The gray concrete walls of Freak Camp weren’t as tall as Jake had expected them to be, considering all the monsters held inside. He craned his neck to look up at the razor wire on top as his dad, Leon, stopped the car before the guard post.

“Hawthorne?”

Jake looked over, surprised to hear their real last name. The guard bent over to squint through the car window, looking curious and skeptical.

Dad stared back, implacable. “What’s it to you?”

The guard shrugged. “Didn’t expect to see you around here. Thought you steered clear of the ASC.”

“There a problem with my hunting license? Unless you changed the rules in the last hour, any licensed ASC hunter has access to the FREACS facility.”

The guard still hesitated, his gaze moving to Jake. “You got a license for the kid already?”

Dad snorted as Jake glared. “Like the Dixons never bring their kids here. Don’t bullshit me. He’s with me, and he can look out for himself.”

With a final shrug, the guard stepped back and waved them through. Jake smirked, sitting back. Gravel crunched under the Eldorado’s tires as they rolled forward into the small parking lot.

Even this far north in Nevada, the late September heat stifled the air as they walked from the car to the heavy metal door, where they paused under a camera for a beep that allowed them to enter.

Following his father, Jake stepped through the spirit-detection scanners, across the pentagrams, and gripped the silver-and-iron turnstile to push through into the lobby. He tried to look like he’d been there before, that this was all routine, as they headed to the reception desk with a grim-looking middle-aged woman stationed behind a reinforced plastic screen. Really, it had only been in the months since his tenth birthday that Dad had let Jake join in a few hunts instead of leaving him alone in the motel or with a babysitter. Well, sometimes his job was only to guard the Eldorado while Dad went after the vamps inside the warehouse, but that was still a really important job. Jake knew how to use the radio to call for help if things got ugly.

And now Dad trusted him enough to bring him into Freak Camp. Jake was more than ready to see real monsters in the light of day and not just the aftermath at midnight in a trashed house.

Dad wrote their names into the register, and the receptionist pulled it toward her to scan them, her eyes widening. “Mr. Hawthorne. Is this your first time visiting FREACS?”

“Suppose it is.”

She looked at Jake. “We don’t usually have minors loitering in Reception, but he could wait here—”

“No,” Dad interrupted. “He’s coming inside with me. No use sheltering him. As long as you don’t have the inmates running the show.” His tone was scornful, a challenge.

Her mouth pursed. “Certainly not. Well, this is not a situation that’s arisen before, but ASC leadership leaves it to parental discretion. I’ll call a guard to escort you in.”

***

Victor Todd had been working at FREACS for less than a year, so he still found himself tagged for grunt jobs like escort duty. When he heard the summons over the walkie-talkie, he rolled his eyes and left his patrol of the Workhouse to head for Reception. At least the chance to give a tour to a jaw-dropped, barely-eighteen hunter could break up the monotony of the week, he reflected as he punched the code to open the security door.

The door swung open to reveal a grizzled middle-aged man, face as hard as the most experienced guards and hunters Victor had met. As he stepped through, a young boy jumped after him, his own gray-blue eyes wide and scanning the yard before them.

Victor took their measure, then cleared his throat. “Welcome to Freak Camp. I’m Officer Todd, and I’ll be your tour guide today.”

The man didn’t look away from his cool study of the camp. “Hawthorne.”

Victor did a double take. The boy beside Hawthorne imitated the man’s posture, feet apart, one hand resting on a short-sheathed knife strapped to his jeans belt. This was Sally Dixon’s son? No one had caught a glimpse of him since his mother was killed in the Liberty Wolf Massacre six years ago. His father had disappeared with the boy before the end of the funerals.

The kid couldn’t yet be in junior high. He looked about the same age as Victor’s youngest cousins. The only weapon they could handle was a baseball bat—though they’d be scary with one—and Victor would go to work bare-ass naked before he let them set foot in here.

With effort, Victor refocused on the man before him. While his son was a mystery, Leon Hawthorne was a legend among hunters and those within the Agency of Supernatural Control. He was a man who went alone, with only an ax, after monsters that other hunters tackled in groups, armed with machine guns.

