Page 38 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

Toby gasped again, now from shock, and his body jerked back, though he didn’t try to wrench his arm away again.

Jake didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on a series of small, circular burns on the inside of Toby’s forearms, two of them still shiny and pink, the others darker and scabbed over.

Turning his head, Jake saw they formed a smiley face.

Only after Jake had stood up, and Tobias had twisted his body as far away as he could with Jake’s hand locked around his arm, was Jake aware of moving at all. His breath came slow and steady, and his voice only sounded a little tight as he asked, “Who did that to you?”

Toby was trembling, his head bent so close to the table that nothing of his face was visible. He didn’t answer.

Jake felt his tenuous control slipping. He seized Tobias’s shoulder with his free hand, shaking him and shouting, “Who did it, Tobias?”

Even as his head rocked back, Tobias kept his eyes tightly shut. “K-K-Karl,” he choked out.

Jake released him, pushing back from the table hard enough to knock over his chair as he left the room.

Karl was assisting another interrogation in Room Four. He had just slid a hot, blessed knife into the vampire’s stomach when Jake Hawthorne kicked in the door.

“What the fuck—” He backed away from the vampire alongside the other interrogator, a hunter.

Jake grabbed a red-hot iron poker—also blessed—from the burner and advanced, a blank and wild look in his eyes.

When the hunter tried to charge him, Jake punched him hard in the jaw and sent him smashing into the burner, scattering coals and ash over the floor. Then Jake grabbed Karl by the collar.

“Why the fuck did you do it?” he snarled. “You get your jollies marking up kids like Toby? What the fuck did he do? Can you tell me one fucking thing he did, you sadistic son of a bitch?”

Karl clawed at Jake’s hand, his eyes widening when he couldn’t break the grip. “Let me go, you crazy bastard! Put that fucking poker down!”

Jake pushed him away and Karl dropped, going for the knife he’d left in the vampire.

Jake swung the poker around, tip glowing, and cracked it into Karl’s chest and shoulder.

He heard bones crack, probably the collarbone, maybe a rib, but he could still see the red wounds on Toby’s arm—not just those fucking burns, but welts and cuts and old scars that had faded into his skin—and then it wasn’t fucking enough to break a few bones.

He stepped, hard, on Karl’s broken shoulder.

“I’m gonna mark you up, you son of a bitch,” he said. He pressed the glowing end of the poker to the guard’s face.

Karl screamed, and other guards burst into the interrogation room, ready to subdue the threat.

It took three men to pull Jake off.

They were better than the cops he’d fought off when he was thirteen, but they still had to punch the air out of his lungs before they could manhandle him to a room in the nearest administration office.

Makes sense , Jake thought. You have more experience beating up children.

After throwing him into the room, they closed and locked the door behind him.

The deep blue carpeting, hardwood desk and bookshelves, and leather chairs were a striking contrast from the bare gray room and steel table and chairs where he had been talking with Toby.

The doors were just as solid as the rest of the furniture.

The only thing in common between the interrogation room and this one was that they were both designed so nothing could get out.

Jake straightened slowly, feeling the new bruises on his jaw and trying to catch his breath.

The door burst open under the force of his cousin Matthew Dixon, who slammed the door behind him. The fury in his face stiffened Jake’s back.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Jake?” Matthew searched for words to describe his outrage and couldn’t come up with anything. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Jake glared back. Who the fuck did Matthew think he was, his father?

“Let me get this clear. You met with your particular freak, 89UI-whatever, in Room Three. Then you charged into Room Four, knocked out a hunter—also legally interrogating a monster, by the way—beat a guard, and then burned him with a poker. Have I left anything out?”

Jake folded his arms and stared stonily back. He had no obligation to explain himself to these Dixons.

“Look, you might have gotten away with that when Uncle Elijah was Director, but Jonah’s not going to put up with shit like this.

You have problems with the staff, you take it up outside of FREACS.

You have problems with the monsters, you file the fucking paperwork.

” Matthew studied Jake’s hardened expression, and he shook his head.

“You really do think you’re something, don’t you? You and your old man both.”

