Page 40 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

She laughed shortly. “Don’t say that, now. You don’t know how much that could be worth here in the Beltway, let alone the paparazzi. But I’m not about to sell out family.”

Jake had never been so thankful for a Dixon to call him family.

***

W hen Jake finally got back into Freak Camp—eight fucking weeks had never felt so much like forever—he thought at first they were hassling him because of what he’d done to Karl ( sonuvabitch deserved a lot worse ).

They took the blood tests a hell of a lot more seriously, dumped a cup of holy water over his head, and read an exorcism.

They did an honest-to-God pat down when he was going through security, and for once they didn’t allow him to keep his gun or his knife when he went through.

The standard-issue bayonet they gave him—loaded with a mix of blessed silver and iron buckshot, topped with a silver blade—felt like cheap shit in his hand.

They tried to give him shit about the sandwich too, but they let him pass eventually. Jake kept his opinion of their asswipery behind his teeth and did his best to smile. If it looked a little like he was baring his teeth, well, that was okay too.

Only when he stepped out into the yard—no private rooms were being issued without prior appointments, according to the new cold-eyed Dixon secretary sitting in Madison’s chair—did he realize that maybe it was about more than just him.

The guards were all heavily armed and sweating under the extra weight of flak jackets.

A lot fewer monsters were in the yard, and any that seemed too close to a guard got a cuff to the head or a club against the ribs.

Jake saw two monsters get knocked down in the short walk from Reception to the barracks area.

When he asked where to find Toby—89UI6703, the sandy-haired guard with a scrape along his scalp told him to “find the freak yourself.”

Jake felt something in him relax, a fear that had been growing in his chest. He hadn’t seen Tobias anywhere, and there were so few monsters in the yard, and clearly, some kind of shit had gone down.

He found him eventually. Toby was huddled with a group of monsters in a narrow strip of shade between the barracks, but the second he saw Jake, his eyes widened and he scrambled up toward him, into the light.

First Jake saw Toby’s expression: massive relief washing over with happiness. Then Jake saw the damage.

The sunlight, so bright that Jake was squinting even through his sunglasses, brought into sharp relief the blue-and-purple bruise along Toby’s cheek.

He was limping too. Not obviously, but Jake could tell from watching Dad—and practicing it himself often enough—that Toby was placing every step carefully to avoid showing weakness.

Jake hissed, stepping forward. “What the hell happened, Toby?” Not getting enough information last time had landed him in that eight-week shithole.

This time he wasn’t going to fucking abandon Toby in some interrogation room.

This time he would be calm, collected. He would gather information and be polite while filling out whatever forms it took to beat the fuck’s face in.

Or at least he would wait until the guy was off work to jump him.

See, Jake Hawthorne could be rational and professional. Suck that, Matthew.

Toby stopped, and Jake got a glimpse of the smile vanishing under pure fright before Toby dropped his gaze to the ground.

Immediately Jake felt like the complete ass he was.

Sure, eight weeks had sucked for him. But that had been plenty of time to think of how Toby hadn’t known what the hell was going on, and Jake had just left him.

Jake was trying to put together an apology when Toby answered.

“There was a . . . raid. About two weeks ago. Monsters tried to . . . I don’t know, we’ve been in lockdown and high security since they tried to breach the loading gate, and .

. . I’m sorry I don’t know more, Jake. I’m sorry. ” Toby’s gaze was fixed on the ground.

Aw, fuck. Jake stepped closer and brushed Toby lightly on the arm.

“That’s not what I meant.” Toby’s head snapped up, his eyes wide, but Jake squeezed his shoulder.

Part of him was just relieved that Toby wasn’t flinching from the touch.

Maybe there were no more goddamn fucking smiley faces burned into his skin.

“No, it’s okay. I guess that’s why you look a little knocked around. ”

“I’m sorry.” Tobias’s eyes fell as sure as gravity to somewhere around Jake’s middle.

There was something else going on here, something that Jake didn’t like at all.

But he was afraid that pushing for it would only hurt Toby more.

Like a goddamn burn. “Toby, don’t be. I just meant your face and .

. .” Jake gestured to the leg that Toby had been favoring.

Guards and monsters were watching—not staring directly, but Jake could tell.

He knew from long experience when someone or something was watching him.

Toby looked relieved. He raised a hand to his face, as though making sure that nothing else had happened to his cheek. “Yeah. It’s just because of the raid. Everyone’s been . . . upset.”

“Hey, Toby. Look at me.” Jake waited until he did. “I’m sorry I was gone so long. I lost my temper and . . . Fuck, I’m sorry. I was so pissed off that they’d been hurting you, and I didn’t know—I kinda lost it. They haven’t . . . you’re okay, right? Now, I mean.”