“This is your first time here, is that right?” Victor asked, and Hawthorne gave a short nod. “Well, welcome to America’s number-one most secure and only facility for housing supernatural creatures—whatever monsters under Timmy’s bed we can drag out and haul here. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of nicknames, but the official name is the Facility for Research, Elimination, and Containment of Supernaturals. Built and named five years ago by Director Elijah Dixon, founder and head of the ASC—”

Victor broke off with a cough, realizing he was talking about Hawthorne’s father-in-law and the boy’s grandfather. Neither of them looked at him, but Victor thought the grim lines around Hawthorne’s mouth and eyes tightened.

Victor said hastily, “Let’s start with Building A, the one you just came out of. That’s Reception and Administration. If you want to book one of the dozen standard interrogation rooms there, you get to them through Reception. Administration is the other half of the building and takes up the whole second floor, but you’d only go in there if you got an appointment with Director Dixon. Now, this way.” Victor gestured to his left, and the Hawthornes fell in behind him on the packed dirt path.

“Building B has the mess hall where we feed our monsters, with an infirmary wing if we’ve got a reason to keep a sick monster alive. Next up, Building C. That’s the barracks for the main population of low-level supernaturals—your vamps, werewolves, witches, shapeshifters, all other basic, human-presenting freaks.” Victor glanced back to see the Hawthorne kid, eyes wide, trotting a little to keep up with his old man. “There’s Building D, the Workhouse, where we keep our monsters productively employed making all the salt rounds and hunter PPE you can find. Course, some of them find themselves allergic to the ingredients, but that’s why we’ve got gloves.”

In the middle of the compound, Victor stopped, pointing ahead at two looming, windowless buildings made of the same iron-reinforced concrete as the outer walls. “That’s Building E, split between Special Research and Intensive Containment. IC is where you find the nastier freaks: your djinn, wendigos, or any other monsters that want to make trouble. Only specialized personnel allowed in or out, or hunters if they’ve done the paperwork. Special Research is where we take freaks for special interrogations.” Victor didn’t elaborate.

“That’s where I’m headed,” Hawthorne said.

***

So far, Jake found Freak Camp pretty disappointing. There were no monsters clawing and shrieking at each other in the yard, no groups of guards fighting to subdue a vampire or werewolf, or something stranger yet, something Jake had never seen or heard of before. Maybe not today, but someday, he’d face down a freak that even Roger had only read about in all his books.

The yard was quiet outside the buildings, but as they passed the Workhouse, he saw a few groups of prisoners dressed all in gray. They looked human, though of course he knew that didn’t mean anything. Plenty of monsters were good at looking human.

They were digging a trench with plastic shovels. As Jake passed, they looked up, eyes flickering over Jake’s dad and the guard, and then they turned away, hiding their faces. Jake smirked, skipping forward to catch up. Even monsters here recognized his dad.

As they approached the chained, electrified gate leading into Special Research, Officer Todd stopped, looking back at Jake. “Uh, you want the kid to wait outside?”

Leon followed his gaze. “Sounds good. Jake, I need you to stay out here.”

Jake planted his hands on his hips. “But Dad, I can—”

“Jake. Not today.”

Jake stopped, dropping his arms to his sides. He trusted his dad with every bone in his body, as well as any other bones they might come up with, but he didn’t have to like it. At least if Dad said not today, that meant someday, and that was okay, he guessed. Someday, when Dad knew Jake was really ready to join him in the hunt as a full partner, Dad would let him know.

He sighed loudly, but all he said was, “Yes, sir.”

A smile cracked Leon’s face, and he patted Jake’s shoulder. “That’s my boy. I’ll be gone for . . .” He turned to the guard. “How long do these things usually take?”    

“That depends on how—” Todd glanced down at Jake. “Depends, sir. Anywhere from half an hour to a few.”

“Well, probably won’t be so long today. Jake, I’ll be back in an hour, give or take.”

Jake nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Dad looked back at the guard. “Watch him for me?”

