Page 30 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

For a second it was hard to breathe, but not because he was in pain or because he felt faint from hunger.

It was because of Jake, who looked so embarrassed but happy.

Because Jake was good to him all the time and didn’t expect anything from Tobias.

He just did it because he cared. Tobias knew this was true because Jake never pointed out when he was doing kind things, things Tobias would never be able to repay.

He just did them and didn’t ask for anything in return.

Tobias clenched his hand in his shirt to keep from reaching for Jake. His fingers were coated in salt from the chips, plus a little sauce from the roast beef sandwich, and he didn’t want to repay Jake by dirtying his jacket.

No chance he could ever find the right words, but he swallowed and said, “You’re the best,” as authoritatively as he could, sure of this one fact.

Jake was not only the best person in his life, but probably in the whole world.

Tobias wasn’t sure if anyone else knew it the way he did, though, and that was a strange thought.

A freak shouldn’t be the only one who knows how awesome Jake was.

Surely there were lots of other reals outside who did too and treated Jake like he deserved, the same way he treated Tobias.

As they finished the food, Jake told him about his and his dad’s last hunt for a ghoul that had crossed four state lines and evaded three Dixon hunting squads.

“So get this, the news reports made it sound like a pack of rabid bobcats, and all the stupid ASC intel said it looked like it had four legs. I told Dad that none of them would know a ghoul if it ate their entire ass, they’ve never made tracks like that before—”

“Unless it’s a ghoul-type hyena,” Tobias said, then caught himself—why was he such a stupid, insolent freak that he interrupted and corrected Jake —but then Jake gave him a dazzling grin and snapped his fingers.

“Dude, that’s it! You could’ve wrapped up the whole hunt the first day. But no one remembered that! Not me, not Dad, not all the goddamn Dixons in the country. Shit, I should have you on speed dial—” Jake stopped short and looked away, color rising in his cheeks again.

Abruptly Tobias felt sick. He was such a stupid little freak ruining one of his best days, his few precious hours with Jake. “I’m sorry, Jake. I shouldn’t have said—”

Jake met his eyes again with a crooked smile that still looked real. “Nah, it’s not you, Toby. You’re a badass genius. I just wish I really could—you know.”

Tobias wasn’t sure he did know, but he didn’t dare say anything else, hoping if he kept his mouth shut, they could recapture the light mood of just a minute ago.

To his relief, when Jake smiled at him again, it was as genuine as it had been when he first saw Tobias. “So, there we were sitting like jackasses, waiting for the next attack...”

Once or twice, a guard or staffer passing by would stop and stare at them, but Jake glared, and then they went away.

Tobias didn’t know if Jake had this power because he was a hunter, or a Hawthorne, or just because he was Jake.

With him Tobias felt safe, and it felt like some of that protection stayed with Tobias even when Jake was gone.

An hour later, feeling unnaturally, pleasantly full, as well as a buzzing kind of lightness through his whole body that he could only guess was happiness , the way reals felt it—Tobias sensed someone staring at him.

He looked up from their card game expecting a guard, and instead he saw Leon Hawthorne.

Tobias forgot all his lessons in survival and stared, terrified.

Maybe this was how the fresh meat felt with the regular guards.

He trembled from that stare alone, and he could feel the cards slipping from his hands.

He forced his eyes down and swore at himself.

Freaks didn’t look at guards or hunters.

Above all, freaks didn’t invite attention by showing fear.

Especially now, when it could cost him so much more than a beating.

He tried to think of a way to warn Jake that right behind him stood the only person in the whole camp, maybe in the whole world, who could hurt Jake.

If Jake was punished because Tobias had contaminated him just by sitting next to him, dealing him cards, and reaching into the same bag of chips, Tobias didn’t know how he would ever be able to look at Jake again.

Maybe that was why Jake had been tense and unhappy before. Tobias hadn’t seen any welts, scars, burns, cuts, bruises, or even the stiffness that he got sometimes after a beating or other punishment, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

Maybe if Jake hit Tobias now, treating him like a monster deserved, he would be safe, and Leon Hawthorne wouldn’t take his disgust out on his son.

“Tobias, what’s wrong?” Jake reached for his shoulder.

Tobias pulled away, afraid of Jake’s father seeing the way Jake touched him—gently, kindly, without pain. Only then did it occur to him that he should have flinched.

“Your father,” Tobias whispered, keeping his eyes locked on his hands and the fallen cards. The jack of clubs looked up at him with one eye. “You can hit me if you—”

Jake swung around. “Dad! What are you doing here?”

