Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(102)
“I understand.” Gallagher stuffed the pill bottle into his pants pocket, then lifted me in both arms. He still wore no shirt. His chest and pants were still stained with my blood.
Gallagher carried me out of the kitchen and down the back steps toward the van. The rear doors opened just as Dr. Aaron closed her door behind us. I could see her watching through the sheer curtain over the window. But she would not open her home for us again.
She and I were even.
Zyanya started the engine as soon as Claudio closed the van doors. “Well?” he said as Gallagher laid me carefully on the floor.
“Delilah’s going to be fine.”
“And we’re going to be parents,” I added.
Genni sat in the front corner of the truck, right behind the driver’s seat. Her leg was wrapped in a large bandage. “Un bébé?” she said, her golden eyes wide.
“Oui,” I told her with a smile as Zyanya turned us out of the Aarons’ neighborhood.
Lenore had her map open. She didn’t look at me, and I wasn’t hurt by that. Her loss was too fresh.
Crowded against the rear of the van, Rommily and Eryx sat side by side, their hands interlocked. She laid her head against his arm and smiled at me.
“Where to?” Zyanya asked as she pulled out of the driveway and onto the street.
“Away,” I said as I stared through the windshield at the empty highway stretching before us. “We need to regroup. Recuperate. Then we’ll find the others.”
“Delilah, we need to lie low,” Gallagher said, with a pointed glance at my stomach.
“I know. But I gave them my word. And my word is my honor.”
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Keep reading for an excerpt from MENAGERIE by Rachel Vincent.
Acknowledgments
Thanks first and foremost to Lauren Smulski and Michelle Meade, the two amazing MIRA editors without whose guidance SPECTACLE would be just a shadow of the book it is now. Thanks also to Rinda Elliott and Jennifer Lynn Barnes, for endless advice and patient ears. You are my two most consistent and generous sounding boards, and I’m not sure I could function without your friendship and advice. Thanks, as always to my husband, daughter and son, who put up with my erratic and often long hours, as well as my tendency to actually be thinking about the book, even when I’m talking about something else. I’m sorry now and in advance for all the nights I’ll spend in bed with my laptop, when the words flow better, for no reason I can seem to pin down.
Also, a huge thanks to the MIRA art department for the gorgeous cover of this book, and for all the hours spent to get it to this point. I love it! Thanks also to everyone in editorial, production, sales, marketing and publicity, who turned this story into a book and gave it to the world. You make me look good, in ways I don’t completely understand, even ten years into my career.
And last but not least, thank you to Merrilee Heifetz, Alexandra Levick and everyone else at Writers House who represent my interests. I am so thankful to have you at my back!
“Vincent’s a pro.... Unputdownable!”
—Kirkus Reviews on The Stars Never Rise
If you loved Spectacle, be sure to read the first installment in this richly imagined, provocative new series set in the dark mythology of the Menagerie...
Menagerie
“[MENAGERIE] is well paced, readable and imaginative.”
—The New York Times Book Review
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Menagerie
by Rachel Vincent
Twenty-five years ago...
The heat rippling over the surface of Charity Marlow’s blacktop driveway was one hundred twelve degrees. It was nearly one hundred nine in the shade from the scrub brush that passed for trees in her front yard.
She sat on a white iron bench in her backyard, picking at the paint flaking off the arm scrolls. A glass of sweet tea stood on the empty plant stand to her right, thinner on top, where the ice cubes melted, thicker on bottom, where the sugar settled.
Inside, the baby was crying.
She’d been going for close to three hours this time, and Charity’s arms ached from holding her. Her head throbbed and her feet were sore from standing. From pacing and rocking in place. Her throat was raw from crooning, her nerves shot from exhaustion, and her patience long worn thin.
She’d decided to go inside again when the last ice cube had melted into her tea, and not a minute later.
Not a minute earlier either, even though the top of her head felt close to combusting from the heat of the sun.
She stared at the cracked earth beneath her feet, at the hands in her lap, watching her own fingers shake from exhaustion. Then she stared at her tea as the ice cubes shrank before her eyes, and still the baby screamed.
Then, the last ice cube melted.
Despair swallowed Charity like the whale swallowed Jonah, but she held no hope of being spit back out. Her arms felt like they were made of iron as she lifted her tea.