Todd appeared taken aback. “Sir, I don’t know that that’s a good—”

“Jake knows not to poke at the monsters. Just make sure he knows where to stay out.” Leon’s mouth quirked again. “My boy’s no idiot. He knows to keep his distance. And he’s not going to pull any boneheaded moves in this place, will you, son?”

Jake rolled his eyes, whining out, “Dad.”

“One hour.”

“I’ll be here, sir.”

“Good.” Dad moved forward to the gate, where Todd did something complicated with a keypad and a large lock, twisting it open. Without a backward glance, Leon Hawthorne stepped through the gate to Special Research and disappeared inside.

***

As the gate clanked shut behind his dad, Jake found himself alone with the guard Todd, who eyed him like he had never seen a hunter before.

Or maybe, Jake thought proudly, he’d just never seen a Hawthorne before.

Finally, Todd cleared his throat. “So, kid—”

“Jake,” he corrected. “My name’s Jake. Is Todd your first name?”

The guard blinked at him. “Nah, it’s Victor. So, Jake, what are you interested in?”

Jake gave Victor a look that said How stupid are you? He tapped the knife in his belt. “I’m a hunter. What do you think I’m interested in?”

Victor gave a huff of laughter. He looked around the yard behind Jake, then crouched down toward him. “Wanna see the baby monsters in their playpen?”

Jake felt a leap of excitement. “Sure! Wait, you guys got baby monsters? I thought they were always just adults or dead things that were killing people.”

“Oh yeah, there’s baby monsters. And they’re just as fu—as messed up as the big, scary monsters. All right, this way.”

The guard led him back down the path, cutting across the yard of packed dirt, past a pair of posts jutting into the sky with manacles attached to them. Next to the Workhouse, they approached a fenced-in block of bare earth. Inside were clusters of kids, ranging from younger than Jake to some who looked like they might be in high school if they were outside Freak Camp.

Jake stopped, disappointed again. They all looked ordinary, no different from kids he saw on playgrounds, except this wasn’t a playground, and no one looked like they were playing. He looked up at Victor skeptically. “These are monsters?”

Adults had tried to jerk him around in the past, and he liked to make it clear that he wouldn’t put up with crap from anyone, even if they were older than him. The only adult he trusted implicitly was Dad, because Dad always knew best and wouldn’t lie to him.

But the guard looked sincere, though amused, like he was helping a fellow hunter correct an elementary mistake rather than messing with a stupid kid. He nodded. “Don’t be fooled if they look weak and innocent. Didn’t your dad teach you how some monsters can look just like us?”

Jake scoffed. “Course he did. He taught me everything. I just thought you’d have them better tied up or something.” He hadn’t thought that at first, though. He had thought they just looked like kids. But he wasn’t about to admit that to a man who dealt with monsters every day.

Victor grinned. “No need for that—they’re well-trained. You got nothing to worry about. You could even walk in and poke at them with that knife you’ve got in your belt, and they wouldn’t even snap back.” He mimed swinging at someone with his billy club.

“Seriously?” If someone poked Jake, he’d do his best to break their fingers. He’d have thought that monsters would try to rip his head off at least.

The guard waved him on. “Don’t believe me? Go ahead, try it.” His tone added I dare you, but in a friendly, easy way. The guard might think Jake was just a kid, but the man wouldn’t want him in any kind of real danger. After all, if he let Jake get hurt, then he would have to answer to Leon Hawthorne, and Jake knew—like he knew the purr of the Eldorado on endless roads, the recoil of a shotgun, and the smell of burning bones—that Dad would crush anyone who ever hurt Jake.

Jake walked forward, neither slow nor fast, and the guard opened the gate for him. It was a simple chain-link fence, something that Jake could probably have kicked down if he put his mind to it, but it marked a boundary of a place containing more monsters than real humans. He walked with his head high and hands open, confident, ready to draw his knife at a moment’s notice—like Dad walked. Jake was a hunter, even if he was young, and no monster had better underestimate him.

