiped the ground Leon walked on.

Jake nodded. He couldn’t seem to decide where to fix his gaze—on Tobias, on the guards watching them, or on Roger. “Yeah.” He straightened his shoulders and finally met Roger’s eyes. “He’s Tobias.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Roger saw the tension in the monster’s shoulders. He thought Jake could too. Roger sighed and turned to the kid.

The monster wouldn’t look him in the eye. Fuck—the boy wouldn’t look at him.

Roger raised a hand, beckoning him. “C’mere, kid.”

Tobias came forward immediately, his eyes locked on the ground. He didn’t look at Jake, while Jake didn’t take his eyes off of Tobias’s face for a second.

“Look at me,” Roger said.

Tobias looked up, but not in Roger’s eyes. His gaze settled somewhere in the area of Roger’s left ear and stayed there.

Roger moved to touch Tobias’s face, to try to make the kid look him in the eye, but lowered his hand even as Jake started between them, anger and guilt mixed on his face.

Roger couldn’t touch the kid because of the way his eyes had changed from emptiness to—Roger couldn’t describe it.

He’d seen a shifter’s eyes flash on video footage, he had watched more than one demon’s eyes change into depthless black or red, but what happened on Tobias’s face was worse than all of that because the response looked completely human.

No longer empty and hopeless, but prepared.

He hadn’t flinched, hadn’t moved at all, but those eyes said, I know your type. Go on, hit me.

There were creatures that had been in Special Research for years that didn’t have eyes like that.

“Rog,” Jake said. “Don’t . . .” He bit his lip, then glared. Roger saw more than a little of his dad in him, which half made Roger proud and half made him want to smack the kid.

Roger wished that he could see Jake excited again.

Since all the shit had gone down when Leon had pulled Jake out of jail using his hunter ID, Jake had been angry, subdued in a way that he couldn’t express except by running or setting up a homemade range for target practice or drifting around the house like a restless spirit.

Even though his excitement had been about a monster, a kid that could grow up to be one of the dangerous things Roger put down without hesitation, it would have been good for Jake to be out of his funk for a little longer.

“I’m not gonna do anything to him.” Roger glanced at Tobias. “You. Stand back there for a second.”

Tobias retreated, though he didn’t turn his back. Roger got the feeling that he was watching their every move and trying not to be seen doing it.

Roger pulled Jake aside. “He looks all right, and he’s never tried to hurt you, right?”

Jake swelled in outrage. “Dammit, Roger, he’s never even come close. Why can’t you just understand—”

Roger held up a hand, cutting Jake off. If only that worked as well with Leon. “They’re monsters, kid. You know that every single freak in this camp did something or was a threat in some way. That’s why they’re here.”

“Tobias didn’t do anything!” Jake’s voice rose, but he caught it, glancing at the guards, and then glaring back at Roger. “He didn’t do anything,” he hissed. “He got dropped here before fucking kindergarten and he doesn’t remember anything. How can he be a monster?”

“He says he doesn’t remember anything,” Roger said. “That doesn’t mean nothing happened. Werewolves—”

“Tobias’s not a werewolf, not a vamp, not a psychic or a witch or any damn thing that they can pin a label on. He’s just Tobias, and sure, he’s here, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Jake.” Roger was surprised that just saying the kid’s name shut him up. Maybe he was channeling Leon. Chilling thought. “He’s here .”

Jake looked away. “That doesn’t mean everything. Papers get fucked up all the time, otherwise I wouldn’t have spent weeks as Jackie, getting detention for not showing up in Home Ec the whole time we were in Buffalo.”

Roger eyed the sullen teenager in front of him and the silent hopeless boy standing just out of earshot. He could almost believe that Jake knew what he was talking about. Then again, he was barely fourteen.

But hell, Leon had abandoned his son to CPS, and Roger had made his share of mistakes. They were well over Jake’s age. Roger just hoped that this wouldn’t be another one of his.

“Hell,” he said at last. “I’m going to Special Research.

Do you want to come with me?” Not that Roger wanted Jake anywhere near that place.

The longer Jake went without being exposed to that part of hunter life, the better.

He felt relieved when Jake shook his head, even though Roger could feel the bitterness rolling off of him.

“Jake.” The boy looked up. Damn, that kid was as stubborn as his father, but Roger was pretty sure that his heart was in a healthier place. “I know that you’re going to hang around with that kid, probably give him the candy in your bag, right?”

Jake’s face closed down, stubborn and angry. “Maybe, sir.”

No maybe about it , Roger didn’t say out loud. The kid didn’t need to know that Roger could read him like a book, and he was no frickin’ medieval Japanese either. “Watch yourself, Jake. Be careful.”

