Page 35 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

The guards burst in, clubbing down anything that moved hard enough to break bone, and Tobias stopped fighting the second a guard appeared in front of him.

Silas Dixon slammed his club into Tobias’s diaphragm and dropped him to the floor, gasping.

The other monsters—those that needed an extra blow to be incapacitated—had more than the breath knocked out of them.

The guards dragged them out to the yard. Tobias pushed aside his moment of relief that he didn’t see Kayla among them.

When Tobias was chained to a whipping post, back-to-back with another monster so that all the brawlers could be strung up, he saw that Celler had both legs twisted at unnatural angles.

After stringing them up, the guards did a little more work on the instigators. Tobias got punched repeatedly in the stomach and across the face, and he could hear Celler making harsh, choking noises a few posts over.

The guards left them eventually. The icy wind cut through Tobias’s thin clothes, and the only warmth came from the shifter chained at his back. Even the floodlights and stars Tobias could barely pick out in the dark night made it seem colder.

I hope dawn comes quickly , Tobias thought, hands numb. But he knew it wouldn’t.

***

T he next morning after roll call, all the combatants were whipped. Silas pushed Tobias’s shirt up over his head ( “Can’t scar that pretty mouth, can we?”) without unchaining him.

After assembly and breakfast, the troublemakers were left on the whipping posts and the rest of the monsters from their barracks were herded back into lockdown and chained to their bunks, the same way they had spent the night after the fight.

Tobias hoped the guards hadn’t been taking their anger out on the other monsters.

It would only make life that much harder if they wanted revenge.

Kayla found him days later, when he had finally gotten back the full use of his hands, though any kind of movement still set his back aflame in pain.

She had a slightly different face, less pretty and innocent than her original one.

Nothing the guards would notice and cut her open for, but Tobias saw and approved.

She sat next to him and didn’t look at him—not directly, at least. Tobias caught quick, furtive glances his direction.

That was okay. If anyone noticed, they’d think she was afraid, and fear was acceptable.

Much safer, for both of them, if people thought that their relationship was based on fear and not on . . . whatever else it might be based on.

It was stupid to care about other monsters. He wasn’t strong enough to be Becca, and he had no faith that this shifter girl would survive him. She was still fresh meat.

“I hid,” she whispered.

“Good.”

She shifted her plate slightly. She hadn’t licked it clean. She should learn to do that soon. “You didn’t say what I owe you. For the blanket.”

“I didn’t do it because I care,” Tobias said harshly. He couldn’t afford to care. And he didn’t. He wouldn’t. “The guards come in whenever someone’s being noisy or shifting. Sometimes they just beat the shit out of the instigator, sometimes they chain everybody to the bed and—”

“Like lockdown,” she said.

Tobias nodded.

“Still, you could have just hit me,” she whispered.

Don’t think about it . “Might not have worked.”

“You told me to hide. You saved me again. What do I owe you? I know I do.”

Tobias thought. He wanted to say it didn’t matter—it disgusted him to think of taking anything from her, even her food—but it did matter.

If she hadn’t asked this, he would have just walked away and it would have been that much easier, later, to listen to her screaming under the guards.

Easier when she started calling him freak bitch and whore .

Now he had to care, if only the same way he cared about anything that could keep him alive or kill him.

“We helped each other,” he said at last. “I protected myself by giving you a blanket so you’d stop crying. You jumped Celler because of the blanket. I told you to hide because you jumped Celler.”

Kayla looked like she knew he was giving her an easy deal. “I still owe you.”

If not for you, I’d be a vamp right now. “We’re not friends,” Tobias told himself as much as her. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.” The big words helped him distance himself.

“What’s that mean?”

“I help you, you help me. We keep owing each other favors.”

“So . . . we keep helping, and it’ll even out in the end?” Kayla asked, and he nodded. “I’ll save you some day.”

Tobias flinched. No one was saving anyone in Freak Camp. The only person who would ever save him— maybe, possibly, please —was Jake. “Whatever.”

Tobias stared at his empty plate—the guards were taking their time kicking the monsters out of the mess hall today—until he came to a decision. If they were ( not friends) combining resources to survive, he might as well tell her now. At least he might not have to hear her scream.

“When Crusher comes for you,” he said, “don’t fight, don’t struggle, don’t cry, don’t make a sound. Sometimes if you’re silent,” blank, absent , “they get tired and they finish faster, they come back less often.”

She stared. “Silent.”

“It’s best if you can blank out . . . separate . . . like you’re not even there. So you don’t have to think about it.”

He couldn’t read the expression in her shapeshifter eyes. She looked away, down, and nodded.

He hoped the things that kept him alive would help her as well. Only because she still owed him and it would be nice, however briefly, to have a monster willing to take his advice.

And maybe— don’t get your hopes up, Tobias, the fight was a one-time thing, she owed you —to watch his back.