But the monster kids didn’t seem interested. A couple glanced up at him, eyes flickering over his hands and knife before moving away from him, but most kept their focus down. Now that he was closer, Jake could recognize some as monsters. Kid vampires—some of them maybe centuries old—had unnaturally pale skin flaking from the Nevada sun, and iron muzzles like supersized braces kept them from opening their mouths wide enough even to bite a finger. Shapeshifters had telltale neon-green tags flapping from their arms, while those with some kind of mind-control powers had a T brand on their forehead to indicate the danger. Two werewolves had silver buckles on their collars.

Everywhere Jake looked, he saw the same kinds of monsters that he and Dad hunted. These looked sad and defeated, but the danger in that space still made the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He couldn’t see any of them looking at him, no matter how fast he turned, but he could sense their attention, the hunger some of them must have had for his flesh or blood or pain.

That awareness made Jake twitch, but it settled him too. He had seen all these monsters before and knew how to fight them. None of them would take him by surprise today, not like Mom had once been surprised.

Jake was almost ready to turn around, to leave the enclosure and wander around as much of the rest of the camp as he could, when one kid leaning alone against the building glanced at him. It was just a flicker of his eyes, but it made Jake freeze.

He couldn’t tell what kind of monster the boy was. He looked . . . ordinary.

The boy was pretty small, maybe six years old, with buzzed-short hair and skin reddened by the sun. He was so thin that Jake could have picked him up over his head, and his gray camp clothes hung off him like he had gotten a set meant for a much bigger child. He didn’t have tags on his collar, or the muzzle, or the brand. Nothing to tell Jake what he was.

That wouldn’t have been so unusual—a couple of other monster kids also had no distinguishing marks—but what made Jake hesitate was that when he looked at the boy, Jake couldn’t see any kind of threat in him. No hatred, no hunger, no loathing like he felt from the other monsters, even when they tried to hide it.

Jake glanced back at the guard, wanting to ask what was different about the little kid, but he changed his mind. Victor was grinning at him and mimed poking again with the club. The look on his face was nasty. Jake felt like the guy was daring him to do something stupid.

But Jake had never been afraid of a dare.

He marched over to the kid, stopped a couple of feet away, and glanced back at the guard. Then he looked at the younger boy, who was hunching in on himself, carefully not looking at Jake.

Jake raised a finger and poked him twice on the shoulder.

The kid tensed, his shoulders rounding a little more, but when nothing else happened, when Jake just stood there and waited for his reaction, he looked up in surprise. He had bright, clear hazel eyes that looked huge in his thin face. They made him look like some kind of startled bird.

Jake and the monster stared at each other for a moment before the monster seemed to realize what he was doing and dropped his eyes.

Jake felt awkward. He was always awkward when he actually wanted to talk to someone. He was fine with a cover story—like Dad always gave him when they went to a new town, a new school, along with a new name and a new reason Mom wasn’t with them—but he had trouble just being himself.

“So,” he said, and stuck his hands on his hips. “What kind of monster are you?”

The kid looked up, then back down again quickly. “Unidentified, sir.”

Jake frowned. “I’m not sir. Sir’s my dad. You can call me Jake.”

The monster boy raised his eyes, blinking at him. “Jake,” he said, and then ducked his head. Jake wasn’t sure, but he might have caught the edge of a smile. “Yes, s—Jake.”

Jake felt like the kid didn’t quite get it. Like he thought that Jake was just another substitute for sir. “Jake,” he persisted. “It’s my name. What’s your name?”

The monster took a quick breath and held his hands straight at his sides. “Eighty-nine U I six seven zero three,” he said, rapid and flat.

Jake scoffed. “That can’t be your name. That’s a number. What do people call you?”

His eyes flickered up again, and he hesitated before answering, “Tobias. Becca calls me Toby.”

If Jake didn’t know better, he’d have thought that the monster boy was shy. It was weird even thinking of him as “monster boy,” because he seemed like any other kid. Nicer than any other kid, actually. Other kids usually didn’t stick around this long just talking to him. They wanted to know how he fit in the food chain of whatever new school or town he was in, and that was it. Jake spent half of every first week—and sometimes there wasn’t a second week, if Dad managed to piss someone off, or the hunt wrapped up—proving that he was at the top, untouchable, in whatever social order already existed.