Jake relaxed slightly. Roger wondered if that was something that Leon said before he left, before he showed Jake that he trusted him. “I always am, sir.” He sounded confident, but a touch resentful. Recent experience had taught him that being careful wasn’t always enough.

Roger wished he could explain to Jake that Leon wasn’t angry at him, but at himself, and that Hawthorne had never been good at channeling his personal self-loathing and rage onto the people and objects that deserved it, but he didn’t think that Jake could understand.

Jake had never been responsible for anyone but himself—and maybe sometimes for his father.

He’d never known the furious, deep-rooted love that Leon had for him even when Leon was doing a piss-poor job of showing it.

Instead Roger said, “You do good, kid.” With one more glance at Tobias, he walked away.

***

J ake breathed a sigh of relief when Roger moved away.

He had felt the argument growing, had known that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from defending Toby, and Roger might’ve been forced to grab him by the scruff of the neck and drag his ass out of camp—which wouldn’t have helped Toby—and then they would have fought.

Jake thought sometimes that it would be nice to fight with someone about Toby.

He still hadn’t been able to get to that point with Dad.

He couldn’t shake his certainty that his dad knew best, his dad knew how to keep him alive, and Jake should never question him.

Of course, there was the fact that Dad wasn’t talking to him, was so fucking ashamed of how Jake had behaved with the whole CPS thing that he had left and probably wouldn’t be back for a long time.

But now Roger was heading toward Special Research, and there was nothing to stop Jake from turning to Toby.

Tobias watched the hunter leaving, expression tense, his gaze darting to Jake and the guards around the yard.

The nervous energy between them reminded Jake of when he and Dad weren’t talking. Except at least he and Toby were in the conspiracy together.

They both waited until Roger had disappeared around a corner, and then they simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief. Tobias started, but Jake laughed. It was good, damn good, to be around someone else who wasn’t an adult, someone who also eased up when he was finally left alone.

“Hey, Toby.”

Tobias gave him a nervous smile, and Jake couldn’t hold back his own.

He wished that Toby would look as happy as he did when he had first seen Jake, but he figured that was too much to hope for.

He rarely got to see Toby excited. There was only so much emotion that someone could have in a prison, Jake knew that now.

No surprise that Tobias had been there so long that he couldn’t manage anger anymore.

Well, Jake might be able to stay angry for both of them.

“C’mere.” Jake jerked his head, and Toby followed him to the side of a building. Jake turned his back to block the guards’ view of Toby, and no one could even see their lips moving. He didn’t know if any of the guards were lip readers, but he would take no chances.

“I got something to tell you.”

Tobias blinked rapidly and ducked his head. “What—what is it? Your dad . . .”

Jake waved him off. “No, this isn’t about Dad. This is . . .” This is me realizing that you shouldn’t be here, that no one as good as you should ever get locked up like I was . “Something completely different.”

“Okay,” Tobias whispered. He wasn’t looking up. His hands were folded tightly together as though bracing himself for the blow.

Jake wanted Toby to look at him. He wanted Toby to believe him. No one else did, but of all the people in his life, Toby was the one that Jake most wanted to trust him.

He cupped Toby’s hands between his own like they were a fragile bird, stroking the back of his knuckles, until Toby looked up at him. “I’m gonna get you out of here. I’m gonna get you out of Freak Camp if it’s the last thing I do.”

Tobias stared. He blinked a couple of times, and then shook his head, hard, like he had water in his ears.

“J-J-Jake, don’t joke about . . .” Jake saw Toby’s chest rising and falling rapidly, and were those tears? “Please don’t say things—”

“I’m gonna get you out.” Toby had to believe him.

Suddenly, in Jake’s fourteen years, this was the most important goal he’d ever had.

He had let down a lot of people lately, but Toby had to believe that Jake would never let him down as long as there was one more breath in his body.

“That’s not me fucking with you. That’s a promise. ”

Tobias stared. “Jake . . . you can’t. I mean, I know you’ll try, but you can’t take a monster out. And I’m just . . .”

“I’m gonna do it, Toby. Just you watch. I gave you my word, didn’t I?” And you don’t deserve to be here.

“You did. I just don’t . . .” Tobias shook his head again, then took a deep breath. When he looked up, he had tears in his eyes, but Jake could see no trace of doubt or the panic that had been there before. “It’s hard to believe,” he whispered. “It’s hard . . .”

“You don’t have to believe,” Jake told him. “Because I’m gonna make it happen, and then it won’t be a fucking fairy tale, it’ll be real.”

Once Toby was out, Jake would make sure he was safe forever. He would make damn sure no one would ever be able to make Toby afraid again.

And everyone else could go to hell, as long as he had Toby.