Toby stared at him, stared at him like Jake had spoken only gibberish, and then smiled. It was the smile that put the sunlight to shame. “No, don’t worry, I’m fine. They haven’t . . . they stopped after . . . last time.”

Jake nodded. “Good. They hassle you, Toby, you tell me, okay? I’m sure there’s some paperwork I can fill out to let me smash their faces in.”

Tobias smiled and ducked his head. “Yeah, probably. I’m really okay, Jake. They’ve done nothing I haven’t . . . they’ve done nothing.”

“Good. And it better stay that way.” Jake stretched and wiped his forehead. It was already September, but it was still fucking hot. “Hey, wanna play cards?”

They found a spot in the shade—Jake felt a little bad at how the other monsters scattered out of the cooler spot next to Reception, but when he glanced at the doors to Administration and saw the guards posted there in heavy armor, he figured he probably wouldn’t be able to get himself and Toby inside.

Jake dug in his jacket pockets while Toby shuffled the cards almost as fast as a Vegas dealer.

“Crazy eights?” Toby asked, already dealing five.

“Yeah. Aha!” Jake pulled the squashed sandwich from his pocket and ceremoniously presented it to Toby. “For you.”

Toby froze at the sight of the sandwich, cards fluttering from his hands.

Jake frowned. “Hey, are you okay? I know it’s fish patty, but you never said you had a shellfish allergy . . . Toby?”

Tobias shook himself. “Sorry.” His voice was a little hoarse. “I’ve been . . . eating better lately, and I just . . .”

Jake looked down at the sandwich. He loved bringing Toby food, and he really was happy that Toby had actually been getting enough to eat for a change—but something about Toby’s response felt weird. “Well . . . you still want it, maybe save it for later?”

“Yes, I want it, s—” Tobias said the words by rote, without emotion, until he cut himself off by jerking his head to the side.

He curled in on himself, shrinking his shoulders down with his chin to his chest, and clenched his hands over his knee.

He didn’t seem to notice his grip crushing the queen of hearts, despite how appalled he’d been the last time he thought he’d bent the corner of one of Jake’s cards.

This whole visit was weirding Jake out. Something had happened, and he had no fucking clue what it was. He didn’t know how to ask, and he wasn’t sure what he could do even if Toby gave him an answer.

So he settled for what he knew how to do.

He shoved the sandwich into Toby’s lap and shifted a little closer to him.

“It has tartar sauce on it. I hope that’s cool.

I was going to stop at a burger joint like usual, but I was coming from the other direction and there was this fish shack and I figured, ‘Hey, never got Toby a sandwich from here before,’ so I pulled over, and this chick at the counter asks why I never called her back last week, and I tell her I’ve never even been here before, and she says yeah I was and I ordered, like, twenty double-fish sandwiches, which I didn’t, and why would anybody need twenty of ‘em, and she . . .”

Jake talked, and Toby slowly opened the sandwich, took a bite, and smiled.

Jake talked until Toby had eaten, until he had dealt out the cards—not poker, Jake didn’t feel up to poker, and he didn’t want to bluff to Toby right now—and they played war until the sun had moved a couple of hours in the sky.

Toby was smiling at him, laughing a little with him, and telling him about books he had read and work he had done around the camp.

One book about altering engines sounded like it would make the Eldorado purr, and Jake thought, once again, how amazing it was that Toby could stay here, never leaving, and still be the smartest kid Jake knew.

I’m getting you out of here, Toby . He just didn’t know when. It was time to give Leah another follow-up call.

***

T obias watched Jake leave, one hand tracing his arm where Jake had touched him, over and over again, the taste of tartar sauce on his tongue.

Only when he couldn’t see Jake any more, when the guards started to notice a monster standing suspiciously out alone—monsters had been killed for that during the raids —did he return to the shade.

Kayla was waiting for him. She shoved a werewolf out of the shade and bared her teeth at him when he made a move back to the place that Tobias had taken. Few knew that Kayla could talk, but everyone knew that she could bite.

When Tobias slid down next to her, the cool of the shade compensating for the heat of too many bodies close together, she turned her head slightly, eyes watching everything.

Her lips moved—her lips often moved soundlessly, Tobias had heard some of the guards say they thought she was brain damaged, probably from being under Crusher—but he heard the word.

“Unfucked,” she said.

He gave a short nod, a jerk of his head downward.

Eight weeks, and Jake had still come back to him.

Tobias had lived through the raid and the new interrogations of all monsters—after the scare with the outside attack, the Director suspected that someone on the inside could be feeding information out—and Jake had come back, just to play cards, to give him a sandwich Tobias had paid nothing for. To smile at him.

It never made any sense, but Tobias was still the luckiest son of a bitch in Freak Camp.