But it looked like Tobias didn’t mind sticking around, even after figuring out where they stood.

“Toby,” Jake repeated. It was a strange name for a monster. “So you’re unidentified? What does that mean?” He reminded himself that he wasn’t talking to a kid. He was talking to a monster. Toby had probably done something awful, like eaten someone’s dog or something. They didn’t just lock little kids up in Freak Camp because someone pointed at them and said they were a monster.

“They don’t know what kind of monster I am yet.”

“But what did you do?” Jake leaned forward. “All monsters do something, have some kind of power.”

Tobias shrugged his small shoulders, eyes back on the ground. “I don’t remember.”

It must’ve been really horrible if Tobias couldn’t even remember what it was. Maybe he had woken covered in blood and screaming. Maybe every stuffed animal in an arcade had caught fire all at once when he was around, or he’d stabbed someone, or something.

But every time Jake tried to picture Tobias in those scenes, it didn’t work. It was impossible to imagine this shy, jumpy kid doing anything monsterlike. It didn’t help that the longer Jake thought about it and didn’t say anything else, the smaller and more dejected Tobias looked, like the conversation had been as cool and unusual for him as it had been for Jake and he didn’t want it to be over.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jake said at last. “It’s fine if you don’t remember. Do you have a lot of friends? I mean, monster friends?”

Tobias shook his head. “I have Becca. But a lot of the others . . . We’re all freaks, but I’m really . . .” He trailed off and shrugged. “Becca says they don’t know what to make of me. Are you a hunter?”

Jake puffed out his chest and put his hand on his knife. Tobias cringed back, ducking his head lower. “Of course I . . . hey, wait, it’s okay, I ain’t gonna hurt you. I mean, you’re a contained monster, right?”

Tobias nodded.

“And you don’t want to hurt anyone, right?”

Tobias nodded again, so hard and fast that Jake could see the collar around his throat rubbing over his ear.

“So we’re good.” There he went again, saying something totally ordinary that filled Tobias’s face with surprise and a hint of wonder.

Jake was used to thinking that he was a pretty cool kid, but that was an opinion shared mainly by himself and no one else. But every time he said something that was even moderately nice, he got one of those looks that made him want to keep being friendly. Jake glanced back at the guard, but Victor wasn’t paying attention to him, focused instead on a few monsters in a corner standing close together.

“Let’s sit down,” Jake said, and that smile on Tobias’s face caused some pretty awesome feelings.

“What do you do here all day?” Jake asked when they were settled against a wall, still in sight of the guard but far enough away that Victor couldn’t listen in on their conversation. “Do you have to learn and stuff, or do you just walk around all day and, like, play cards?”

“I learn!” Tobias sounded almost defensive, if someone could be defensive without raising their voice. “I can read anything.”

“Whoa, really?” Jake wasn’t a big reader. He could read, he wasn’t an idiot, but this kid might’ve been in first grade if he wasn’t a monster, and Jake had a feeling that reading hadn’t been his strong suit when he was that age. “What kinds of stuff do you read?”

Everything, apparently. Biology, geography, and folklore. General history, as well as specifics on monster attacks leading up to the Liberty Wolf Massacre. Tobias even had some knowledge of non-supernatural animals. Tobias had started cautiously, listing off books and subjects in a monotone, but as Jake sat and listened, he talked more rapidly, more eagerly.

“Do all the monster kids learn this stuff?” Jake asked.

Tobias shook his head. “I help Becca in the library. That’s where we’re assigned. She used to be a librarian before she got caught and came here, so they tell her to do research for the scientists. She’s really good at it, and she’s teaching me too.” He glanced at Jake, who could almost see the proud smile in Tobias’s eyes, though it hadn’t quite made it onto his face yet. “The library’s where they keep all the books,” he whispered, as though that was a secret that shouldn’t be passed around to just anyone.

Jake laughed. Tobias looked nervous for a second, then relaxed. Jake wasn’t laughing at him, but in amazement that he was hanging out with a six-year-old monster boy who was explaining libraries, and he wasn’t actually bored out of his skull. Talking to Tobias made him almost want to go check out a library himself.

