Freak Camp, page 17
Tobias’s shoulder cracked hard into the next doorway, and he couldn’t hold back a wretched moan that wasn’t about the pain.
“Come on, freak, I ain’t got all day,” Victor snapped, hauling him forward. Tobias lost his footing, slamming to the floor. Though the leash jerked in Victor’s grip, Tobias’s weight still caught on his collar before he struck the floor with his forearms, and he choked, struggling to breathe, before Victor hauled him up again.
Tobias’s legs nearly gave out again when they reached the stairs at the end of the corridor, but Victor made him go first, holding him steady enough with the lead line that even when Tobias would have lost his balance, he couldn’t fall forward.
At the first-floor landing, instead of turning for the door to outside and across the yard to Special Research, Victor dragged him deeper into Administration. Tobias couldn’t make sense of it, but his feet kept stumbling along.
Then Victor stopped, jerking him to a halt, and swung open one of the steel doors—solid but for a small window set at the height of a man’s face—before pushing him inside, where Crusher and a hunter were waiting.
This was Tobias’s first time in an interrogation room.
“Took you long enough,” Crusher said. Tobias’s eyes had dropped to the floor, fixing on the hunter’s steel-tipped boots the moment he crossed the threshold, but he didn’t need to look up to know how Crusher was staring at him.
“Yeah, the freak isn’t too used to being on a leash.” Victor unclipped him, and Tobias didn’t move.
Crusher barked a laugh. “Well, he’s gonna get used to it now.”
The hunter moved closer, walking around Tobias. “This is Baby Freak?”
“Yep,” Victor said. “He’s been here a long time, he’s very well-trained. Ain’t ya, freak? Have a seat.”
Tobias moved stiffly, but without pause, sitting on the rusty metal folding chair. His mind wasn’t quite blank enough not to notice the brown stains on the seat nor recognize they weren’t rust.
Victor propped his ass on the corner of the table, leaning over Tobias. “Hands up on the table.”
They felt like someone else’s hands, not his at all, but he had no choice but to obey. He told them to move, and the numb, foreign hands came to rest on the table.
“No.” Crusher thumped his club down in the middle of the table, next to a set of metal cuffs bolted there. “Here.”
Tobias swallowed, then stretched his arms farther out, placing his wrists in the cuffs. Crusher snapped the bolts into place, then leaned over, setting his club under Tobias’s chin to tilt his face up. “My, my,” he whispered. “I thought I’d never see this day.”
Victor rolled out a set of knives—all different types, including silver, iron, bronze, and something that looked like black glass—tucked neatly into a cloth, onto the table. He plucked one out, twirling it once before setting it to Tobias’s cheek, just under his eye, and trailed it down across his lips, to under his chin.
“So, Baby Freak. Exactly what kind of monster are you?”
Tobias’s heart rate jumped to a thunderous pace, but he fought to have no reaction, fought to give Victor nothing that he could latch onto, no reaction that would guide the knife. He fought to think of everything—his eyes, his nose, his lips—as unimportant, so that maybe Victor would pass them over, would just . . . stop.
Tobias focused hard enough that the room went gray, that his heart seemed distant and unimportant, that even the guard’s words and questions became distant and unimportant. This is a good place, he thought. I might save something for Jake if I can just. Stay. Here.
It was a good place, the safest place he could be. And when the screaming started, he barely recognized it as his own.
PART TWO
Chapter Seven
One year later
When the gate between Special Research and Intensive Containment swung open and a new shipment of monsters stumbled into the yard, dazed and blinking, Tobias was blindingly, selfishly grateful. Fresh meat, unmarked by the abuse and hardships of Freak Camp, always pulled the guards’ attention away from their favorite targets, at least for a while.
Winter was a bad time for fresh meat to learn the rules of Freak Camp. The excruciating summer heat dropped even the hardier monsters when forced to stand outside for hours in the middle of the day. But the winters, in Tobias’s view, were far worse.
