Page 62 of Freak Camp
“When your tits freeze in hell,” Jake snapped.
“Yeah, didn’t think so.”Matthew shrugged.“Get out of my sight, Hawthorne.Take some time to cool off.You’ve got the license, you’re a real hunter now, so be professional and cut out the tantrums.Try not to mutilate anyone on the way out.”
Jake glowered at Matthew, contemplating the satisfaction of punching him into his fancy wooden bookshelves versus leaving with dignity.
Eventually, more for Toby’s sake, so everyone would take Jake seriously—I’ll be back, Toby, sorry I fucked up today—he left quietly, albeit with a few snarls for the guards to keep their hands off of him, and didn’t look back.
***
After Jake had gone, slamming the solid iron-reinforced door on his way out, Tobias collapsed into his chair and shook.
What had he done?How had he made Jake so angry?It was just cigarette burns.He shouldn’t have flinched, that was clear, but he hadn’t expected Jake to squeeze right where the pink burns were still raw and tender.Karl had given eyes to the smile barely a day ago when Tobias’s performance had disappointed.The worst part, the absolute worst, was that he had only jumped because he had let his guard down—shit, being with Jake was the only time he allowed himself to relax, and yet when he had the most to lose—and then when ithurt, he hadn’t been able to stop the reaction.
He wanted to hear the end of the story.He wanted to keep watching Jake smile.He wanted to tell him about the last book he had been allowed to read that wasn’t about monsters.It had been about vehicles, and there had been a section about altering motorcycle engines to get the maximum speed out of the vehicle.Maybe Jake knew how the information could be applied to the Eldorado.And even if he didn’t, he would havecared.
But instead Tobias was alone in Interrogation Room Three with nothing to do but think.He had been in here when they asked him if he ever had visions, psychic projections, nightmares that became real.There had been a specialized rack, and they had pinned his arms—
Tobias jerked his mind away—interrogations weren’t that often and best forgotten as fast as possible—and focused hard on the chair Jake had knocked over on his way out.He’d been so angry, terrifyingly angry.Tobias’s neck felt strained from Jake’s shaking, and the wounds on his arm and shoulder hurt where Jake had gripped him.
Tobias didn’t dare think that was all Jake was going to do to him.He didn’t know why Jake had been angry, but there had been so much rage on his face that Tobias felt nauseated just thinking about it.Maybe he’d come back with a rod or a whip to punish Tobias for whatever it was.That would be the kind of beating that he could get any day from any guard.It wouldn’t be so bad.
But the longer Jake stayed away, the more Tobias just wanted him to come back.Bring the hot irons, the flaying knives, the boiling holy water.Bring the clamps, the flails, the tasers.Just please, don’t leave and never come back.
Maybe he hadknownjust by looking at the smiley face what Tobias had done.Karl had said the first time, when he began the shape of the mouth, that it could either be a smiley face or a frowny face, that Tobias could either be a good boy or a bad boy.So Tobias had been good to Karl and Lonny and Dave and that hunter who had asked the questions, and Karl had kept his word.
Maybe Jake knew all that just from looking at the little smile(“You were a good boy, Pretty Freak.Just gonna mark down my smile to remind you tokeepbeing a good boy”),and he was so disgusted he would never come back.
Tobias sat alone in the room, in the silence.He did his best not to move, not to twitch, not to show his panic or his fear.It was all he could do not to scratch at the healing burns as though if he could rip them off his arm, like a shifter, Jake would come back.
It had been at least two hours—Tobias had started counting once it was clear that Jake wasn’t coming backsoon—when the door opened.Tobias had been analyzing the floor, tracing out pictures in the faded bloodstains the way Jake had taught him to do with clouds, and he looked up hopefully, but it was Victor.
Tobias swallowed and let his mind blank.
“Get up, freak.”
Tobias stood and walked to the guard.Victor snapped a flimsy leash onto his collar.
“The hunter’s gone?”Tobias asked.He’d wrestled with the risks of asking at all, but he had to know.He wasn’t stupid enough to use Jake’s name.
Victor scowled and slapped him, but not hard, not even hard enough to rattle his teeth.Weird.“Hawthorne Junior’s gone, freak.Must have decided he didn’t want your ass today.”
Tobias’s mouth went dry.Jake’s gone, Jake’s gone.He seized onto the only word that gave him even a shadow of hope.“Today, sir?”
Victor raised his club, and Tobias braced himself—Victor always hit where it would reopen his knife wounds—but after a moment’s hesitation, he lowered it.
“Fucking Hawthorne,” he muttered with venom.He tugged on Tobias’s collar with the lead line, and Tobias followed him from the room.“You better keep doing whatever the fuck you do to keep Hawthorne obsessed with your ass, freak.Because the second he’s gone, we’re going to feed you to Karl, and he’s going to take every inch of his pain out of your hide.”
Tobias knew that should probably frighten him.He didn’t know what he did that kept Jake happy, or why Karl was in pain, and uncertainties like that could get you killed in Freak Camp.
All he understood was that Jake had left, but he would be back.
It wasn’t a great day.It would have been better to be able to spend more time with Jake, but he wasn’t gone forever, so it wasn’t bad at all.
When he walked back into the yard, all the guards were acting jumpy around him, didn’t look at him long, and not one touched him.They seemed to go out of their way to avoid any contact.
And that made it a good day too.
