Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(53)

I laughed out loud, amused by his manners, considering the barbaric circumstances. “Sure. Thanks.”

He broke off a hunk of his cheese for me and insisted that I have some of his milk, as well.

When we’d eaten and slid our trays under the door into the hall, I asked Gallagher about everything he’d seen and experienced since he got to the Spectacle, hoping he’d seen more of the security precautions than I had. I’d just started telling him about everything I’d seen and learned when the lights went out. But our collars didn’t flash. Our speech was not restricted.

When I realized that the sudden darkness meant I would not be removed from Gallagher’s room anytime soon, I curled up with him on his sleep mat—we had little choice but to share—and told him everything I’d seen and heard since we were separated at Metzger’s.

At some point after I stopped talking, he fell asleep, and though his presence at my back was the only comfort I’d found so far at the Savage Spectacle, it wasn’t enough to truly relax me. My thoughts were a storm of escape plans and revenge plots, and with so much to work out, I didn’t think I’d ever get to sleep.

But I was wrong about that, as I’d been about so much else.





Part Two

    Menagerie





Delilah

I woke up with sunlight shining in my eyes from a window high on the wall, and I knew immediately that something was wrong. Gallagher was gone, and though I’d fallen asleep in his shirt, I’d awoken fully dressed in gray uniform scrubs that fit.

Stranger still, I was alone in a concrete room, smaller in scale than the bipedal beast cells, yet more spacious than the holding cell where I’d waited to be processed and issued a collar.

At that thought, my hand flew to my throat. The collar was still there. It was the only thing I’d gone to sleep with that remained with me in the morning. What the hell?

When I stood, my feet sank deeper than they should have into the padding beneath me. I looked down to see that the sleeping mat I’d woken up on was actually a stack of three. A pillow in a clean white case lay on the floor next to the mat, as if I’d lost it in my sleep.

An eerie unease slithered up my spine.

Why was I given a pillow? Why was I in a private cell? Why couldn’t I remember any of that happening?

And why was I so tired after a full night’s sleep?

The food. Obviously I’d been drugged. Probably sedated. But why? What could possibly be accomplished through drugging me that couldn’t be accomplished with the collar? Or by threatening someone I cared about?

Had Gallagher been drugged too? I closed my eyes and thought back to the night before. I’d eaten some of his food, but he hadn’t taken any of mine. Were the drugs in his food? Were they to prevent him from fighting my removal from his cell?

I opened my eyes and spun to study the rest of the room, but my vision seemed to move slower than my body. The room spun around me with a strange sluggishness, and my stomach lurched. I sank onto my knees and took several long, steady breaths while I waited for the feeling to pass.

I’d definitely been drugged.

When I was sure I could stand without vomiting, I opened my eyes again and slowly pushed myself to my feet. The back corner of my cell held a prison-style stainless-steel toilet/sink combination. A toothbrush with a plastic bristle cover and a tube of toothpaste sat on the edge of the small sink, along with an inverted plastic cup.

I grabbed the toothbrush and opened its cover. The bristles were dry and in good shape, but obviously used. The toothpaste tube was half-empty and rolled up from the end, just the way I’d taught Gallagher when he and I had shared a camper back at the menagerie.

I set the toothbrush down and picked up the pillow. It smelled like an unfamiliar shampoo. The scent triggered another wave of nausea.

What had they drugged me with? How long before it wore off?

What the hell was going on?

Light footsteps echoed from the hall. I crossed the cell to peer out the window in my door, through which I saw a narrow, unfamiliar hallway. I could only count three doors along the opposite wall, so there were presumably at least two more on my own side. But if those rooms were occupied, I could hear nothing of my neighbors.

An unfamiliar guard appeared at the end of the hall, carrying a plastic-wrapped tray of food. He stopped in front of my door and seemed surprised to see me through the window.

“You’re awake.” He opened my door and held the tray out to me with gloved hands. I accepted it without thinking, the way people will automatically catch a ball lobbed at them.

“Where am I?” I peered over his shoulder for a better look at the hallway. “What am I doing here?”

The handler frowned. “Is that a philosophical question, or did you hit your head on something?”

A handler with a sense of humor. I was not amused. “What did you bastards put in my food?”

He exhaled slowly, as if he were fighting for patience, which was worthy of alarm all on its own. None of the guards at the Spectacle had ever demonstrated patience with a cryptid, that I’d seen. “There’s nothing wrong with your food, Delilah.”

Delilah.

The problem wasn’t that he knew my name, even though I’d never seen him before. The problem was the way he’d said it. As if we knew each other personally.