Page 67 of Freak Camp

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Chapter Ten

Fall 1999

Freak Camp made Roger’sskin crawl.He only went when he absolutely couldn’t avoid it—like now, when a captured demon might have intel on a case he’d been working for the last six months.

He tried never to linger.He’d walk in, see what he could get, and leave without glancing in the observation windows to see what was drawing outthatparticular human-sounding scream.

He finished working over the demon—straightforward enough with a hefty supply of salt, holy water, and a crucifix—and though there was minimal damage to the host, the smell of burning skin was never a happy one.He thought only of the shower he would take back in the motel.He didn’t like using the showers that the facility provided; they might wash off the blood and sweat from interrogation, but he’d just have to shower again later to get the smell of Freak Camp off his skin.He had just stepped out of the room when he heard his name.

“Harper!Well, look who’s slumming in the freak playground.”Dennis Beam was walking down the hall, holding some black rods under his arm.

Roger took his hand in a quick shake.He’d only run across the man on a couple of hunts, but Beam had been full of admiration for Roger’s knowledge.“Only got here this morning, and I’m heading back home tonight.”

“What’s got your tail on fire?Guerrero, Sanders, and me are getting together at Hunters’ Deck for a round.Sanders owes us after we had to save his ass from a bunch of pixies.”

Roger shook his head.“Another time.”

“Well, before you go, let me show you something I just picked up from Sloan.A neat trick for taking down the freaks with softer nervous systems.And it don’t even leave any marks.”He held up one of the thin, gleaming black prods and nodded to the room behind him.“Come check it out.”He pushed open the door, and Roger reluctantly stepped inside.

His stomach turned over at the sight inside.Tobias—he could still recognize Jake’s monster in the painfully thin teenager—lay on the floor, his hair and shirt soaked with sweat, wrists bound in front of his chest with plastic zip ties, and two chains stretching from either side of his collar to hooks set low in opposite walls.There was barely enough slack in the chains for him to rise up on his elbows, though he wouldn’t be able to do even that with the handcuffs.His glassy eyes didn’t move from the ceiling as Roger entered.

“Look how good this works.”Beam stabbed the prod toward Tobias’s chest, stopping several inches short of it making contact, but Tobias’s body spasmed violently in anticipation.Beam and the guard—Sloan, by the name on his uniform—roared with laughter.Panting, Tobias turned his face toward the wall, though his face showed no emotion.

“You sick fucks,” Roger muttered.“What’d he do?”

Beam looked at him, surprised.“C’mon, Harper, it’s a freak.”

Out of the kid’s line of sight, Sloan nudged Tobias’s thigh with his own prod.A guttural cry ripped from Tobias’s throat as his body seized, jerking for several moments before falling still again, facing the opposite direction.He choked and gasped for breath, and Roger realized his collar had half strangled him.Tobias’s chest rose and fell so rapidly he looked ready to have a heart attack.But most disconcerting of all was how—even as his limbs still twitched—Tobias’s face had smoothed over again to utter blankness.

“You’re a sadistic bastard.”Roger couldn’t keep his eyes off the kid on the floor, didn’t know when his right hand had crept to where his gun usually was.He forced himself to move his hand away.“What the hell did he do?You can’t pass this off as an interrogation.”

“I don’t know.”Beam glanced at Sloan.“What did he do?”

Sloan shrugged and stepped between the monster’s legs.“Getting careless with his teeth.”

A shudder worked down Tobias’s shoulders, but he made no attempt to close his legs, even as Sloan lifted his boot and slowly pressed down on his groin.Tobias keened, the sound slipping high and agonized from between his clenched teeth.

“Aww, what are you whining about?”Sloan cooed.“Monsters don’t need these, do they, Pre—”

“I’m having a hard time telling who the monster is!”Roger snapped.

Tobias’s eyes snapped open, and he looked at Roger—the first thing he had focused on in the room.Roger saw in his eyes no gratitude, pleading, or hatred—just a curious intentness as he looked at him.Roger swallowed, unable to break eye contact.

“What’d you say?”Beam said, face twisting ugly.

Roger scowled, raising his eyes.“You heard me.Bunch of tough guys, going after a malnourished freak kid with his hands tied.That how you get your rocks off?”

“Well,” Beam said, much cooler, “if you’re not enjoying yourself, Harper, you don’t have to stay.”

Roger glanced back at Tobias, but the kid’s gaze had moved to the ceiling again, lost and flat.Roger swallowed, fists clenching, bile sliding up his throat, then glared at Beam.“Lose my number.I don’t want to hear from you again, I don’t care what you need.”He slammed the door behind him.

Roger swore viciously under his breath with every step out of the complex, barely pausing to sign out and nod at the ever-so-sweet receptionist girl who bade him goodbye by name.As the security door swung shut behind him, he was dialing his cell phone.

“Hey, Rog, what’s up?”Jake sounded cheerful, oblivious, and it only increased the sick roiling in Roger’s stomach.

“Jake,” he growled.“You still interested in getting that Tobias kid out of the camp?”