Page 82 of Freak Camp
Kayla dropped the roll onto his cot, before his face.Tobias’s eyes blinked open, then flickered to her face.She had just begun to wonder if he knew her yet, when his expression twisted like someone was stabbing a hot iron into his back.The agonized grimace remained fixed for almost a minute, muscles in his back tense and bowed, and then he looked at her again.His eyes were hopeless, sad, resigned, but the knot in Kayla’s chest eased, because this was familiar.This was how she knew him.
Tobias sat up, swaying until he braced himself on the edge of the bunk.“You shouldn’t have.”He nodded to the roll.His voice was hoarse, a little ragged from screams and abuse, but that wasn’t unfamiliar either.
She shrugged, uneasy.“I’ll eat it, you don’t want it.”
He thought about it.He thought about it a hell of a lot longer than he should have, since he had given her extra food more than once, and she knew that he hadn’t eaten much at dinner the night before either.He waited long enough for her stomach to twist up, and for her to think about shoving it down his throat so he would stay here and not go wherever in his head he went when he didn’t want to feel anything at all.It was the same place she’d learned to rely on, and for how well each of them knew it, they could never be there together.
Then he picked the roll up and ate it in two quick bites.He stood up and limped out of the barracks without another word.
She counted to twenty so they wouldn’t be seen together and followed him out.
Chapter Twelve
June 2000
Sessions with the Directorquickly became one of the most predictable and least secure parts of Tobias’s life.
Every Wednesday he walked into the Director’s office and looked down from the man’s cold, thoughtful gaze.Every Wednesday, they worked to make him anobedientmonster.Mistakes were always punished, and Tobias always failed.
But that was where the predictability ended.Sessions could take any shape, from punishments for his mistakes to recitations of hunting lore and how to incapacitate other monsters, to Tobias sitting—absolutely silent, absolutely still—in a corner of the office while the Director read reports or signed papers at his desk.Not even the pain was consistent, though whippings and beatings were common.Sometimes the Director punished him just because he was a monster and that was what he deserved.
Ultimately, the only thing that Tobias could rely on was that sessions would take place on Wednesdays and that he wouldn’t be able to rely on anything.Behavior that had been complimented or ignored one day could have him strung up in the interrogation room on another.Some Wednesdays nothing truly bad happened, and those left him just as shaken, just as terrified.
Only the Director was constant.He had taken a personal interest, and he took great pains to reinforce how grateful Tobias should be that a busy man, the Director of the ASC, arealhuman being, was interested in his education.He was always there, explaining why Tobias had failed this week; listening, crop in hand, while Tobias fumbled his way through an unfamiliar Latin exorcism; filling out forms silently as Tobias kept his eyes toward the carpet while staying aware of the Director’s hands every second.
Tobias became utterly convinced that the Director knew everything.He knew what Tobias ate, who he had blown during the week, and how well he slept.He knew when Crusher made a face behind his back, and he knew if Tobias so much as breathed wrong in his presence.
Part of that, of course, was the cameras placed everywhere in the Director’s office, hidden behind reflective surfaces and in the dark wood paneling.But part of it was just who the Director was.
After two months of training, the Director began assigning Tobias to wait on him at dinner whenever he stayed over at the camp on a day that wasn’t Wednesday.
“You should be grateful that I am allowing you the opportunity to be instructed outside of the usual sessions,” he told Tobias.“Perhaps with these additional hours, you will learn more quickly how to stop being a useless freak.”
Tobias was grateful for the extra time with the Director.He was grateful for anything that would stop the pain.
During the second week of dinners with the Director, Tobias knelt at the side of the long conference table, face angled toward the Director’s feet while his eyes watched for any sign or direction.The Director sat at the head of the table eating messily, a second, empty place setting beside him.
