Page 54 of Fire
Like all fifteen-year-old girls, she had hopes and dreams that she never quite believed would become real, but they kept her going. Maybe the camp would get firebombed, no survivors. Maybe the incinerator would explode and take most of Special Research with it, earning her the opportunity to slip into someone else’s face and away in the confusion. Maybe Crusher, like Victor, would catch something nasty and not be able to use his penis, even to pee, for months.
Some of these came true, and some of these she helped along. She couldn’t transmit the clap—shifters got very few human diseases—but Kayla had carefully modified herself so the guards and hunters wouldn’t want to get between her thighs. It had taken some creativity to grow spines that curved in ways that didn’t hurt her while she walked, but after the first time a visiting hunter had pinned her down on an interrogation table—he would have noticed the danger earlier if the bastard hadn’t tried to get it all in on the first thrust—and lost half his dick trying to pull out, no one else had so much as groped her. She’d been sure to scream and wail, acting fucking confused and terrified even while they beat the shit out of her. She’d come out of it with broken bones and barely any skin on her back, but they hadn’t realized that it wasn’t just a messed-up side effect of her being a monster. Good thing Crusher hadn’t been around to say that she hadn’t been a virgin and that sure as hell hadn’t happened to him.
Between that, her subtly misshapen face, and her tendency to bite during blowjobs if the fuck hadn’t paid her right, Kayla managed to glide between a lot of the worst ordeals in the camp. She worked decently on the computers and kept her mouth shut. The guards thought she was stupid because she kept silent. Too stupid to interest the Director, but smart and passive enough to clean storage closets, organize paperwork, and be assigned to copy old VHS interrogation tapes onto DVD.
Now, staring down at a tape neatly labeled(February 10, 1999) Rm. 3, 89UI6703, special session,she felt the fluttery sensation that always accompanied the rare realization that she coulddosomething, influence the hell that was her life.
She thought about Tobias a lot, and not just because the guards liked to talk about how Hawthorne was still obsessed with his freak. He had been the one not-dark spot in her life for a long time, and he had taught her more about surviving than he would ever expect. She had watched him blend into his surroundings—as best he could without her advantages—and watched him do what he needed to survive without ever really being broken, watched him be kind even when it brought him no advantages. He was her definition of humanity, and she tried, as best she could, to hold onto a little of it for herself.
If she had believed in prayer, she would have prayed for Tobias. As it was, she hoped—the way she hoped for very little else—that Hawthorne didn’t hit him too much, and that when they fucked he took it slow enough that Tobias didn’t get ripped open every time.
And each time that the hunters talked about how good a lay Pretty Freak must be, how Hawthorne had beaten the shit out of another hunter because he threatened his toy, she wondered what Hawthorne—whatJake—would do if he knew what had happened to Tobias here. If he could see, for just a second, how the other monsters (no, hunters, she had to keep thinking of them as hunters; monsters were very different things) had treated him. Even if he didn’t care about Tobias the way Tobias had cared about him, she was sure he would do something about the insult to his property.
So as she sorted the old storeroom and transferred hundreds of recorded sessions to DVD, she copied anything she found with Tobias’s number onto some of the old dead tapes. She watched them on mute, noting who had participated, which clever bastard came up with new ideas. After the first few, she watchedanything with Director Dixon’s name on it at double speed. She wanted to know which guards had participated, but didn’t need to know how strong Tobias was.
And whenever the guards came into the storage room to let her out for food or push her down for a blowjob—always well paid for, in advance, because they knew she kept her word—it looked like she was working. They never knew that she was carefully, precisely, thoroughly planning all their deaths.
She blew a couple guards to get Hawthorne’s address, and she’d been prepared to suck it up, smooth herself out, and spread her legs for Crusher to get the package sent. Instead she went with another gambit, far more dangerous but with a surer payoff of getting it in the mail instead of a garbage can: she’d played terrified, heavily implied that the Director had given her the package to drop into the mail room, and let Crusher get close to her without even a negotiation. He’d believed her, the stupid fuck. Hadn’t even checked the address on the label or commented on the weight.
