Page 53 of Freak Camp (A Monster By Any Other Name #1)

“Call me Alex.” She shook his hand, grip strong and sure, then held the door open wider for him to follow her inside.

She led him to a dining room with several round tables. Crossing to another door, she called, “What can I get you to drink? Iced tea, coffee?”

“Coffee sounds good.” Jake surveyed the room with its mismatched chairs and walls pinned with children’s Sunday school drawings.

She returned with a mug of coffee and a dish of sugars and half-and-half containers, and he shook his head. She lifted her eyebrows. “All right, but it’s bitter as sin, just so you know.” She gestured for him to take a seat at one of the round tables.

Jake took a big swallow and, thanks to his years of intensive training as a hunter, barely avoided making a face. At least not much of a face, as he caught Alex’s grin before she turned back to the kitchen.

She returned with her own coffee mug and set to breaking open and stirring in the half-and-halfs.

Jake watched her, blinked, and realized he was close to dozing off.

He really should’ve slept more and drank less the night before.

Maybe the next few weeks. He took another drink of the coffee and did not wince at all.

He had talked to Alex briefly on the phone back at Roger’s, an awkward get-to-know-you conversation before she agreed to maybe help.

Roger had told him she was as solid as they come and had no love for the ASC or organized anything, so he’d told her his real name.

Out of years of habit, he’d done it the James Bond way— it’s Hawthorne.

Jake Hawthorne —and realized in the next second he never wanted to say it that way again.

She’d played it pretty cool, and he thought now, sitting across the table from her, that she didn’t need to play anything cool.

“So,” she began. “I appreciate what you told me on the phone and for coming out all this way to talk some more before I see how much I can help with this paperwork. Has Roger told you much about me?”

Jake shrugged. “Only that he’d want you at his back in any hunt. And you, uh, got this church.”

She laughed, her eyes wrinkling at the corners. “According to some, I do. Others disagree, but they ain’t managed to kick me out of the building yet. People come here on Sundays if they want to.”

“You . . . preach?”

“I try. I get up there and talk and read Scripture and tell everyone how I messed up but aim to do better tomorrow. I don’t go on as long as some, and I think that helps.”

“I don’t believe in God.” Jake hadn’t meant to say that, but something about her calm, matter-of-fact demeanor moved him to tell her the truth.

“I was never part of any church, but we visited them often enough for the holy water and blessed silver and whatever. There’s some reason why those things work against werewolves and shapeshifters, but why does salt melt a slug?

Nothing I’ve seen has convinced me there’s a god managing everything behind the scenes.

If there is, he’s got a bad sense of humor. ”

Alex nodded, unperturbed. “I see plenty of reason for that. It takes a lot to have faith and not much to lose it. I wouldn’t blame anyone for that.

And it’s not my job to make people believe something they don’t want to.

I try to be here for those who want to ask questions, who can’t make sense of all the hurt the world brings—why everything’s so goddamn unfair. ”

Jake caught his breath. He hadn’t expected to hear that, or for her to look straight at him as she spoke. Like she already knew about Toby, about how angry Jake felt all the time. Life had been a bitch to her too.

He took a minute before speaking. “Well, I did come here with one question, and that’s if you can help me get a friend out of a place that’s going to kill him any day now.”

Her brows drew together, and she leaned forward on the table, clasping the mug between her hands.

“I’ll do what I can. I’m no miracle worker, but I take God at his word that my faith can move mountains.

We just gotta target the right mountains.

Now.” She smiled at him, sitting back. “Tell me about Tobias.”

***

T he Director took a last bite of his steak, removed the gravy-stained napkin from his neck, and leaned back in satisfaction. “The cook here is truly excellent. I’m surprised he’s not in New York, the things he can do with a basic sirloin.”

He wasn’t talking to Tobias and thus wouldn’t expect a response.

Tobias, on his knees beside the conference table, kept his eyes locked on the area of the Director’s hands, his breathing perfectly even, his expression empty but alert, and did his best not to smell the food, not to look at it, not to think about it.

Then his stomach growled.

He couldn’t stop his breath from hitching with the sudden surge of terror. Wait wait wait, he told himself, fingernails digging into his palms to give himself a focus for the panic. Moving now would just make it worse. Begging before he was given permission would just make it worse .

