Page 35 of Freak Camp
When Jake turned to him, Toby had shrunk down to where he’d been at the start of the visit, head hanging and shoulders tense.He had dropped the last photo to fold one hand—the one that didn’t have a death grip on Jake’s jacket—tightly over his front ankle.
Jake studied him, and both the adrenaline from the guard’s shout and the happy rush he had felt just a second ago ebbed away, impossible to catch and pull back.It would take a while—maybe longer than he had before Dad was done—to coax Toby to lower his guard again.
He scowled in the guard’s direction, reaching across to touch Toby’s opposite shoulder.Toby glanced up, surprise across his face.Jake didn’t drop his hand, still frowning after the guard.“They’re assholes, aren’t they?”
Tobias made a soft sound, almost like a sneeze.Startled, Jake lowered his head to get a glimpse of Toby’s face, but if it had been a laugh, there was no trace of it now.
***
Jake opened the doorexpecting pizza and got Child Protective Services.
He saw the cop first and grinned at him automatically.Some kids smiled at their grandmothers for a little extra cash, others knew when to drop a compliment, but Jake knew that around cops it was best to look cheerful, easy.Nothing to hide here, officer.
“Can I help you?”he asked, trying to remember if the guns were visible from the door or if he had moved them into the bedroom to clean them.
The cop smiled back.“Hello.I’m Officer Elden, this is Miss Donatelli.Is your father home?”
Dad was working a nasty case one town over.He’d been gone three days.Two more to go before Jake had permission to worry.“Sorry, no, he just stepped out.”
“Your mother?”
He’d stopped telling the truth after he realized that it got a stronger reaction than any lie he could invent.“Divorced,” he said.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Jake.”He racked his brain for the last name Dad had on the credit card.It had started with an H, of course.Holly?Harold?
“Your father is Larry Hayes?This man?”The cop flashed a picture too fast for Jake to see, but it was probably Dad.
“Yeah.”
The cop stepped closer.“Can we come in, son?”
“What division does she work for?”Jake asked, nodding at the thin, dark-haired woman, Miss Donatelli, behind Officer Elden.
“Protective Services,” she said.
Jake knew what that meant.He looked old for thirteen, but that still barely put him at driving age.“No,” he said, and slammed the door hard enough to push the cop’s foot back over the threshold.He locked, bolted, and put the stupid little chain on the door.
“Jake!Jake, open the door!We just want to talk.”
Jake ran to the single battered telephone in the room and stumbled over the number for Dad’s new mobile phone.It rang, a counterpoint to his racing heart and the pounding on the door.“Pick up, pick up, pick up,” he muttered under his breath.
The second he heard the click of the phone answering, he started talking.“Dad, it’s CPS, they’re—”
“Jake, you know fucking better than this,” Dad’s voice snapped over him.Jake could hear screaming in the background, the sound of a shotgun being reloaded.
“I know, but they’re at the door, and I—”
Something crashed in the background, something snarled.“They’re just fucking human, Jake.Run, I don’t know, I don’t have time for this right now.Deal with it!”
Then the phone went dead.
“Okay,” Jake said.“I’ll deal with it.”
He pushed the rickety table against the front door, threw into his duffel his sawed-off shotgun and Dad’s box of fake IDs and credit cards, and climbed out through the bathroom window before the super could arrive to unlock the door.
***
