Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(27)
I couldn’t study many of the security procedures from the confines of the dormitory. Beyond that, an odd kind of survivor’s guilt had turned every moment of my friends’ mysterious engagements into a new kind of torture for me.
Each time one of them came back in the middle of the night, covered in bruises, cuts or bite marks, I felt as guilty for being spared the same abuse as I was frustrated by my inability to help them.
When lunch came on my third day at the Spectacle, Lala brought over a tray for each of us and sat next to me by the window. The food was healthy but bland—a boiled egg, a slice of tasteless white bread, a handful of raw broccoli and half a boiled sweet potato—and I ate though I had no appetite, because I knew better than to let my body weaken along with my spirits.
I’d forced down most of my sweet potato, a tasteless trove of vitamins A and C, when motion from outside caught my eye. I looked up to see a windowless delivery truck emerging from the woods at the back of the compound on the very narrow gravel road our cattle cars had probably traveled. The truck bore the Spectacle’s logo on the side, but had no other distinguishing characteristics.
The driver backed toward the dormitory, then he and another handler got out of the cab and headed for the rear of the truck. They were joined by Woodrow, who held a tranquilizer rifle, and Bowman, who used a key to unlock and unchain the cargo doors. With the other three handlers armed and ready, he opened the back of the truck and stepped to the side, as if he expected something within to explode all over him.
“What’s going on?” Lala peered through the glass over my shoulder, and I realized that our fellow captives had gathered around the other narrow windows.
“I think we’re getting new company.”
When no angry cryptid burst from the back of the truck, Bowman said something I couldn’t hear to his fellow handlers. The driver and passenger climbed into the cargo area. A couple of seconds later, a large pair of boots slid haltingly out of the truck, followed by a pair of thick male legs clothed in dirty, ripped orange scrubs.
The kind a human prisoner wears.
“No.” My protest carried little volume, but Lala heard me.
“What?”
I stood, and my lunch tray clattered to the floor, spilling chunks of egg and broccoli.
Outside, the orange pants were followed by a large orange shirt, which gathered beneath the new prisoner’s broad torso as he was pushed out of the truck by the two men inside and pulled out by Woodrow and Bowman, who each had one of his legs. I knew who we were seeing long before familiar arms fell, thick fingers grazing the dirt. Before I saw the strong profile, strangely altered by an uncovered head.
“Gallagher,” Lala whispered, and his name echoed in murmurs from across the room as the other former menagerie inmates came to the same realization. “What is he wearing?”
“It’s a jail uniform.” The conclusion brought with it an odd sense of relief. “They must have thought he was human.” Because back at Metzger’s, he’d broken the Spectacle employee’s neck, rather than ripping his head off.
All four strong handlers struggled beneath Gallagher’s limp weight, and his head sagged below his shoulders. His hair fell back from his face, revealing closed eyes, as well as several bruises and gashes.
I blinked back tears, my face and hands pressed to the glass, and when my eyes opened again Gallagher was wearing his traditional faded red cap, unglamoured, because he was unconscious.
That’s how they figured it out.
As they turned to carry Gallagher into the building, I caught a better look at the side of his face. His left eye was purple and swollen. There was a deep gash in his chin, and both of his lips were split open and still dripping blood.
But Gallagher’s hands bore no bruises or cuts that I could see. They’d beaten him while he was unconscious—I could think of no other reason he would fail to fight back.
The furiae stirred within me. My veins surged with fire, lapping at the bounds of my temper like waves crashing over a levee wall. I spun to look up at one of the cameras. “Hey! Where are you taking him?”
The entire room went still around me. The murmur of conversation died and all heads turned my way. But I got no response from anyone on the other side of the camera feed. So I ran for the door.
“Delilah, no!” Mirela grabbed for my arm, and when she missed, Mahsa stepped into my path, leopard eyes wide with concern for my sanity.
I dodged her and kept going until I saw the red light flicker over the door and felt the first warning twinge of pain from my collar. I skidded to a stop on bare feet, then inched backward until the light stopped flickering and the pain disappeared. I was two feet from the door—the programmed limit of the sensor’s range.
“Zyanya!” I called, and she stepped forward from the crowd that had gathered to watch what they seemed to think was my total mental collapse. “I’m going to open the door, and I need you to push me into the hall.”
“But—”
“I have a theory.” I stared right into her golden cheetah eyes. “I think it’ll stop hurting once I’m exactly this far away from the door, on the other side. Which means if I’m willing to take the pain, I should be able to get out. And I’m willing.”
Zyanya frowned. “What if you’re wrong?”
“Then at least we’ll know for sure.”