Freak Camp, page 24
It took too fucking long, already long enough that it might cost him his life. But shit, shit, Leon Hawthorne was the last person he expected—he had come to see Jake, he had run like joy was an emotion he deserved to feel because he knew he was going to see Jake, who wanted to see him smile and look him in the eye. Jake was the only person in the world for whom Tobias would lower his defenses. But for his father . . . his legendary hunter of a father . . . no, Tobias dared not think about joy in the presence of a hunter.
But given a choice between being trapped under Crusher or being in a room with Leon Hawthorne, he would always choose the hunter. It wasn’t a question of death or pain; there was no doubt that the man hated monsters, but he knew Leon would kill him when he was done, when Tobias stopped being useful. And he would kill him clean. Two things he would never be able to hope for from Crusher. It was better here. Better.
But Tobias still couldn’t stop shaking.
“Sit down.” Leon snapped the order, but it didn’t yet carry the promise of pain.
Tobias’s legs obeyed immediately, thank God, carrying him to the table and chair. He placed his hands palms-up before him, swallowed, and closed his eyes as he wished his hands would stop trembling. Such obvious fear only made things worse, always.
For a long moment, Leon was silent, though Tobias could feel his eyes on him. At last he said, flatly, “That’s not what I came for.”
Tobias took a quick, deep breath, opening his eyes and lacing his fingers together to force them to be still. He didn’t know what the proper response could be, so he went for the safe route. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Leon weighed him with his gaze. Tobias felt it but didn’t dare raise his eyes from the table. “I’m here to see what kind of goddamn freak hoodwinked my son. Look at me.”
Tobias’s breath stopped for a moment, but he didn’t hesitate. He looked up and met Leon Hawthorne’s gray eyes for the first time.
His face was nothing like his son’s, had nothing in common that Tobias could see. It wasn’t about physical resemblance; Jake had never looked at him like he was a monster. Jake’s eyes searched his face as though looking for what could make Tobias smile; Leon stared at him with the impassive contempt and loathing that Tobias always expected from reals—all of them except Jake.
But Leon’s eyes didn’t hold the same malice as in the guards and other hunters. Tobias could see that Leon wouldn’t touch any monster unless he absolutely had to. From the way his hand kept moving toward the gun in his holster, Tobias knew the man would rather shoot him right now than touch him in any way, even to administer a punishment.
Tobias’s heartbeat slowed until it didn’t feel like it was going to pound out of his chest, and he took a deeper, steadying breath. Whatever happened here, he would be okay.
“Well, you look human enough.” Leon’s voice was flat, his face as empty and hard as a stone jug. “That always makes it harder, when they look human. A vampire is just as likely to kill whether the fangs are in or out, but it’s always harder to take off the head when it’s a frightened woman staring back at you, or the face of some poor civilian bastard who doesn’t know what happened to their kid and why they’re covered in blood. I still manage. So you’re Tobias.”
Tobias cringed at his name, his gaze falling, then lifting again. The hunter had told him to look at him, so he would. “Yes, sir.”
“That wasn’t a question.” Leon’s voice remained flat, angry. “I came to see you. To see the monster that’s going to get my son killed.”
Tobias felt like he’d been knocked in the chest with a club, all the breath punched out of him. His head jerked down to stare at his folded hands, at the dents in the table, anything while his lungs fought to fill again. He couldn’t believe it. That couldn’t be true. He hadn’t done anything to Jake, not one thing, and surely he couldn’t be that inherently evil that just by talking to Jake, knowing him, he could hurt him. Jake, who was always strong and good and confident.
But Leon Hawthorne didn’t say it like he wanted to make Tobias bleed inside—the guards had taught him to identify that edge, even when he couldn’t build defenses against it. Leon sounded like a man stating a fact: a bleak, hopeless, plain fact. “He talks to you like you’re human, gets it in his head that some monsters aren’t monsters, and one day he’s going to come up against something that he trusts, and it’s going to walk up behind him and slice his spine.”
“I wouldn’t—” He couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t break off the words in time.
