Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(78)

“I think I should let her speak for herself.”

“Bullshit.” But the boss finally stepped back and waved us into his office. He slammed the door behind us, then marched straight to his desk and picked up a remote control, which he aimed at my neck. “Explain yourself.”

“Explain yourself,” I spat, before I could rethink my approach. “Why am I still pregnant, when Lenore and Magnolia are not?”

For one long moment Vandekamp’s expression registered no change. Then he frowned and his lips moved silently, repeating the question, trying to make sense of it. “Still pregnant?”

“You didn’t know?” I studied him, trying to find truth in features trained for showmanship. For politics.

In the end, I decided to believe him not because of the authentic ring to his anger and disbelief, but because I could see no reason for him to lie. I was no threat to him. He could make sure I never spoke another word to anyone in my life as easily as he could have me killed and fed to the arena beasts.

“You really didn’t know.” I believed him. But I didn’t understand it.

“I still don’t know. Has this been verified?” he demanded, looking over my shoulder to my handler.

Pagano shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything official, but someone’s ordered vitamins and exercise for her, and what’s evidently a specialized menu—”

Vandekamp’s face flushed. “Someone what?” he roared.

My handler shrugged. “I thought it was you.”

His flush deepened and his jaw clenched. “Why would you follow ridiculous orders like that without question?”

“Sir, handlers who question orders don’t last long here,” Pagano said, and again I was impressed with his nerve.

Vandekamp scowled. “Wait in the outer office.”

“Sir, she just made Doc Hill slice open his own stomach and pull his guts out one handful at a time.”

“I’m well aware of the threat she represents.” Vandekamp pulled one of his guest chairs into the center of the floor space, then backed away from it. “Sit,” he ordered.

When I sat, my cuffed wrists pressing into the leather cushion at my back, he aimed his remote at me and selected an option from the screen.

I lost all feeling from the neck down, as well as the ability to move. Panic sped my pulse and oddly, I felt like I was drowning. As if a sudden pressure was keeping my lungs from expanding.

“There. She’s harmless. And if you’d acted quickly enough, Dr. Hill wouldn’t require sedation and restraints in the ambulance, to keep him from making balloon animals out of his own intestines.”

Pagano flinched.

“Out,” Vandekamp ordered, and my handler backed out of my line of sight. A second later, the door clicked closed behind him.

Vandekamp sat on the edge of his massive wooden desk and watched me concentrate on breathing, to counter my body’s insistence that it couldn’t do that very thing.

“If you hyperventilate, you’re as good as dead,” he said at last. “After what you did to the doctor, I won’t be able to get anyone to treat you.”

He was right.

I closed my eyes and willed myself to forget about how hard breathing seemed, now that I couldn’t feel my lungs expand. My body would do what needed to be done, if I just let it.

That got easier when Vandekamp started talking. “How far along are you?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that. I can’t—” I nearly bit my tongue off trying to stop that thought from flying out.

I couldn’t tell him that I’d paid Laure to erase my memory; I wasn’t going to let a child pay for what I’d done. But it wouldn’t take him long to figure out why I didn’t have the answers to his questions, especially once I started asking questions of my own.

“I don’t know how this happened. Okay? Last week I woke up in a private cell with no memory of the previous eight weeks. I don’t know how I got pregnant or why other pregnancies have been terminated, but mine has been protected.”

Vandekamp’s gaze narrowed on me. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

I tried to shrug, but my body was unresponsive. “Maybe you’ve messed with my memory one too many times.” I wasn’t supposed to remember how that had happened, but I should remember that it had happened.

His mouth opened, then closed, and I recognized caution in his hesitation. He was trying to sort out what I should and shouldn’t remember of our interactions, considering all my trips to the secret room.

“And you really don’t remember...the father?” There was a careful quality to the phrase. Just because he hadn’t known I was pregnant didn’t mean he couldn’t be responsible.

A sick feeling swelled inside me. “Did you do this to me?” My head felt light with the sudden rush of my pulse, though I couldn’t feel my heart pound. “Is this your baby?”

“No.” He held my gaze without flinching. But he’d lied to me before.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe, and I don’t care who the father is,” he said, as if pregnancy among his captives was so common as to be unworthy of notice. “What I care about is finding out who authorized the change in your menu and your exercise breaks.”