“Could I get some of these books?” Jake asked.

Tobias nodded. “Sure you could, you’re a hunter. Hunters get whatever they want. But . . .” He bit his lip. “If you take them away, then I won’t get to finish them. So if you could wait a little . . .” Tobias abruptly looked horrified. “N-n-not that I’m t-t-telling you what to do, I’m just saying that I would m-m-miss them—do what you want. I’m just a monster, don’t listen to me.”

“Don’t worry, Toby, I’m not gonna take your books. I’m sure there’s other copies at some of the libraries I’ve been to.” Though Jake wasn’t sure of that. Some of the books that Tobias had listed sounded pretty rare, and Jake didn’t know that most public schools would carry them. But he wasn’t going to tell that to Tobias, who had looked so upset at the thought of Jake taking away his books.

“You’ve been to other libraries?” Tobias gaped. “You mean there’s more than the one in Administration?”

“Toby, there’s hundreds of libraries. One in every school I’ve ever been to—and I’ve been to a lot of schools—and at least one in every town.” Jake told him about his last school, where he had hung out in the library just because the kids were all dumb and not worth talking to. He had read eight Goosebumps books because there had been nothing much else to do. He had pretended that it was research, but most of the stories sounded made up. No way civilian kids would ever be that smart and badass around monsters.

“I mean, I’ve never been to summer camp, but no way it’s anything like Freak Camp, and the cops never help like that.” In real life, Jake knew, cops only ever got in the way or got there too late to help. That’s what his dad said.

Tobias tilted his head. “What’s a summer camp?”

Jake groped for an explanation. “It’s a camp you go to, but only like, for the summer. You stay with other kids in a cabin and tell ghost stories, and during the day they make you do arts and crafts and sh-stuff.” Even though Toby was a monster, it felt weird to swear in front of him. Toby didn’t look like a monster, he just looked like a little kid, like the ones Jake saw sometimes being pushed by their parents on the swing set across the street from his school.

Toby blinked at him. “And then where do you go?”

“Back home. And to school. Um.” Jake realized this might not be as easy to explain to a monster kid as he’d first thought. As smart as Toby was, he didn’t know about libraries. Maybe he’d never even seen a TV show. “Anyway, you gotta know there’s no such thing as monster counselors.”

“What’s a counselor?”

“It’s . . . um . . .” Jake glanced at the guard outside the chain-link fence. “Never mind, forget it. It’s not like I’ve been to summer camp either. So yeah, that library wasn’t half as big as the one at my third-grade school in Amherst . . .”

Tobias listened like he’d never heard anything half as cool in his life. At one point he rocked back and looked up at the sky, too amazed to sit still any longer. That was when Jake really noticed the collar, imprinted with the 89UI6703 ID number in iron figures.

“Does that hurt?” Jake motioned toward his own neck.

Tobias blinked at him. His eyes looked even bigger and more innocent up close. Jake didn’t think monsters’ eyes were supposed to look like that. “Does what hurt?”

“That.” Jake reached toward him but stopped before touching the leather. Tobias hadn’t reacted, just watched his hand.

“Oh.” He dropped his gaze and scratched at the collar. “Sometimes. I’ve had it for a while, so I don’t feel it much anymore.”

Jake frowned. “Does it ever come off?”

Tobias shook his head.

“Not even when you shower? Or sleep?”

He shook his head again.

“Huh.” Jake picked at the ground, not sure what else to say.

“Jake!”

Jake jumped to his feet, seeing Dad on the other side of the fence, waiting for him. He hastily brushed off his knees. “Sorry, gotta go.”

Tobias looked up then, gazing straight into his eyes. “Will you be back?”

Jake stopped, startled. “Yeah,” he said, with a rush of certainty. “Yeah, I’ll be back. I’m old enough now, and Dad said we’ll probably have to come back here now that he’s found something. I’ll come back and see you, Toby.”

For the first time, Tobias smiled. It was a small, hesitant thing that vanished almost as soon as it appeared, but it made Jake feel oddly proud.

“Jake!”

Without another word, Jake turned and ran back to his father.

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