“Shut up. You know how his mother died, don’t you?” Tobias nodded, hunching over his hands. “She went out there trying to help people, save the world, and what did she get for it? Cut down from the back by some cowardly beast not even willing to show his face. That’s going to be Jake: laid out on some coroner’s table because he trusted one too many monsters like you.”
Tobias’s nails bit into his skin. He watched, trying very hard not to react, while blood seeped out around them slowly, like Leon’s words were eating their way to his heart.
“When he falls, I’m going to come back here and cut your fucking head off,” Leon promised.
Tobias whispered, “I hope so.”
Leon Hawthorne kicked his chair, and Tobias snapped up. “What did you say?”
Tobias shook his head violently. “Nothing, sir.”
Leon stared at him, hand resting again on his gun. He was a hunter. One of the best. But Tobias didn’t fear him as a hunter. The hunters that made him shake were the ones that came in with big grins and toolboxes from the resource room, the ones that enjoyed tying him down, not because he was a monster, but because they could. Leon Hawthorne hated him, hated all monsters absolutely, but there was nothing gleeful in that hatred. He would kill Tobias the same way he’d put down any monster.
Leon could kill Tobias, yes, but like the electric fence could kill if Tobias got too close; it wouldn’t hunt down its prey, wouldn’t smile listening to the screams. Tobias could have almost felt safe if not for the words.
“I have to keep him safe from you,” Leon said. “You fuck with his head, and I can’t lose him. He’s all I—” He snapped his mouth shut, and his hand tightened on his gun. “Don’t wait for him, freak, he’s not coming back. I’m not going to let some damn pretty monster sink his claws into my son’s head and drag him down, if it’s the last thing I do. I let Sally go. You bastards won’t take Jake too.”
Leon Hawthorne stood and walked around the table, and Tobias flinched, but the hunter didn’t notice as he headed for the door.
Tobias closed his eyes tight. “You going to shoot me?” He prayed for that. Better death than a life without Jake. Maybe he would be with Becca. Maybe he would vanish into nothing. Maybe he would be in hell. Better any of those than in Freak Camp, knowing Jake wasn’t coming back.
He heard Leon pause. “What would be the point? I have other monsters to spend my bullets on.”
The door slammed shut behind Jake’s father.
The guards left Tobias in the interrogation room for a long time. Tobias didn’t bother to count the seconds. He stared at his hands and refused to think of anything at all.
Chapter Eleven
In the evening, after the guards took their pick of monster ass like usual and the rest of the monsters settled cautiously into their bunks, Victor and Karl came for Tobias. They pulled him off his bunk, and panic made Tobias twist in their arms. Karl jerked his arms higher up behind his back until he stopped squirming, and Victor pushed the hair off his face. It had grown long again.
“Director wants to see you. Better make sure he can see that pretty face of yours. C’mon. Don’t make us leave bruises where he’ll see them.”
The two guards snapped a leash onto his collar—doubling his heart rate and making it impossible not to tense against their hands—but he didn’t even have the freedom to walk behind them with the leash. They practically carried him to Administration.
Administration was the second floor above Reception. Tobias had only ever been in one room on that floor, which was the library that he had worked in since his first days with Becca. He knew there were other rooms where reals, including important visitors, gathered to discuss FREACS’s progress on neutralizing the supernatural threat.
Karl and Victor carried him straight past anything familiar and through the heavy iron doors that monsters were forbidden to enter.
They pulled him through beautifully carpeted hallways, so elegant and clean that Tobias felt he was dirtying them just with his shoes dragging along the floor, and finally to two huge doors. The plaque next to the doors read Director Jonah Dixon. Karl rapped two quick knocks and pushed the door in.
As they entered, Director Dixon looked up from paperwork on his desk. Karl dumped Tobias to the floor, and he hit his knees hard. The rich, colorful rug under him should have felt softer, easier than the concrete yard or packed earth he knew too well, but it struck the same—or worse—chill of horror through him.
“That is 89UI6703?” The Director stood. His huge desk was built in a glossy dark red wood that reflected the ceiling light. A long matching conference table stretched down one side of the room, and a bookshelf took up most of the opposite wall. “Well, don’t just stand there and stare, get him on his feet.”
