Page 74 of Freak Camp
“When he falls, I’m going to come back here and cut your fucking head off,” Leon promised.
Tobias whispered, “I hope so.”
Leon Hawthorne kicked his chair, and Tobias snapped up.“What did you say?”
Tobias shook his head violently.“Nothing, sir.”
Leon stared at him, hand resting again on his gun.He was a hunter.One of the best.But Tobias didn’t fear him as a hunter.The hunters that made him shake were the ones that came in with big grins and toolboxes from the resource room, the ones that enjoyed tying him down, not because he was a monster, but because they could.Leon Hawthorne hated him, hated all monsters absolutely, but there was nothing gleeful in that hatred.He would kill Tobias the same way he’d put down any monster.
Leon could kill Tobias, yes, but like the electric fence could kill if Tobias got too close; it wouldn’t hunt down its prey, wouldn’t smile listening to the screams.Tobias could have almost felt safe if not for the words.
“I have to keep him safe from you,” Leon said.“You fuck with his head, and I can’t lose him.He’s all I—” He snapped his mouth shut, and his hand tightened on his gun.“Don’t wait for him, freak, he’s not coming back.I’m not going to let some damn pretty monster sink his claws into my son’s head and drag him down, if it’s the last thing I do.I let Sally go.You bastards won’t take Jake too.”
Leon Hawthorne stood and walked around the table, and Tobias flinched, but the hunter didn’t notice as he headed for the door.
Tobias closed his eyes tight.“You going to shoot me?”He prayed for that.Better death than a life without Jake.Maybe he would be with Becca.Maybe he would vanish into nothing.Maybe he would be in hell.Better any of those than in Freak Camp, knowing Jake wasn’t coming back.
He heard Leon pause.“What would be the point?I have other monsters to spend my bullets on.”
The door slammed shut behind Jake’s father.
The guards left Tobias in the interrogation room for a long time.Tobias didn’t bother to count the seconds.He stared at his hands and refused to think of anything at all.
Chapter Eleven
January 2000
In the evening, afterthe guards took their pick of monster ass like usual and the rest of the monsters settled cautiously into their bunks, Victor and Karl came for Tobias.They pulled him off his bunk, and panic made Tobias twist in their arms.Karl jerked his arms higher up behind his back until he stopped squirming, and Victor pushed the hair off his face.It had grown long again.
“Director wants to see you.Better make sure he can see that pretty face of yours.C’mon.Don’t make us leave bruises where he’ll see them.”
The two guards snapped a leash onto his collar—doubling his heart rate and making it impossible not to tense against their hands—but he didn’t even have the freedom to walk behind them with the leash.They practically carried him to Administration.
Administration was the second floor above Reception.Tobias had only ever been in one room on that floor, which was the library that he had worked in since his first days with Becca.He knew there were other rooms where reals, including important visitors, gathered to discuss FREACS’s progress on neutralizing the supernatural threat.
Karl and Victor carried him straight past anything familiar and through the heavy iron doors that monsters were forbidden to enter.
