Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(54)
As if I should have known his name too.
I glanced up from my tray without really seeing the contents, and my gaze settled on the name embroidered on the left side of his uniform shirt. Pagano. Italian. That wasn’t much help, but I took a shot. “Tony?”
“Michael.” His frown deepened. “Why do you suddenly care about my name?”
Okay, so I wasn’t supposed to know his first name. But “suddenly” seemed to imply that we’d dealt with each other before. Yet even after mentally sorting through all the faces I’d seen at the Spectacle, I had no memory of ever having seen Michael Pagano.
“Eat your breakfast and get some rest. I’ll be back for you later.” He closed the door before I could ask anything else.
“Back for me?” I shouted. I didn’t dare get too close to the door, in case proximity to the sensor triggered my collar. “Why will you come back for me?”
When his footsteps faded, I sank onto my triple-layer sleep mat with my breakfast tray, and for the first time, I truly noticed the contents. Beneath a layer of transparent cling wrap, I found half an apple, a slice of whole wheat toast—the kind with seeds and oats in it—as well as a sausage patty, a hard-boiled egg and a small carton of two percent milk lying on its side. Also on the tray was a single large pill, similar to the one on Gallagher’s tray the night before.
I’d been given a multivitamin and a very healthy breakfast.
Why? If they were planning to make me fight in the arena, they’d be sorely disappointed in my performance unless whoever they put on the sand with me had done something to piss off the furiae.
I pulled back the plastic film and stared at my food. The sausage smelled delicious for about a second. Then another wave of nausea obliterated my appetite and made me suspect the entire meal. Was this food drugged, as well?
However, when the nausea passed, both hunger and logic won out. If Vandekamp wanted to drug me, he could do it just as easily with an injection as with food, if I refused to eat. So I ate everything on the tray, except for the apple core and the vitamin—the most suspicious part of the meal. Then I drank the milk.
I flattened the empty milk carton and slid the tray through the slot at the bottom of my door into the hallway. Then I turned to look up at the window, determined to figure out where I was. The sill was at least a foot above my head, but the triple stack of sleep mats gave me a good boost.
The glass was so thick that the world beyond looked distorted. My view was nothing but trees, and since I couldn’t see the sun, I couldn’t tell which direction I was facing.
I spent the next few hours alternately willing the door to open and going over everything I could remember from the night before, searching for some memory of being removed from Gallagher’s cell. Of being dressed and taken to another room. Of falling asleep with an actual pillow. But the memories were not there. I must have been unconscious when I was moved.
Just when I thought I’d lose my mind from the solitude and the unanswered questions, Pagano opened the door with my empty breakfast tray in one hand and scowled at me. “You didn’t take your vitamin.”
“I don’t believe it’s just a vitamin.”
“Let’s not do this today. You can’t leave the room until you take the vitamin.” He set the tray on the ground and slid it into my cell. “Take it, and I’ll give you an extra lap around the building. It’s nice out today.”
I picked up the vitamin because I was intrigued not just by the concept of an extra lap around the building—how many came before the “extra” one?—but because he seemed to think I knew what he was talking about. My morning made no sense, and I wouldn’t get any answers sitting alone in a cell. So I ran water in the cup and swallowed the huge pill, then opened my mouth to show that it was gone.
“Good. Come on.” Pagano aimed his remote control at my collar and clicked an icon on the screen, then waved me into the hall with one gloved hand. He’d come prepared to avoid contact with my skin, but that was the only thing he seemed to have in common with the other handlers. He wasn’t aggressive or easily provoked. His tone was condescending, but not entirely without respect—he spoke to me like he might to a human child, rather than to a dangerous creature.
I stepped out of the cell, and Pagano took my left arm, but he didn’t cuff me. On our way down the hall, I glanced into the other rooms and found them all empty. The door at the end of the hall opened into an empty foyer, which led us out of a building I didn’t recognize and into what was indeed a beautiful day, if unseasonably cool for September.
The lawn and the sidewalk surrounding the building were unfamiliar. To one side was the patch of woods I’d seen from my window. Opposite that, the sidewalk led away from the building and through an arched gate in the stone wall, beyond which presumably stood the topiary garden.
“Where are we going?” I asked as Pagano led me around the first corner of the building.
“I thought we’d go counterclockwise today.” He shrugged. “I get bored too.”
Instead of answering my question, his reply had led to several new ones, but I swallowed them. He seemed to think I should remember things I didn’t remember, which meant he was ignorant of my ignorance. I’d never fared well from tipping my hand to the enemy, so I decided to trust my instinct. I would figure this out on my own.