Page 40 of Freak Camp
That was how the arguments with Dad started too.Jake met his eyes.Roger wasn’t Dad.Jake didn’t know how he would handle the argument with someone other than Dad.No one else—other than the guards who Jake didn’t give a shit about—had ever noticed.
“His name’s Tobias,” Jake said.
Roger ran a hand over his head.“Kid ...”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Toby come around the corner at a trot.He tried not to look.He had never fought with Dad at Freak Camp—they kept an absolutely united front against other hunters and ASC personnel—but he had long ago decided that there was no way in hell that he would get Toby involved in that fight.
But Roger saw Tobias at the same time, and Jake had to look over.He couldn’t just let Roger look at Toby without acknowledging him too.
He put himself between other hunters, other guards, and Toby, and he knew that he would step between Toby and Dad too.And if he would do that to family, he knew without a doubt that he would get between Toby and Roger.Turning, he stepped away from Roger, toward Toby.
Toby didn’t stop, didn’t seem to see Roger.Jake couldn’t hold back his smile, had to fist his hand around his bag strap to stop himself from reaching out.
His heart jumped when a bright smile lit up Toby’s face, wider than Jake could remember seeing it, so big he could actually see a flash of teeth.In that moment, Toby lookedhappy, just like any other kid.Then Toby’s eyes moved to Roger, and in a second the smile and all his emotion vanished, wiped clean from his face.Jake knew that they hadn’t gone away, that the feelings were still inside of Tobias somewhere, but looking at his blank face, skin peeling a little from the eternal sunburn, it was hard to imagine ever finding that smile again.
Tobias had stopped, suddenly hesitant and unwilling to come any closer.He looked down at his feet and then to the side, as though trying to convince anyone watching that his eagerness had been an illusion.
Jake glanced around.A couple of guards were watching and smirking.In that second he hated them and almost hated Roger too.
***
Roger looked at themonster called Tobias.Damn, the kid looked maybe ten and thin enough that Roger could fold him in the bag with his rifles.
Roger didn’t like monsters, didn’t like Freak Camp, didn’t like the new hunters who were in it for bounties.Hell, he sometimes hated monsters with a passion that he didn’t like to look at too closely—but that kid didn’t look like he could threaten a fly.
And the way he had smiled at Jake, for just a second before it vanished from his face, squeezed Roger’s heart in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.
“That’s Tobias?”Roger hadn’t missed the way that Jake had stepped away from him, toward the boy.He wondered if Jake and Leon argued about this often, if the kid ever put up any kind of fight with his father.Roger argued with Leon often enough that he found it hard to believe that anyone could live with the man and not want to knock his skull open so that some sense might creep in.But even at his angriest, Jake worshiped the ground Leon walked on.
Jake nodded.He couldn’t seem to decide where to fix his gaze—on Tobias, on the guards watching them, or on Roger.“Yeah.”He straightened his shoulders and finally met Roger’s eyes.“He’s Tobias.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Roger saw the tension in the monster’s shoulders.He thought Jake could too.Roger sighed and turned to the kid.
The monster wouldn’t look him in the eye.Fuck—theboywouldn’t look at him.
Roger raised a hand, beckoning him.“C’mere, kid.”
Tobias came forward immediately, his eyes locked on the ground.He didn’t look at Jake, while Jake didn’t take his eyes off of Tobias’s face for a second.
“Look at me,” Roger said.
Tobias looked up, but not in Roger’s eyes.His gaze settled somewhere in the area of Roger’s left ear and stayed there.
Roger moved to touch Tobias’s face, to try to make the kid look him in the eye, but lowered his hand even as Jake started between them, anger and guilt mixed on his face.Roger couldn’t touch the kid because of the way his eyes had changed from emptiness to—Roger couldn’t describe it.He’d seen a shifter’s eyes flash on video footage, he had watched more than one demon’s eyes change into depthless black or red, but what happened on Tobias’s face was worse than all of that because the response looked completely human.No longer empty and hopeless, but prepared.He hadn’t flinched, hadn’t moved at all, but those eyes said,I know your type.Go on, hit me.
There were creatures that had been in Special Research for years that didn’t have eyes like that.
“Rog,” Jake said.“Don’t ...”He bit his lip, then glared.Roger saw more than a little of his dad in him, which half made Roger proud and half made him want to smack the kid.
Roger wished that he could see Jake excited again.Since all the shit had gone down when Leon had pulled Jake out of jail using his hunter ID, Jake had been angry, subdued in a way that he couldn’t express except by running or setting up a homemade range for target practice or drifting around the house like a restless spirit.Even though his excitement had been about a monster, a kid that could grow up to be one of the dangerous things Roger put down without hesitation, it would have been good for Jake to be out of his funk for a little longer.
“I’m not gonna do anything to him.”Roger glanced at Tobias.“You.Stand back there for a second.”
Tobias retreated, though he didn’t turn his back.Roger got the feeling that he was watching their every move and trying not to be seen doing it.
Roger pulled Jake aside.“He looks all right, and he’s never tried to hurt you, right?”
Jake swelled in outrage.“Dammit, Roger, he’s never even come close.Why can’t you just understand—”