“What’re you trying to say?” Jake snapped.

Matthew lifted his hands, palms out. “Nothing! Jesus, kid, you need to get into anger management.”

“ I need to? I’m not the one who’s fucking torturing kids!”

Matthew’s eyes narrowed. “Monster kids, Hawthorne. Did you forget that?”

Jake hissed, fingers still itching to smash, break something .

He was still so angry, could still feel the fury pounding in his blood.

He didn’t give a fuck what Matthew was saying, what arguments they had—he couldn’t stand the thought that these bastards had been hurting Toby while Jake had been away shooting stuff and getting laid. “You have no fucking right.”

Matthew started to laugh, then cut himself off.

“We have every fucking right, Hawthorne. Then again, you and your old man never did get on the family boat, did you?” With his forefinger he mimed shooting a gun between Jake’s eyes.

“Uncle Sam wants you .” He laughed again, and then paused with a thoughtful, intent look.

“What’re you saying? You want to lay some kind of . . . claim to this particular monster?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “Yes, I do.”

Matthew’s eyebrows shot up, his mouth forming a thoughtful little O. “Well then. You should’ve filed the fucking paperwork, asshole. Or said something. I mean, we’d noticed how you always went after him, but Hawthorne Senior said—”

“This has nothing to do with my dad,” Jake interrupted. “Tobias is mine. Got that? He’s mine . Gimme whatever shit papers you need to get that through your skulls. I don’t want any of you sons of bitches touching him.”

Matthew smirked. “Touching him? My, my, I had no idea, Hawthorne. How does Dad feel about that?”

“Shut your mouth, Dixon. Did you hear me? Tobias is mine .” Every time Jake said it, he felt better, more certain that this was the way the world should work, Toby being his .

“Yeah, yeah.” Matthew moved to his desk.

“We’ll put a note on his file. But this doesn’t get you off the hook, Jake.

We respect hunters’ . . . interests when we can, but legally, all the monsters belong to us, and we treat them according to our discretion.

You have zero right to assault an employee who’s only doing his job, and you don’t get special treatment just because you’re Sally’s son.

” He ignored how Jake tightened his fists.

“You’re just lucky the Director isn’t here today.

He’d chew up your ass and spit out your tailbone.

I’m making a report suspending you from FREACS for the next eight weeks, and as soon as you leave this office, you’ll be escorted out of the facility.

Next time you come, don’t fucking shove pokers in the faces of my staff. ”

“What? No.” Jake took half a step forward. “I need to see Tobias again before—”

Matthew cut him off. “With the shit you pulled today, you’re lucky we’re letting you back in at all.

Trust me, this is light, because you’re young, stupid, and family, but don’t expect to slide like this again.

” He considered. “I could cut your suspension down to four weeks from eight weeks, maybe, if you apologized to Karl—”

“When your tits freeze in hell,” Jake snapped.

“Yeah, didn’t think so.” Matthew shrugged. “Get out of my sight, Hawthorne. Take some time to cool off. You’ve got the license, you’re a real hunter now, so be professional and cut out the tantrums. Try not to mutilate anyone on the way out.”

Jake glowered at Matthew, contemplating the satisfaction of punching him into his fancy wooden bookshelves versus leaving with dignity.

Eventually, more for Toby’s sake, so everyone would take Jake seriously— I’ll be back, Toby, sorry I fucked up today —he left quietly, albeit with a few snarls for the guards to keep their hands off of him, and didn’t look back.

***

A fter Jake had gone , slamming the solid iron-reinforced door on his way out, Tobias collapsed into his chair and shook.

What had he done? How had he made Jake so angry?

It was just cigarette burns. He shouldn’t have flinched, that was clear, but he hadn’t expected Jake to squeeze right where the pink burns were still raw and tender.

Karl had given eyes to the smile barely a day ago when Tobias’s performance had disappointed.

The worst part, the absolute worst, was that he had only jumped because he had let his guard down—shit, being with Jake was the only time he allowed himself to relax, and yet when he had the most to lose—and then when it hurt , he hadn’t been able to stop the reaction.

