Freaks by Tess Gerritsen Read Free Book Online Page B

the first and last names and it became ominously familiar: Henry Lucas . Did his mother realize she’d named her kid after one of the most prolific serial killers of all time? But the boy in the next room looked more frightened than dangerous. He sat huddled at the table, a black forelock drooping over his white brow. With his jutting cheekbones, his deeply sunken eyes, he looked like a living skeleton. Multiple studs pierced his lips, nose, and God knew what other parts of his body—so many studs that he’d set off the metal detector when they’d brought him into Boston PD headquarters.
    “Why the heck do kids poke holes in their skin?” said Frost. “I never understood that.”
    “It’s a Goth thing. You know, death, pain, oblivion.” Jane snorted. “All that fun stuff.”
    “He’s sure not having any fun.”
    “Let’s go make his night even more enjoyable.”
    As Jane and Frost walked in, Lucas snapped straight in his chair, eyes wide with apprehension. Despite his grotesque piercings and the black leather jacket with the death’s-head decal, Lucas looked like just a scared kid. A kid who may have wrapped his skinny hands around Kimberly Rayner’s throat and squeezed the life out of her .
    Jane sat down across from him. Noticed that the boy’s eyes, heavily rimmed with black eyeliner, were bloodshot from crying. “Are you sure you don’t want an attorney?” she asked.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong!”
    “I take it that’s a no.”
    “She was alive when I left her. I swear it.”
    “Tell us how you came to know Kimberly Rayner.”
    The boy took a deep breath. “I first met her a few months ago, when we were both hanging out in Harvard Square. We recognized each other immediately.”
    “I thought that was the first time you met.”
    “What I mean is, I knew at once what she was. And she knew what I was.”
    “And that would be?”
    “Different. We’re different from other kids. From everyone else.”
    “Every kid thinks he’s different.”
    “I mean really different.”
    “Like how?”
    He took a breath. “We’re not human,” he said.

Chapter Five
     
    There was a long silence. Frost, standing in the corner, rolled his eyes.
    “Funny,” said Jane. “You look human to me.”
    “That’s just on a superficial level. But if you examine my cells, if you look at them under a microscope, you’ll see that I’m different. Since I was just a kid, I’ve known that I wasn’t like everyone else. I don’t need food like you do. I can survive perfectly well on just air and …”
    “Wait, don’t tell me,” Jane said. “Blood?”
    The boy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”
    Oh, you think?
    “Are you telling us you’re a vampire?” asked Frost, managing to keep his face perfectly serious.
    Lucas looked at him. “If that’s what you want to call us. We’re a subspecies of human, nocturnal and hemophagic. That means we devour blood.”
    “Yeah, I got that. So whose blood do you devour?”
    “We don’t kill people, if that’s your question. We’re the pacifist branch of our subspecies. Sometimes volunteers will donate a few tubes to feed us.”
    “Volunteers?”
    “Friends. Classmates. Or someone will smuggle out a bag or two from the local blood bank. But mostly, we consume animal blood. You can buy it, you know, from any good butcher shop.” He sat up, puffing out his thin chest. “It gives us superhuman strength.”
    Jane looked at the anemically pale face, eyes sunken in hollow sockets, and thought: What he’s got is a superhuman case of the crazies. “So Kimberly Rayner was a vampire, too?”
    “Yes. A few weeks ago, she ran away from home. I invited her to crash with me, in the church.”
    “You slept together in that coffin?”
    “No! We were, like, totally platonic. I found an old shipping carton for her to sleep in. To block out the light.”
    “I thought vampires were supposed to be immortal. So what happened to her?”
    “I don’t know. I woke