When the Director pushed his plate over the side of the table, crashing the cheap ceramic against the wooden floor and scattering food everywhere, Tobias couldn’t help flinching. But he managed not to make a sound.

The Director sat back. “Clean it up . . . any way you want. As long as you remember what you are.”

Tobias crawled forward, head down, words spilling out automatically, requiring little conscious thought. “Thank you, sir. Thank you for the food, sir.” He lowered his mouth to the steak bits and lukewarm potatoes and ate as quickly as he could without making noise.

He flinched involuntarily when he felt the Director’s hand in his hair, but the Director made the noise that meant Tobias should continue doing exactly what he had been doing, so he continued eating, expecting any second for the Director to jerk his head up or kick him away.

But there was no pain and no blow. Instead he ate while the Director petted his hair.

***

T obias was exhausted . Hollowed out, hungry, and exhausted from not enough sleep and not enough food.

Wednesday hadn’t been bad as far as Wednesdays went, but it was always dangerous to sleep, to let his guard down even a little on Thursdays, even when he knew Kayla would watch his back, at least as far as making noise if someone tried to sneak up on him.

Now it was Friday, and he was kneeling silently against the wall, eyes locked on the Director’s hands as he had his dinner.

Crusher stood in the corner, slowly smacking his club against his thigh while he watched Tobias.

After a few minutes, the Director put down his fork and turned to Crusher. “Would you stop that? I’m having dinner. Water.”

That last was for Tobias. Quickly and silently he rose, retrieved the pitcher of filtered ice water from the tray farther down the table, and refilled the Director’s glass. He concentrated hard on keeping his hand steady. He couldn’t let a single drop spill.

“I don’t like it, sir,” Crusher said.

If the Director had looked at Tobias that way, he would have dropped, but Crusher just looked uneasy. “You are under no obligation to guard me, Mr. Sloan.”

“Not that, sir.” Crusher jerked his head at Tobias. “It’s just . . . you’ve said the progress has been good, but the little freak’s still . . .”

“Unbroken in the only way that matters to you?”

“Unidentified, sir.”

The sneer on the Director’s face faded, and he looked thoughtful. “True.” He looked at Tobias, and even though he didn’t look nearly as irritated as before, Tobias couldn’t stop the slight tremors in his hands. “What did you have in mind? Bear in mind the restrictions I’ve put in place.”

Crusher shrugged, trying to look casual, but Tobias could see how the muscles had tensed in his arms, his hips rocking forward. “Just a little rough interrogation, sir. One more, just to be sure the freak’s not hiding something nasty behind that pretty face.”

The Director considered. Tobias found himself counting every soft click of the great clock set in the bookshelves, trying to bring his heartbeat down.

“I think that’s reasonable,” the Director said, slowly. “But remember the restrictions.”

Crusher grinned, and Tobias lost control of his breathing. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I can do that, sir.”

***

T hey hadn’t asked Tobias what kind of freak he was in a long time. Tobias supposed that when he was Hawthorne’s pet monster, or the guards’ whore, or the Director’s project, it didn’t really matter what kind of freak he was.

This time was different. Terrifyingly different.

There were five or seven men—Tobias couldn’t keep track, they seemed to change, and they kept a blindfold on him half the time—and they pushed him around, each taking a turn doing whatever they could to him, anything that wouldn’t mark him up too bad, lose him a limb, or scar his face.

After the blindfold went on—as well as the muzzle that kept his mouth open so he couldn’t bite down, even by accident—they started pushing him to his knees.

Voices he knew, voices he didn’t still asked the question, taunting him to show them he was a freak even though at that point he didn’t think they expected anything.

If he had any gift, any power, he wished it would come now.

He wished he could kill them all. Or that it could be over faster.

Sometimes he just wanted it to be over, all over, that they’d push him past the point of feeling anything ever again and there would be nothing left to do but throw him in the incinerator.

By the time they got to waterboarding, Tobias wasn’t sure how he was still breathing.

They had tried not to hit him hard enough to break anything, but he was pretty sure he had a couple of cracked ribs.

And it was hard, so hard when they shoved his head into a dirty bucket, or pressed a wet cloth to his face, to wait until there was air to fill his aching lungs.