Page 5 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

Most of the blind terror that had suffocated her since her arrest—and through the long, sleepless hours of trial and transportation—bled out after they sawed off her right hand.

Two months later, a new shipment of monsters arrived, including a little boy, maybe five years old—one of the youngest she had seen behind these walls.

His look of wide-eyed innocence and tousled sandy hair jarred horribly with the new leather collar bound around his neck.

He was still crying and tugging at it when she found him curled in a bunk, face pressed into a torn, stained blanket.

He already sported a blackened eye, though whether it was from the trip or the unloading process, she didn’t know.

Tobias was a gift, though a bittersweet one.

A child his age should have been anywhere but Freak Camp, and she felt sick when she thought of the cruelty in store for him.

At least she had knowingly broken the law, taken the risks; Tobias and the other children who were born with strange abilities or had been victims of attacks hadn’t done anything to deserve this nightmare of a life sentence.

But now she had a focus, a reason to be thankful she had been stupid and gotten caught.

This was what she had wanted so badly, and though Tobias had not been born to her, she had paid for him in pain and blood, and in turn she was the only one looking out for him now.

He would never see his real, human family again.

And if he were going to live to see his next birthday, he needed her.

Everything she had once dreamed of doing for a child of her own was impossible here.

No shopping for clothes as he grew, no enrolling him in swimming lessons and soccer leagues.

She couldn’t even plan on helping him through adolescence.

Monsters—especially one-handed witches, weaker than even the average human on the outside—didn’t last long in Freak Camp, and she couldn’t count on being there long for Tobias, to do everything she could to ensure he lasted longer than she would.

But even while she bargained and fought for the best food she could get for Tobias, watched him scarf it down and turn to her with wide eyes to ask for more, she couldn’t escape the thought that if she really cared for him, she would be negotiating for a lethal dose of morphine instead.

One quick injection would be Tobias’s ticket out of the camp, the only possible escape besides Special Research and the incinerator.

She would be saving him years of pain and abuse, of growing up to be the guards’ plaything, punching bag, and worse.

But every time she thought of ending it, even gently pushing her folded blanket down over his face while he slept, holding it hard until he moved no more, she knew that she couldn’t do it.

It might have been the most selfish choice she had ever made, but she could not kill this child, could not take the one bright piece of joy and love out of her life.

Unable to make the truly merciful choice, she went for the second-best option: equipping Tobias to survive.

She taught Tobias to keep quiet, to obey quickly and without questions, to avoid attracting attention.

She taught him not to run to her or hug her in public, not to show what he wanted, not to want.

He was a monster, she told him, and this was how monsters were treated and must behave.

There was nothing he or anyone else could do to change it.

She could tell he was a smart child. He listened, and though he didn’t understand at first, the lessons sank in.

He did what she taught him, and it made life a little easier for them.

That was all Rebecca had to console herself that now, finally, she mattered.

She didn’t feel the need to atone for what she’d done, all the curses she’d cast, but she was glad that at last in her life, she was doing real good.

She tried to protect Tobias in every way she could, which was usually about preparing for the worst. When he had food, she warned him there might not be much more.

When the guards ignored him for a few days, she reminded him that he might get a beating tomorrow for nothing more than looking at them wrong.

When the weather was bearable, she reminded him that in the night it would be too cold, that the next day it could be too hot.

She tried to train him not to have expectations, because then he wouldn’t be broken when they were stripped away. She taught him to fear everything, to accept fear as an everyday condition, and how, when the things he feared came to pass, to make them not matter.

Somehow she kept him alive and as healthy as it was possible to be in Freak Camp, even when there wasn’t enough food to go around, even when that hunter’s kid started talking to Tobias.

Of all the threats facing them every day, that one terrified her the most. Attention from hunters—whether they were grown sadists like Victor or baby hunters like Hawthorne’s son—meant nothing good for her or Tobias.

Tobias believed it all, that the world could always get worse, but she never quite managed to get him to fear the other boy, who could have had him whipped or killed at a word. She just hoped that the first human child he’d met wouldn’t be the thing that broke him.

***

“S o, Jake. What did you learn today?”