In November, most monsters got an extra pair of clothes—heavy canvas pants and ragged jackets—to wear over their usual grays. They were supposed to get a second blanket when temperatures dropped below freezing, and a third when it went below zero, but that didn’t always happen, especially if a monster wasn’t as cooperative as the guards liked. Some of them knew how to pay for one in the alley between the barracks if a guard was interested.
Until last winter, Tobias had always gotten his extra blankets without any issues. He was quiet, he made no trouble, never snarled or tried to get away when the guards grabbed him. Plus, with the Hawthornes visiting the camp as regularly as they did and Jake always making a point of seeking him out, Tobias understood he had a thin shield about him, an invisible Keep Off sign.
A year ago, something had changed. That was when he’d been taken in for his first interrogation. He couldn’t figure out why, despite all the sleepless nights, but the Keep Off sign had vanished. The guards had decided it was open season on Tobias, and not just for interrogations.
There were downsides to new monster arrivals. It got tiresome watching them make the same mistakes, learn the same painful lessons, that every new batch of monsters suffered. Tobias thought he could give an instructive half-hour—no, even ten-minute—orientation that would have saved them a significant amount of blood and skin. But the guards would never have allowed it, because they enjoyed the breaking-in process. New monsters screamed in ways no one else did because they still carried those notes of outrage and shock.
After Becca and then Marco disappeared, Tobias had learned not to get close to any other monster, not when they would be heading to Special Research tomorrow or the next day, and in the meantime they would likely slit his throat to get the last bite of his bread. Tobias didn’t trust any of them, no matter how nice they tried to play. If he ignored them long enough, one day he’d look around and they wouldn’t be anywhere. Sometimes they lasted a few years, but no one was there who had been around the same time as Becca. Most of the guards came and went the same way, with just a handful sticking around year after year. Those veterans and Tobias were the constants of Freak Camp. All the other monsters flashed through like the desert rains that faded into the air above the parched earth, the grimy concrete, and bloodstained dirt of Freak Camp: fleeting, faceless, and forgotten.
Tobias had had years of practice detaching himself from the new monsters’ screams and sobs. He only felt irritation because they didn’t even know how bad it was going to get. They were just so stupid and weak, and he often wished the guards would hit them harder to get the point across, or that they’d just hurry up and die already.
But he hadn’t had much experience getting used to the sounds of a small girl sobbing.
She had been one of the last to appear in the yard, tiny wrists bound with thick rope threaded with silver. Her brown eyes had been enormous in her pale face, streaked with tear tracks and dirt, and her brown hair still looked shiny and soft, like it had been well-cared for. She was smaller and younger than Tobias could remember any other monster here, and he heard someone nearby—he didn’t know or care who—swear softly.
“What is she, seven?”
Tobias didn’t know. He didn’t have much experience guessing ages—there wasn’t any point to it. Jake had told him when his birthday was, occasionally reminded him how old he was now, and Tobias listened and remembered because it was important to Jake. So he knew that he was thirteen now (and Jake would turn eighteen in just a couple of months). According to his entry date in his ID number, he’d been in Freak Camp since he was five. If the other monster was right and this new monster girl was seven, that wasn’t so bad. If he’d made it, she had a chance . . . for what? To last longer for Crusher to have his fun? Tobias’s mouth twisted, and he turned away, tried to forget he had ever seen her.
It was just his luck, of course, that she ended up in the barracks near him, just a few bunk beds away, in one that had been vacated a week or so ago. Since she was a shapeshifter, she had the shiny new green bracelet shot between the bones of her forearm.
Maybe she was still crying from the shock of that pain, but Tobias thought the cold was more likely. Karl had announced there was a blanket shortage and decided that since the new monster girl (the guards hadn’t decided on a nickname yet) was so small, she could double hers up as two. Like two helped when the water in the pipes had frozen.
