Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(23)
In the near dark, one of the forms to my right sat up on her gym mat, and I recognized Zyanya’s silhouette even shrouded as it was by baggy scrubs. She turned to me, waving one hand to get my attention, and I sat up to see what was wrong. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Her hands flew to her throat, and even in the thick shadows, I saw the fear and desperation in every motion. Zyanya was terrified.
I scooted off my mat and reached for her, but when I tried to ask what was wrong, there was no response from my vocal cords. I remembered the flash of red from every collar in the room.
Vandekamp had silenced us—all of us—evidently for the entire night.
Anger raged like a storm inside me. Having lost my voice earlier made this instance no easier to bear.
With the press of a single button, Vandekamp ripped from all of us a right I’d considered not just inalienable, but literally impossible to steal without a scalpel and the courage to face the bloody reality and cruelty of a sadistic and permanent mutilation.
He’d made the process so neat and easy that it required no thought or effort, and his conscience probably never had to justify the reasoning behind such a barbaric practice.
Zyanya’s hands began to shake. Her mouth opened, forming silent words too fast for me to read on her lips. I seized her hand, and with it, her attention. I pointed at my own collar with my free hand, then covered my mouth, trying to explain that she hadn’t permanently lost the ability to speak. That we were all suffering the same temporary loss.
The shifter’s forehead furrowed, fury dancing in her luminous cat eyes, and I knew she understood. And she was pissed.
Her rage called to the beast inside me, which uncoiled like a snake ready to strike. My vision sharpened until I could see Zyanya perfectly well in the dark and my hands ached for something to grab. For some damage to wreak.
But like hers, my anger was impotent, for the moment, without a target to strike.
I mimed lying down on my mat, silently encouraging both Zyanya and the furiae to try to get some sleep. Because there was nothing else for us to do, mired in silent darkness.
Zyanya lay down with obvious reluctance and feline grace. Her cat eyes glowed at me from two feet away, reflecting what little light shone into our room.
When I finally fell asleep, her eyes followed me into my mute nightmares.
*
With dawn came the return of both overhead lights and our ability to speak. I’d never in my life been more desperate to be heard, simply because for the past eight hours, I couldn’t be.
I cornered Simra at one of the bathroom sinks while she brushed her teeth. “Why didn’t you warn us that we would be muted at lights-out?”
She frowned at me in the mirror, mint-scented foam dripping down her pale chin. Then she spit into the sink and turned to me. “I didn’t realize you needed a warning. Was it different in your last collection?”
“We’re not from a collection. But that’s not the point.” I traced my collar with one finger. “Vandekamp invented this technology, and as far as I know, no one else has anything like it.”
“We didn’t have it here either, until a couple of winters ago.” Magnolia spoke up from the next sink. “But Simra hasn’t been here long enough to know that. Few have. They used to keep us in concrete cells in another building. Then one day, they put these collars on a few of us and put us in a separate room, with cameras on the ceiling. And they left the door unlocked.”
Vandekamp had been testing his technology on a small sample of the captives, obviously.
Magnolia shrugged. “After a while, they put collars on everyone, and that’s when the nightly engagements began. Before that, we were on display at events, but there was no...touching.”
Chills slid down my spine, forming a cold puddle in the bottom of my stomach.
“This isn’t what it’s like everywhere else, ladies,” I told them softly. “At the menagerie, they could put us in cages and they could put us on display and they could deny us food or clothing, but they couldn’t control our words. They couldn’t control our thoughts.”
“The collars don’t do that,” Simra insisted as she rinsed her toothbrush. “I’m still free up here.” She tapped her temple with the index finger of her free hand.
“Really? If you were to think about pulling all the water out of these faucets and those toilets—” a basic skill among marids “—I mean, if you were to really consider doing it, what would happen?”
She dropped her toothbrush into the holder on the shelf above the sink. “I’d be frozen in place. Or I might be shocked.”
“Exactly. These collars not only prevent you from doing what comes naturally, they prevent you from even thinking about it. Vandekamp is eroding your will.”
“Eroding?” She let water fill her cupped palms, but then just stared at it, frowning.
“With every thought he denies us, he robs us of a little bit of what makes us who we are. Like how massive canyons can be carved from small streams over time.” A concept marids were intimately familiar with. “Vandekamp is the stream, and you are the rock, and by the time he’s done with you, he’ll have carved a hunk right out of your soul.”
Simra’s sad, but not truly surprised expression opened a fresh crack in my already splintered heart. She stepped back from the sink so another woman could have a turn, and I followed her toward the doorway.