Kayla had never been so happy. It was like she had sprayed kerosene in all their faces, soaked the bloodstained walls in gas and laid dynamite at the stones of the incinerator. And now—U.S. Postal Service, luck, and honest hatred willing—the fire was coming. She just had to wait.
11
Tobias frowned at the greasy laminated menu after Jake left for the restroom. They’d been in this bar a lot lately, asking veiled questions about a possible cursed object. The food wasn’t that bad. The fried pickles were apparently good enough that Jake had wanted to drag them back here even with the case mostly wrapped up, but if Tobias never had to eat one of those weird sweet-sour things again, he’d be just as glad.
He was debating the merits of a cheeseburger (generic, but trustworthy) or something called “The SUPREME Smelt Platter” when the hunter walked in.
The man had gray at his temples and a slight limp; he looked innocuous enough, but Tobias felt gut-punched.
He saw Tobias at the same moment that Tobias’s breath-stealing panic supplied a name:Henry Miller. He’d been in on a few interrogations when Tobias was in Freak Camp, always with another hunter or two. Tobias would have classified him as an asshole, but not a sadist.
But for hunters, and with Jake out of sight, all bets were off.
Tobias could spot a hunter by the way they moved, how they looked around a room, confident that they could kill anything that gave them trouble. He imagined he could see the freak-killing aura that hung on their plaid overshirts and rough jeans. Maybe someone had gotten a photo of him from some surveillance tape (inside or outside of FREACS) and passed it around:Watch out for Hawthorne’s monster.
Because, of course, he was still a monster in their eyes. None of them cared about the truth about Tobias Wright. According to the ASC and government records, he would always be a verified freak under the control of Jake Hawthorne.
Hunter Miller grinned at him and sauntered over to the bar. His clothes were rumpled, as though he had slept in them, and Tobias could see the butt of a weapon (maybe a knife, probably a gun) at the small of his back even under his overshirt. He leaned toward the bartender, flashing his ASC ID. “I’m looking for freak activity in the area,” he said, still grinning, like the man should be in on the joke. “Seen anything?”
The barkeeper, a tall, built man with tattooed dragons crawling over his right arm, stepped away from the ID. “No, nothing like that.”
Competent hunters didn’t flash the ID. The supernatural made people nervous, which meant that hunters made them nervous. Jake had other reasons not to use ASC identification (and Tobias had frankly refused to let Jake get him a fake), but the lack of information the badge produced was the main reason they usually asked their questions without coming out as hunters.
Hunter Miller looked around again, more obviously this time, and he made a show of surprise when he saw Tobias at the bar. “Well, if I don’t see a monster, right here in your own little establishment.”
The bar, already hushed, went electric in its silence. Tobias felt every eye turn toward him.
He and Jake had had six years of mailed and face-to-face threats, petty hassles. Most vividly for Tobias was the time someone left a dog leash hanging off the side mirror of the Eldorado; he’d managed to pick it up gingerly and toss it in the trash before Jake saw it. To a certain point, Tobias was... accustomed to hunters and their power games. He had a system for dealing with it that usually led to the lowest number of injuries for everyone. But he still hated how his stomach clenched and lungs constricted when he saw them.
In their eyes, he wouldalways be Jake’s monster, and Jake a freakfucker. Facing their sneers and hatred, he heard a distant, snarling voice telling him he wasn’t worth it, that Jake deserved better.
For Jake, and for himself, he told that voice to go to hell. But it never really shut up in a moment like this.
Trying not to provoke the hunter or further alarm the watching civilians, Tobias took a careful breath and fixed his eyes on the beer bottle before Jake’s seat.
“Don’t worry, civvy,” Miller said, still pitched so the entire bar could hear him, “this monster is under control. Right,Tobias?”
When the hunter came within a few feet, a familiar nasty smile on his face, Tobias looked up and stared him straight in the eye. “Jake has given me permission to retaliate against anyone who touches me without his approval,” Tobias said, holding eye contact. “That includes hunters.” Actually, Jake’s words had been something along the lines ofYou hit first and ask questions later, Toby, but he knew his version was less likely to start a fight.
