Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(31)
“Yes, but that’s a generalization, and a crass frame of mind.” Though accurate, in this instance. A strong champion in the senate would enable Willem’s containment collars to move beyond the current small-scale beta-testing phase. “If you think like that, it’ll inevitably show in your bearing,” he scolded gently. “So just be your usual charming self, and I’m sure he’ll be eating out of our hands.”
“I think he’s more interested in a different set of hands.” She nodded subtly at the masked senator as he accepted a flute of champagne from a slim cryptid who had been meticulously painted with leopard rosettes across her exposed breasts, limbs, and the sides of her torso, leaving her navel undisguised. Her bikini bottom had been decorated to match the rest of her, but she wore significantly more paint than material. “I assume any services he requests are on the house?”
Willem nodded. “For tonight, at least. Let’s give him a taste of the possibilities and hope he develops an appetite.”
A man with a secret is useful, Willem’s father used to say. But a powerful man with a secret is indispensable.
Delilah
“Mirela,” I said as the oracle stepped into the line behind me. We’d stacked the sleeping mats and folded the blankets, which put us near the back of the bathroom queue. “Were you awake when they got back?” I nodded toward Lenore and Mahsa, who were several spots ahead of us in line.
“Yeah. You?”
I nodded. “Who could sleep?” We shuffled forward a couple of feet, and I rubbed my temples, as if that would actually fend off my day-old headache.
“Did they say anything?” Mirela whispered, staring at the siren’s back.
“No, but I haven’t asked.” It killed me to see our friends taken out of the dorm night after night, knowing they were headed for humiliation and abuse, and that there was nothing I could do to stop it. “I assume they’re bound by the same gag order that crippled Finola and the others.”
Mahsa turned to us with a small, cryptic smile, showing off her feline incisors. “We are,” she said. I should have realized she’d hear us—shifters have great ears no matter what form they take. “And that’s a real shame, considering how much trouble I had brushing blood and tiny chunks of human flesh from my teeth when we got back.”
My eyes widened. “You bit someone?”
The shifter shrugged. “I can’t answer that. But what I can tell you is that—hypothetically—if one of these collars is set to let a shifter shift, it might not be able to stop that shifter from biting.”
“Mahsa, you’re brilliant!” I seized her hand and gave it a tight squeeze. Hypotheticals were a very clever work-around for Vandekamp’s standard gag order!
She shrugged, but her face practically glowed with pride.
“But why would they let you shift in the first place?” Mirela asked.
“It’s usually more of a requirement than an allowance.” Simra spoke up from behind us. She was the last in line. “Some of the clients just want to look. Some want to touch. Others want to see ladies with nonhuman parts dressed up in six-inch heels, holding trays of fancy food. Some like to see shifters shift. Whatever the client wants, he makes us do.”
“He can make shifters shift?” Horror surged through me like ice in my veins, chilling me from the inside.
Simra shrugged. “He can make anyone do anything.”
My mind spun with the horrific implications. Was she saying that he would simply shock those who refused to perform? Or that Vandekamp’s collars could trigger the release of hormones that led to the performance he wanted to see?
That was it. Understanding slid into place in my head with an ominous, nearly audible click.
That’s why he’d been so desperate to find out what I was—so he could make me transform.
Vandekamp had figured out how to effectively disarm cryptids of their distinguishing traits and abilities, while retaining the ability to draw out those same traits and abilities on demand. On display. For money.
He had created push-and-play functionality in his living captives, with a built-in punishment for failure to perform.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to talk about that,” Mirela said.
Simra shrugged. “I’m not allowed to talk about my engagements.”
Because I was still reeling from her previous revelation, it took me a second to realize she’d just revealed another gap in Vandekamp’s security system. A big one. “Thank you!” I seized the marid’s hand and squeezed it.
Simra looked puzzled. “Why does that make you so happy?”
I hadn’t even realized I was smiling. “Because Vandekamp denies us information and communication to isolate us, even from each other. To keep us weak, scared and dependent. Every single thing we learn that he doesn’t want us to know is a victory. It’s a crack driven through the chains keeping us here. And you only have to break one link to destroy a chain.”
Simra frowned, her fingers grazing the front of her collar. “Is that what you’re doing? Trying to break the chains?”
I had to think about that. I hadn’t been consciously planning an escape. Where would we go, even if we could break free?
“That’s what she does,” Zyanya said softly, passing by us on her way from the bathroom. “That’s all she knows how to do.”