Leon Hawthorne’s eyes shifted between his son and Tobias, the scowl never altering. “ASC’s full of assholes.”

“Yeah.” Jake dragged out the word, like it was a basic fact that didn’t require acknowledging. “But I thought you were in Special Research all day.”

“The interrogation protocols are biased in favor of the fucking Dixons, and they’re trying to tell me I have to come back another fucking time to finish my . . . research. I’m here to find someone whose ass I can shove those protocols in and see if they get as pissed as I am. What are you doing?”

Jake shrugged and gestured between him and Tobias. “Just talking.” He straightened defensively. “It’s research of my own. Can’t I research while you do? It’s the same thing, isn’t it, you talking to monsters, me talking to Tob—other monsters?”

Tobias didn’t look up, but he could feel Leon Hawthorne’s eyes boring into his head. He hoped that maybe if he didn’t move or speak, Leon would forget he had been there, contaminating his son.

Leon jerked his head. “Come on, pack your stuff.”

Jake jumped up and scrambled to sweep up the deck of cards. His hands brushed Tobias’s, and Tobias jumped. “We’re leaving? New hunt?”

“No, we’re not leaving, but you’re not staying here.”

Jake paused in the act of shoving cards and wrappers into his duffel. “Dad, if we’re not leaving . . .”

“You should learn how this shit Dixon administration works.” When Jake didn’t move, Leon took a step closer. “Jake, you’re coming with me now.”

Jake straightened like he’d been slapped, but his expression was still sullen, angry. “Yes, sir.”

He continued packing up, but more slowly. Tobias was glad that anger had never been directed at him, and he marveled at Jake’s bravery, that he could be angry toward a hunter like his father. Maybe it was something that came with being a real person, or maybe it was just Jake.

“ Now , Jake,” Leon said.

“I’m coming already.” Jake zipped the duffel closed and swung it over his shoulder. “See you later, Toby.”

“No, you won’t,” Leon said, and Tobias felt his lungs seize up for the second time that day.

But Jake didn’t even flinch. “Well, maybe not today.” He glanced at Tobias, but the next words were still directed at Leon. “But I’ll be back sometime.”

If anything, Leon’s scowl deepened. “Come on.”

“Toby needs to—” Jake began, but his father cut him off.

“The freak can find his own way back to the yard. Go , Jake.”

Jake was sullen and pissed off, but to Tobias’s surprise he didn’t look afraid. “Yes, sir,” he muttered, and walked past his father deeper into Administration.

Tobias expected Leon to follow, but he stood there looking at Tobias, long enough to stop his breath in his chest.

Just when Tobias had resigned himself to being whipped—at least beaten or kicked a couple of times—Leon Hawthorne turned and strode off after Jake.

Tobias breathed a sigh of relief and stole out of Administration, careful not to let anyone else see him.

***

O n any given October 30th, if the Hawthornes weren’t on a hunt or in the hospital, they found themselves in a bar.

This year it was the Crossroads Inn, and Leon was halfway to drunk on the hardest whiskey he could buy.

Leon was an old-school hunter, an ex-Marine who had entered the great fight against inhuman threats after his wife died at the turning point of the war, when the things crawling in the dark suddenly came into the light.

He was a hard man to get to know—he had few friends, and those he had he tended to piss off—but everyone knew that with a weapon in his hand, Leon Hawthorne was one of the most frightening things the monsters would ever see.

Jerry Bentham took a seat next to the hero and bought him a few rounds of drinks. It was an honor. And, drunk enough, perhaps Leon might let slip some secrets, some insights that—beside his ruthless obsession—had made him the best.

“Where’s your boy?” Bentham asked, gesturing for another pair of whiskeys. “He’s, what, fourteen, fifteen now?”

Leon gave a bark of laughter. “Almost seventeen and growing like a goddamn beanstalk. He was here, you saw him. Left with a girl.”

Bentham blinked. He’d noticed the kid who had a couple of drinks with Hawthorne and then left with the hot blonde on his arm.

He hadn’t looked twenty-one, but he sure as hell hadn’t looked sixteen.

Sixteen was the age of high school drama and pimples, not that cold-eyed assessment of the room and the brazen confidence in his smile at the girl.

“Damn, Hawthorne, you’ve got a good kid there. Lucky all the way around. I’ve even heard you’ve reserved yourself a damn fine piece of monster ass. Good stuff.”