Jake straightened, dropping his Game Boy onto the motel bedspread.

Dad sat at the small table, writing in his leather notebook.

Jake always hated that question when it came from a teacher, but when Dad asked, it was different.

Mrs. Morales only asked because she wanted Jake to say he’d learned some dumb lesson about playing nice with the other kids, but when Dad asked, it was important.

“Freak Camp’s got top-notch security for all kinds of supernaturals. They organize all their buildings based on what kind of monster is allowed inside. They’ve never had a runaway.” And I learned baby monsters exist.

“What’d you notice about the guards?”

“They seemed pretty cool. Like they knew what they were doing. None of the monsters could scare them.”

“Yeah? Did you notice any of them slacking off, any weaknesses?”

Jake paused. “The one who walked us around, Officer Todd. Sometimes he wasn’t as careful as the others. He’d stare at one thing for a while instead of always looking around.”

Dad nodded.

Jake hesitated. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask Dad what he’d learned in Freak Camp, but he knew that would go nowhere. Instead he asked, “Where to next? Are we picking up the trail of that weird-ass pixie with a thing for Taco Bell?”

Dad snorted. “Back to Albuquerque with you. You’ve got a week or two of school to catch up on.”

“Aww, Dad! I thought we were going to Vegas. Just one night? It’s on the way.”

Dad didn’t give an inch. He never did. “Nope. This time you’re finishing the whole school year in one place. And you’ll keep a lower profile than you did in Kentucky. No more wise-ass ghost stories that get the teachers asking questions.”

Jake fell back on the bed. “Can’t I just, like, be homeschooled? That way no one would notice me.”

Dad huffed out a laugh. “You think I can pull that off while tracking down freaks? Or like you’d actually do your homework without anyone checking it? I don’t think so. What kind of hunter do you think you’d be if you don’t finish fifth grade?”

“Loads of good hunters probably didn’t. Like the ones in the Middle Ages.”

“And they dropped dead after their first flesh wound because they had no idea how to wash or sterilize anything. Or how to calculate fractions when you’re running out of ammo and need to make every ounce of salt count.”

Jake sighed loudly. “Can we at least go see Roger in T or C?”

Dad paused. “Yeah, why the hell not? Bastard’s always got a new book or something no one’s seen yet. Wouldn’t hurt to swing by.”

***

I n Truth or Consequences , New Mexico, it wasn’t unusual for heat waves to shimmer over the land. In Roger Harper’s scrapyard of gutted-out cars, the heat could radiate into something like a furnace on the worst summer days.

This September evening wasn’t so bad as Roger sat on his porch and kept a cold can for company, sorting through his basket of black-market amulets, until he looked up at the rumble of a black Eldorado turning into his drive.

The Hawthornes never did call in advance.

Roger stood and stepped to the top of the porch steps as the Eldorado came to a stop and the driver’s door swung open, followed a moment later by the passenger door. Leon’s tread was slow and deliberate, but Jake raced ahead of him, backpack bouncing, taking the porch steps two at a time.

“Hey, Rog!”

“Hey, kid.” Roger ruffled his hair, even as Jake tried to duck.

The screen door slapped shut behind Jake as Leon reached the first step, brow furrowed as he looked up at Roger. “Harper.”

“Hawthorne. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Leon shrugged one shoulder and made his way up the steps, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Intel swap. Like always.”

Roger rolled his eyes as Leon moved past him, then turned to follow him into the house. “Right.”

Jake had grabbed a Mexican Coke from the fridge and was already settled before the TV, lounging on the floor with his back against the couch as he flipped through the channels. Leon and Roger moved into the kitchen, where Roger withdrew two beers and passed one over.

“Just got back from Nevada,” Leon said.

Roger’s eyebrows quirked. “How’d Vegas treat you?”

Leon shook his head, then swigged his beer. “Winnemucca.”

Roger paused. “You mean Freak Camp? You?”

“Yeah, me.” Leon set his beer on the kitchen table and crossed his arms, still staring into the living room. “Knew I had to sooner or later.”

Roger took that in. “So you got a lead?”

Leon didn’t answer.