Page 16 of Freak Camp
“Shut up, Lucas,” Dad said tiredly.
Jake glared, his face hot, aware that he was being made fun of, but more focused on the half waffle that he somehow had to get to Tobias.“I get hungry,” he said, ignoring the snickers across the room.He turned to Dad and stuck out his jaw.“You’re gone so long, and I get hungry, and there’s nothing decent to eat in the camp, so yeah, I brought a snack.Sue me.”
“He can’t bring the tin in, Hawthorne,” Lucas said.“I mean, we do a lot to these freaks, but giving them a pie in the face?Inhumane, man.”
Dad yanked the tin out of Lucas’s hands hard enough that Lucas nearly stumbled.He continued glaring at the other man while extending the waffle-pie to Jake.“Take what you want.Dump the rest.”
“Yes, sir.”Jake hastily scooped up the waffle base, folding it around the cherry filling, and shoved it into his pocket.He threw the rest of the tin in the industrial-sized trashcan by the metal detector.
Later, sharing the smushed waffle-pie with Tobias, Jake told him the story.He waved his cherry-stained hands in ways that made Tobias grin and lamented the unfairness of life.“Sorry it’s all squished,” he said.“I had to think fast.Who knew they’d be waffle-hating dickwads?”
Tobias nodded, his mouth full of cherry filling.“You were right, Jake,” he mumbled.“This is the best thing ever.”He stopped and bunched his forehead in a way that Jake had come to recognize as him thinking very hard.“Well, second best.”
Jake was outraged.“Second best.What the hell’s better thanwaffles?”
Tobias swallowed and closed his eyes in bliss.“You bringing me a waffle.”
It took Jake a long, unusually silent minute process that answer.In that time, Tobias started to look worried, chewing more slowly.But Jake eventually pulled him close and ruffled his short hair.
***
Later, in the Eldoradowith Dad driving east, trailing a lead that he had picked up in Special Research, Jake wiggled his fingers in the cherry residue in his pockets and couldn’t stop grinning.Tobias had gotten to eat something that was at least part waffle, and Jake had actually managed to get it into the camp.Granted, it had almost gone wrong, but that was okay.Sometimes trial and error was necessary.That was why Dad always stuck around a few days after a ghost burning to make sure that they had gotten the right corpse, just in case.
“Why pie?”Dad asked eventually, when they were a good half hour out of Freak Camp.He had been staring into the approaching mountains with the tense, focused expression that Jake associated with a long day in Special Research.
“It looked really good,” Jake said.“And it said it was a waffle.”I promised Tobias, he didn’t say.
Dad’s hair was damp and slicked back.He must have showered before he left Special Research, but there was red under his nails where he held the wheel.He had been there for over two hours this time, and while Jake didn’t mind having that much more time to spend with Tobias—the guards didn’t make Tobias go do things that monsters usually had to do, as long as Jake was with him—he still didn’t like to think about what that meant.Tobias had said that monsters died in Special Research, and that hismomwas going there.Jake knew that Dad killed monsters, and it had never bothered Jake before, but suddenly the monsters he pictured in Special Research looked more like Tobias and his mom than the vampire that had almost killed Dad a month ago.
Dad looked over as though Jake thinking about Tobias and Dad in the same moment had pinged him, and his brow furrowed, mouth twisting down in distaste.“You shared with that monster, didn’t you?”
Dad could find out if he really wanted to know.A couple of questions to the guards who had passed by Jake and Tobias on their rounds, and he would know pretty much everything they had done.There really wasn’t much of a point in trying to hide anything from Dad.Everyone knew that, even the monsters.“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t like you hanging around with that monster boy,” Leon said.“Have the guards checked to make sure that he’s not some kind of siren or anything like that?”
Jake didn’t know, but he assumed that they wouldn’t be so chill if Tobias was dangerous in a mind-control sort of way.“I think so, sir.I mean, he hasn’t got a T brand or anything, and you know I know how to look for the other signs.I’m pretty sure they’ve checked everything.”
“Damn stupid of them if they haven’t,” he muttered.“I don’t know, Jake.It could be dangerous.That boy in Tulsa thought he was inviting a friend over for homework, you saw what happened.Evil, real evil, it finds a way.”
“Come on, Dad!”Jake said, immediately nervous about where the conversation was going.It had been a good day.Tobias’s expression when he had seen the waffle-pie had beenperfect.Now all the good feelings were sliding away from him.Why did Dad have to treat this like a hunt?Yeah, Tobias was a monster, but it wasn’t like that was a mystery.That was the whole reason why he was in Freak Camp, and Jake wasn’t dumb enough to miss that.So why did Dad have to keepharpingon it all the time?
Because he cares, said a voice in the back of Jake’s head.Because he doesn’t want you to end up like Mom.
Jake told the voice to shut up.Dad did dangerous things all the time, and he never seemed to think about how he could also die at any time, and where would that leave Jake?
Like usual, Jake’s brain froze up at the idea of Dad dying.It was impossible.Dad couldn’t die.Nothing bad, not really bad, could ever happen to Dad.Sure, he could get hurt, he could be bleeding or in the hospital, but that wasn’t somethingreallybad.That was just what happened to hunters.
For the first time since leaving camp—Dad was always distracted after a long session—Leon turned to look directly at his son.“You need to be careful, Jake.Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
For a second, both Hawthornes waited.There were many things they didn’t talk about—feelings, the past, Sally Hawthorne’s death—and one of those taboos hovered on the edge of the conversation.When it failed to manifest, they both relaxed.They had lived side by side in this car for six years, and silence, or rock music played too loud on the radio, was usually better than talk.
“Hungry?”Dad asked at last, when they crossed the state line into Utah.
Jake was starving.The one piece of squished dessert had beenagesago, and he had really tried to give Tobias as much as he could, because it was his treat after all.But before he let it slip, he remembered that he’d said the waffle was his snack.So he modified.“A little, sir,” he said casually.
Only after the words left his mouth did he realize that it was the first time he had lied to Dad.Really lied.About a monster, no less.