Tobias’s blanket was coarse but thick. He couldn’t remember when he’d learned how to wrap whatever fabric he was given around himself as tight as possible with no holes, with his nose and mouth inside to keep the warm breath trapped, and to rub his hands, arms, and legs together as long as he could to generate warmth. This would be one of the lessons of his orientation, if they’d let him have one. He didn’t think the girl would be able to listen and understand, though. Not tonight.
So he burrowed deeper, tried to wipe out everything he was hearing—but it wasn’t just the girl’s steady, predictable tears. Other monsters were muttering and hissing, angry, like they had a right to peace and quiet and a good night’s sleep. Ha.
Then there was a wet shredding sound, followed by the smack of something hitting the concrete floor. Louder groans filled the barracks, and it didn’t take long before Tobias could smell the discarded skin, tissue, and fluids coming from the girl’s bunk. She was shifting her skin, using her one power as though it could take away the pain or get her out.
Tobias closed his eyes and breathed out. If everyone would just shut up, he’d be able to block everything out and get to sleep.
But clearly that wasn’t going to happen, especially as a second wet plop sounded and the pitch of the girl’s sobs changed again. The older inmates’ snarls grew more threatening, with mutters like I’ll get up and take care of this myself, and the newer ones complained in loud, querulous protests that illustrated how little they understood: Fucking ridiculous, why doesn’t someone stop her or do something?
Tobias gritted his teeth, rolling over. He knew exactly how this would go: someone would get up to “take care” of this, someone else would rise to argue about what form of violence to take, and within seconds, the lights would be glaring and the guards would be filling the room with their clubs to smack around all the monsters, both standing and prone, and no one would get any sleep that night. Maybe the guards would come in anyway to see who was crying, what shifter was violating the rules about keeping a single form, and give her something to really cry about.
There were only a few ways to avoid that outcome, and fewer still were in his power. Trying to talk or yell at other monsters only made himself a target—why would they trust him, even when he had the earliest ID number of anyone in the camp—and he’d probably end up attracting the guards’ attention first when they showed up. The monster girl was not likely to stop crying soon, even with all the threats coming her way—unless she was given a reason.
Tobias swore again silently, then rolled off his bunk, jumping to the floor and clutching his blanket around him. He walked down the row of bunk beds, ignoring the taunts thrown his way. He stopped before the girl’s cot, ignoring the piles of stinking shifter skin at his feet. A slightly bigger frame now huddled beneath the thin blanket, and he could barely make out the glint of watery blue eyes peeking out at him.
Pulling the blanket from his shoulders, he dropped it on top of her and said, “Stop crying.”
The barracks fell silent.
She had stopped midbreath, staring at him in astonishment. Tobias waited to see if she would start bawling again. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if she did, but he didn’t think hitting her would make her stop. But she didn’t make another sound, and neither did any of the other monsters who had been snarling and grumbling seconds before.
Now the only problem left was the cold numbing his fingers and toes.
Tobias turned away from the girl, his own bunk, and all the monsters’ eyes on him, to walk to the door.
He knew someone was watching the camera set in the upper corner of the barracks. If a guard wasn’t already on his way because of the girl, they’d be there fast enough since he’d tripped the motion sensor that activated at curfew. No one cared, though, as long as the monsters stayed in Head Alley.
A moment later, the door buzzed under his hand, and he pushed it open. Victor stood outside, bundled in his padded jacket and gloves. “Well, well. What does Pretty Freak want?”
Tobias said, “I need more blankets.” He tried to hold still, not to shiver too visibly. At least the wind wasn’t cutting between the barracks.
Victor sighed loudly. “But we gave you yours. What happened? Didn’t you take care of it?”
Tobias didn’t budge. “I’ll pay.”
Victor threw his head back and laughed. “Ain’t you greedy?”
Sure, Tobias thought. Whatever. He didn’t expect Victor to turn him down. But the guard wouldn’t make it easy for him either.
Victor sauntered farther into the alley, into the shadows between the buildings and the one blind spot between cameras. He leaned against the aluminum siding behind him, his feet in a wide stance, and he unbuckled his belt. “Get on with it.”
Tobias dropped to his knees.