Karl pulled Tobias up by his hair.
The Director moved forward. He was a lean but fit older man with brown eyes in a cold, thoughtful face. With a firm grip, he took hold of Tobias’s chin in his hand. Tobias cringed, but Karl’s grip on his arms tightened enough to leave bruises, and he forced himself to be still.
“I’ve heard interesting things about you, 89UI.” The Director glanced at Victor, who was shifting uneasily behind Karl. “What do the guards call him?”
Victor hesitated. Through his own panic, Tobias noticed that Victor, too, was nervous. “Pretty Freak, sir. Because he’s—”
“An attractive young monster amid a crowd of skin-sloughers and muzzled vamps,” the Director said. “Yes, I understand, Mr. Todd. I’ve always said that the guards lacked creativity.”
Karl glared, the livid burn scar across his cheek flushing, but Victor kept his eyes just to the right of the Director’s face, the way Tobias looked at guards.
“Is he intelligent?” the Director asked Victor, ignoring Karl’s glare.
Victor hesitated. “I’m not . . . sure what you mean, sir.”
Tobias kept his eyes on the floor. Victor sounded cautious, wary, and he was always the smartest of the guards. Tobias had already been afraid of the Director on principle—he was in charge of FREACS and the ASC, and a word from him could destroy any monster or guard in the facility—but now he knew that he had another good reason to be afraid.
“I realize we pay you to keep the vermin under control and not to think, but do I really need to rephrase the question, Mr. Todd?”
Victor straightened. “No, sir. He seems . . . bright enough.” Tobias could nearly hear him struggling to find a better answer. “Takes direction well.”
“Obedient, good. You see, Mr. Todd, Mr. Horwitz, I have a theory that the only monster that shouldn’t be slit open on a rack is an obedient monster, a monster that can be used. Intelligence in freaks is only useful as far as it can be shaped and wielded by a human. Otherwise it is nothing but guile that serves to make the freak more dangerous. Would you agree?”
Tobias risked a glance toward Victor. The guard had a pinched, sour look on his face, like he knew he was being dressed down to give someone else a lesson and didn’t like it at all.
The Director slapped Tobias, and Tobias’s head snapped back.
The man’s smile looked almost kind, but there was steel and venom in his eyes. “You do not look at humans while I am talking to them. That is disrespect and will not be tolerated. Do you understand, 89UI?”
“Yes, sir,” Tobias said, dropping his eyes. The slap had been far lighter than any strike from the guards, but his heart hammered harder than it had during his last beating.
The Director gripped Tobias’s chin again, forcing his head back up. He stared into Tobias’s eyes for a long minute, and then he came to a decision.
“You may leave us, gentlemen. Hand that leash to me. You may wait in the hall. Naturally if it sounds like I’m being slaughtered or anything along those lines, feel free to come to my rescue.” The Director’s mouth quirked, and he gave a sharp tug on Tobias’s leash just as Victor and Karl let him go.
Tobias unbalanced, barely catching himself in time.
“Good reflexes.” The Director pulled him to the conference table. Solid metal rings were set into the table side at even intervals between the chairs. A monster chained to that table would be close, but not necessarily in the way. The Director tied the leash to a ring so that Tobias was wedged tight against the high back of one of the graceful wooden chairs. He would have had more room if he moved between the chairs, but the Director jerked the leash to make sure that Tobias stayed behind the chair, and then locked the leash in place.
The Director caught his gaze and smiled in slight amusement. “The key is in my desk. You’ll get out of here when I tell you you may, and not a moment before. Respond when I talk to you.”
“Yes, sir,” Tobias said, staring down.
“Wonderful. You can respond to basic commands. Mr. Todd is a bright man, though he’s certainly not family, but I’m never quite sure if other people share the same definitions of intelligence and training that I do. Uncle Elijah certainly didn’t. Are you obedient otherwise, or are you punished often?”
Tobias swallowed. “Not often, sir.”
