Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(14)
“What the hell was that?” I demanded when my jaw finally unclenched, as painful aftershocks coursed through me, far outlasting the initial pain. I leaned back against the concrete wall to keep from falling over. I felt like a human lightning rod.
“You can touch the collar, but if you pull on it or put your finger under it...that happens.” Lala’s gaze was full of sympathy. “We’ve all tried it. They really don’t want us taking these things off.”
“As if we could,” Zyanya snapped. “The damn joints locked the second they snapped it closed, so this shock treatment’s overkill. These things aren’t coming off until someone cuts them off.”
“They’re not afraid we’re going to take the collars off,” I said, as my gaze roamed the large concrete room, where we sat among at least two dozen other women of various humanoid and hybrid species, each of whom wore the same uniform and collar. “They don’t want you to pull on the collar because the needles will damage your spine.”
“Like they care,” Lala said.
“They care about the money Vandekamp has invested in us. Just like Metzger did. If you give yourself nerve damage, you’re worth less to them. Which gives them less incentive to keep you alive.”
“On the bright side,” Mahsa said, and I turned to find the leopard shifter curled up in a nearby corner. “I haven’t seen anyone beaten yet.”
“Give it time,” Zarah said, as she and Trista padded toward us on bare feet. “Only paying customers get to cause damage.”
“What does that mean?” Mahsa crawled closer, and we formed a protective ring of former menagerie captives.
“Exactly what that gamekeeper said. This isn’t a circus, ladies,” Trista explained, pushing long pale hair over her shoulder. “The rumors about the Savage Spectacle seem to be true. They rent cryptids to their customers with no bars and cages to stand between them.”
I’d heard no rumors. But then, I hadn’t spent my entire life in captivity, piecing together an understanding of the outside world through stories traded with new prisoners.
“We wondered how they did that.” Zarah ran one finger over the outside of her collar. “Now we know.”
Mahsa blinked wide leopard eyes. “Rent us for what?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” Finola’s voice was full of bitter resentment. Like Lenore’s, it now held none of the calming effect she’d once used to help her friends through the transition from captives to masters of their own fate in the liberated menagerie. The collar had robbed her of her purpose in a way no cage ever could have.
“Why is your shirt inside out?” Lala asked.
I followed her focus to the shallow V-shaped neckline of my scrubs top, where the back side of the seam showed. My jaw clenched. They’d stripped me while I was unconscious, then put my clothes back on inside out. Was that intentional, so I’d know...
Know what?
“They were looking for your tell,” a soft voice said from my left, and I turned to see a young dryad sitting against the wall, braiding a long length of hair, among which grew thin woody vines blooming with small white flowers. “To figure out what you are.”
She held one hand out to us, palm down, and I saw that her veins appeared bright green beneath her skin, rather than the normal blue or blue green. Her feet looked much the same. If she were ever allowed back into the woods—the forest nymph’s natural habitat—she would be able to bury her feet in the dirt and draw sustenance from the earth’s nutrients, like a plant.
But I could tell from her pale skin and the dark circles beneath her eyes that nothing more yielding than concrete had been beneath her feet in a long, long time.
“They couldn’t have done anything more than examine you unless they paid the rental fee. There are cameras everywhere. No one gets away with anything here—neither the jailed nor the jailers.” She returned to her woody braid. “I’m Magnolia, by the way.”
Without waiting for us to return the introduction, she stood and wandered across the room toward a small cluster of captives gathered against the opposite wall.
My focus followed her, taking in the large, mostly empty room. “Where are we?” The walls held a series of tall, narrow windows. I couldn’t tell which direction the sun was coming from, but the weak daylight felt like early morning. Equidistant apart on the ceiling were two dark security camera domes, like the kind used at any department store for 360-degree surveillance.
“At first I thought it was a holding cell.” Lenore tucked her knees up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. “But there’s a bathroom through there.” She nodded toward an open doorway on the opposite wall. “And I think those mats and blankets are to be slept on.”
I followed her gaze to the left, where three stacks of blue vinyl-covered gymnastics mats were lined up against the interior wall, with folded blankets neatly piled on top.
“You’re right. This is a dormitory.” My focus skipped from face to frightened face. “Ladies, I think we’re home.”
Lenore slumped against the wall. “Well, it’s bigger than a cage. And at least we’re together.”
I nodded because I didn’t want to poison her optimism, but I felt none of it. Vandekamp hadn’t rescued us from the misery of a new menagerie; he’d delivered us into a whole new brand of captivity. A fresh hell.