Afterward Victor sighed. “Wait there, freak. I’ll see what we’ve got.”
Tobias didn’t react, not even to the suggestion he would get nothing for his trouble. He knew better than to even think of any threats if Victor never came back with anything. There wasn’t anything he could do—except hope that if he stayed where he was without moving, soon he wouldn’t feel the cold or anything at all.
Victor did come back, though. He tossed down two ratty blankets, showing holes big enough for Tobias to put his head through.
Tobias didn’t feel anything at the loss of the blanket quality he’d had before. He wasn’t surprised. This was how it went in Freak Camp.
Lesson number one of orientation: no matter how bad you thought it was, life always got worse. The longer you stayed alive, the worse it would get.
Jake had made him a promise more than three years ago now, and Tobias wouldn’t lose faith in him—because he was Jake, he would eventually come to get Tobias out—but Tobias didn’t expect to make it that long. Even so, he had to keep trying to stay alive. If he gave up, it was like saying he didn’t believe or trust Jake, and he did, more than any other truth of Freak Camp that he knew in his bones.
He still had Jake’s visits. They weren’t as frequent as they used to be, but Jake always looked glad to see him. As Tobias got older, he was more and more at a loss to understand why Jake cared about him, why he was different to Jake from any other monster. He couldn’t spend time questioning it, though. It was, had always been, the only thing that made Tobias’s life remotely worthwhile. You didn’t question what you were afraid of losing, what you feared more than anything else that might happen to you. You just had to accept it and hope: tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow, he will come again.
Tobias got up slowly, staggering more than once at the pain he finally felt in his knees, and he turned to trudge back inside, blankets in hand.
Jake did not come the next day. Instead, during breakfast, Tobias found the shapeshifter girl inching closer to him on the bench. He ignored her until she said, “I’m Kayla.”
I don’t want to know your name, Tobias nearly said. You were luckier than you can imagine, but you’re going to get hurt soon, and bad. They usually go for the girls before the boys. I don’t think you’re going to last long, and I don’t want to know your name.
But he didn’t say any of that, because it wouldn’t have helped anything. He couldn’t remember what Becca had told him in the beginning, how she had made him understand. “Tobias,” he said at last, because there was no harm in telling her his name. It was better than what everyone else—everyone besides Jake—called him.
She scooted closer, nearly touching his side now, right there in the hall where everyone could see. Tobias moved away. “Don’t.” Then, because he couldn’t help himself, and maybe this was a chance someone would actually listen to him: “You can’t let them know what you care about or want.”
She stared at him, too shocked and bewildered to even show hurt. Something in her eyes looked raw and naked, and Tobias looked away. He didn’t like it. It made him feel things, things he hadn’t felt since Becca was around, and they would only get him hurt worse in the end.
He shut down the thought of Becca as he had every time she’d come to mind over the last year, since he’d learned to survive as Pretty Freak.
If this shapeshifter girl could understand even a little how Freak Camp worked, there wouldn’t be any more scenes like last night. Maybe she wouldn’t be among those broken in—one fewer monster he’d have to hear screaming.
So he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, looking down at the table so no one could tell he was talking to her, and spoke. “I mean it. You can’t let any of them know what you want, or they’ll take it away and use it against you. Don’t trust any of the other monsters, no matter how nice they act—they aren’t your friends, they’re just using you for whatever they can get, and they don’t care what happens to you. You shouldn’t trust me either. Monsters don’t have friends, especially not in Freak Camp.
“You can’t fight any of the guards. Don’t try, and don’t even think about questioning or arguing. Just do what they say, give them what they want. It’ll be worse otherwise.” He stopped there, before the wealth of details he could have given her on what to do when they decided they wanted her body. Crusher probably would first. He liked those that seemed most helpless, innocent, most likely to squirm. But Tobias couldn’t tell her about that. It wasn’t a mercy or kindness, but he wouldn’t do it. Hopefully when the time came, she’d remember his advice about not fighting, and they wouldn’t bring out the silver nails.