“Good.” The Director rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see if you’re lying, shall we? Put your hands on the chair in front of you. You let go, you lift your hands up, you resist me in any way, and I’ll call Mr. Horwitz in here to start cutting off unnecessary pieces. I believe he still has a grudge against you because of that regrettable incident that led to his disfigurement. Do you understand, or do you have questions?”
Tobias licked his lips and planted his hands on the back of the chair. “Which pieces are unnecessary, sir?”
The Director smiled. “He gets to decide.”
Then he touched Tobias on the shoulder.
Tobias bowed his head and gritted his teeth, even though the hand was gentle, thoughtful. From his shoulder, the Director hooked his fingers under the collar and pulled Tobias’s head hard, sideways. Tobias choked a little but held on tighter to the chair, and the Director smiled and patted him on the back of his head.
“Smart,” he said. “Good boy.”
When his other hand slid over Tobias’s hip, Tobias straightened and stared straight ahead, squeezing the back of the chair until his fingers were numb, trying to hold on to some control to head off the panic.
The Director didn’t fuck monsters. That was the rumor. Tobias had never seen proof either way, but he still expected the hand to slide around to where he was pressed against the chair, to hook into the waistband of his pants.
The Director paused. “I take it that the guards, such as Mr. Todd and Mr. Horwitz, enjoy using your body for their own sexual gratification?” Tobias took a shaky breath, and fingernails dug into his hip. “Answer me, freak.”
Tobias exhaled. “Yes, sir.”
“What sexual practices have you been taught to perform? Be specific and comprehensive.”
No. No, no, no. He’d had guards and hunters ask him that before, though not in those words. The Director’s hand loosened and retightened, grinding long fingers into the bruises. “Blowjobs. Handjobs. I stand still while they h-handle themselves or m-m-me. S-sometimes while they are interrogating me, it also seems to c-cause them s-sexual g-gratification.”
“Have you been anally penetrated by any object or body part?”
He couldn’t stop a small whimper. Worse, he knew the man behind him would hear, would know. He was terribly aware of the Director’s hand. Aware of the slowly growing pain in his hip, terrified those long fingers would relax and slide beneath his pants. “N-n-no, sir.”
“Why not? You seem to have been used for everything else.”
Tobias couldn’t slow down the spike in his breathing or the way his arms shook before him, still clenching the chair. “I-I don’t know, sir.” Please please please I don’t know but please let whatever keeps them off still be there, please not today.
“Hmm. Do you touch yourself for the sexual pleasure of yourself or others?”
Tobias shook his head violently and remembered just in time to keep his grip on the back of the chair. He pulled back slightly, and the Director slammed him back into the unyielding wood. “N-n-no,” he choked out. “No, sir. Never.”
“Good.” The hand left Tobias’s hip. “Spread your legs.”
When Tobias didn’t move to obey quickly enough—he wasn’t thinking right, couldn’t get his brain and his body to work together, or maybe it was that his brain had stopped thinking and all his body could remember was to clutch the chair—the Director shoved him forward, hard, over the curved wood and kicked his feet apart. Tobias gasped, and the Director jerked his head up roughly.
The Director’s voice was calm, clear, as though reciting an instruction manual. “When I tell you to do something, you will do it promptly and without question. Hesitations will be punished. Mistakes will be punished. Any sign of disrespect or rebellion will be punished, because a monster without obedience is a plague-carrying vermin, consuming resources it does not deserve and existing only as a threat to humankind. Do you understand, or will you require more explicit instruction?”
“I und-d-derstand, s-sir.”
The Director used his grip on Tobias’s hair to shove him forward, then let him go. “Good. You will not move your legs, you will not let go of the chair, and please keep your noise to a minimum.”
Tobias swallowed, gritted his teeth together, and closed his eyes as both of the Director’s hands settled on his waist. This time, there was nothing casual or gradual about the touch. The Director’s hands moved over his body like he was inspecting a beast in an auction. He squeezed Tobias’s arms, ran a hand up his chest, and then jerked his shirt up. Tobias flinched, but managed to stop himself from making a noise as he felt the cool office air against his bare back, and the even cooler caress of the Director’s fingertips.