He wanted to hear the end of the story. He wanted to keep watching Jake smile.

He wanted to tell him about the last book he had been allowed to read that wasn’t about monsters.

It had been about vehicles, and there had been a section about altering motorcycle engines to get the maximum speed out of the vehicle.

Maybe Jake knew how the information could be applied to the Eldorado.

And even if he didn’t, he would have cared .

But instead Tobias was alone in Interrogation Room Three with nothing to do but think. He had been in here when they asked him if he ever had visions, psychic projections, nightmares that became real. There had been a specialized rack, and they had pinned his arms—

Tobias jerked his mind away—interrogations weren’t that often and best forgotten as fast as possible—and focused hard on the chair Jake had knocked over on his way out.

He’d been so angry, terrifyingly angry. Tobias’s neck felt strained from Jake’s shaking, and the wounds on his arm and shoulder hurt where Jake had gripped him.

Tobias didn’t dare think that was all Jake was going to do to him.

He didn’t know why Jake had been angry, but there had been so much rage on his face that Tobias felt nauseated just thinking about it.

Maybe he’d come back with a rod or a whip to punish Tobias for whatever it was.

That would be the kind of beating that he could get any day from any guard. It wouldn’t be so bad.

But the longer Jake stayed away, the more Tobias just wanted him to come back. Bring the hot irons, the flaying knives, the boiling holy water. Bring the clamps, the flails, the tasers. Just please, don’t leave and never come back.

Maybe he had known just by looking at the smiley face what Tobias had done.

Karl had said the first time, when he began the shape of the mouth, that it could either be a smiley face or a frowny face, that Tobias could either be a good boy or a bad boy.

So Tobias had been good to Karl and Lonny and Dave and that hunter who had asked the questions, and Karl had kept his word.

Maybe Jake knew all that just from looking at the little smile (“You were a good boy, Pretty Freak. Just gonna mark down my smile to remind you to keep being a good boy”), and he was so disgusted he would never come back.

Tobias sat alone in the room, in the silence. He did his best not to move, not to twitch, not to show his panic or his fear. It was all he could do not to scratch at the healing burns as though if he could rip them off his arm, like a shifter, Jake would come back.

It had been at least two hours—Tobias had started counting once it was clear that Jake wasn’t coming back soon —when the door opened.

Tobias had been analyzing the floor, tracing out pictures in the faded bloodstains the way Jake had taught him to do with clouds, and he looked up hopefully, but it was Victor.

Tobias swallowed and let his mind blank.

“Get up, freak.”

Tobias stood and walked to the guard. Victor snapped a flimsy leash onto his collar.

“The hunter’s gone?” Tobias asked. He’d wrestled with the risks of asking at all, but he had to know. He wasn’t stupid enough to use Jake’s name.

Victor scowled and slapped him, but not hard, not even hard enough to rattle his teeth. Weird. “Hawthorne Junior’s gone, freak. Must have decided he didn’t want your ass today.”

Tobias’s mouth went dry. Jake’s gone, Jake’s gone . He seized onto the only word that gave him even a shadow of hope. “Today, sir?”

Victor raised his club, and Tobias braced himself—Victor always hit where it would reopen his knife wounds—but after a moment’s hesitation, he lowered it.

“Fucking Hawthorne,” he muttered with venom.

He tugged on Tobias’s collar with the lead line, and Tobias followed him from the room.

“You better keep doing whatever the fuck you do to keep Hawthorne obsessed with your ass, freak. Because the second he’s gone, we’re going to feed you to Karl, and he’s going to take every inch of his pain out of your hide. ”

Tobias knew that should probably frighten him. He didn’t know what he did that kept Jake happy, or why Karl was in pain, and uncertainties like that could get you killed in Freak Camp.

All he understood was that Jake had left, but he would be back.

It wasn’t a great day. It would have been better to be able to spend more time with Jake, but he wasn’t gone forever, so it wasn’t bad at all.

When he walked back into the yard, all the guards were acting jumpy around him, didn’t look at him long, and not one touched him. They seemed to go out of their way to avoid any contact.

And that made it a good day too.