Page 78 of Freak Camp
“I’m here for Pretty Freak.Director wants him, says he’s to be released to go to Administration this time every Wednesday for the foreseeable future.”
Tobias heard him but didn’t register the words.That happened sometimes, when something was too awful even for a worst day.It didn’t help how his brain just decided something wasn’t true even when it was.That would get him killed someday.
Karl scoffed.“Think the boss man’s finally fucking something?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Lonny snapped.“You want to get your back whipped like Gomez?”
“Take it easy,” Victor said.“He wasn’t here that day.”
“Yeah, well, I was, and I don’t want to see that again.Or have it be me.So watch your mouth, Horwitz.”
“Where’s the freak?”
Lonny jerked his head to where Tobias sat, head bowed, frozen.“Over there.”
Victor turned.“Hey, freak!”he called.
The monsters in the room glanced up, eyes wide.Then they saw where Victor was looking and dropped their gazes.
Slowly, the same dull terror he felt before interrogations lining his throat, Tobias stood up and walked to Victor.
He expected a leash, a blow, a threat,something, but Victor just looked at him like he was a piece of shit he’d found on the bottom of his shoe.“Let’s go, freak.We don’t want to keep the Director waiting.”
The walk to the Director’s office in Administration was silent, tense.Tobias had a strange feeling, like they were walking toward the same thing together—not guard and monster, but two creatures going somewhere they didn’t want to go.
Victor knocked twice on the Director’s door and pushed open the door when he heard, “Come in.”
This time the Director was leaning against his desk, a watch in hand.He smiled when he met Victor’s eyes.“Thank you, Mr.Todd.Right on time.”
“Of course, sir,” Victor said.
“You’re destined for great things, Mr.Todd,” the Director said.“You may go now.”
Victor nodded once.He paused an instant with his eyes on Tobias, mouth pressed into something difficult to define—not pity, but at least acknowledgment that he did not want to be in Tobias’s place.Then he was gone, down the hall.
The Director got up from his perch on the desk and moved to a door Tobias hadn’t seen before on the far side of the bookshelves.“89UI, come with me.”
Tobias followed the Director into the interrogation room.Bare concrete floor, harsh bright lights, and bolts set into the walls at various heights for securing monsters.There were three or four battered chairs, a small table covered in a white sheet, a water tap and a hose by the wall closest to the door, and a drain in the middle of the floor.Two cameras were fixed in opposite corners, and a hook dangled from the ceiling.
The Director nodded at a chair in the corner.“Strip and put on that pair of underwear.I have no desire to view your genitalia, but skin is a necessity.”
Tobias went slowly to the chair, and stripped.He carefully folded everything he had removed, wiggled into the tight white shorts, and then turned around.
“In my opinion,” the Director said, “there is only one reason to keep a monster around, and that is if he’s dependable and obedient.That is my goal here, what we are going to work on every week—to see if I can make you into a dependable monster.Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Director smiled.“I don’t really think you do.Not yet.Come here.”
Tobias walked to where the Director indicated, beneath the hook.
The Director took a pair of wide, leather-padded cuffs off the table and snapped them over Tobias’s wrists in front of him.Tobias’s breath caught, but before he could react, the Director had stepped on a stool and jerked Tobias’s arms up until he could slide the chain between the cuffs around the hook.
When he stepped back, kicking the stool away, Tobias was trapped, stretched to his full height with his arms extended.He had to stay on his toes or his weight would fall on his shoulders.
The Director looked him once over, then moved to pull the small table into Tobias’s line of sight.Unlike some of the hunters and guards in Tobias’s experience, he added no drama as he removed and folded the sheet, unveiling the interrogation tools.Knives, shafts, whips, crushers—not the widest variety Tobias had ever seen, but every tool gleamed, polished and clean, in the unforgiving light of the interrogation room.
A knock came at the door, and Tobias jerked involuntarily, the motion swinging him slightly and pulling on his arms.He was already feeling the ache.
