Spectacle (Menagerie #2)(87)
They wouldn’t let me see or talk to Gallagher, but when I told Pagano that isolation was stressful, and that stress wasn’t good for the baby, he told me that Gallagher had been given the night off from the arena, since I couldn’t be there to make him perform.
It worried me to think that he might not know why I wasn’t there. He might think I was dead. He might try to tear through everyone he came into contact with until someone got off a lucky head shot.
After breakfast on the fourth day, when I’d run out of songs to sing, stories to tell myself and gruesome deaths to plot for my enemies, Pagano showed up to take me for a walk around the grounds.
“Thank you,” I said as we rounded the building, headed for the topiary garden. “If I had to stare at those walls for another minute, I might have lost my mind.”
“In that case, I hate to tell you what your evening’s going to look like.”
“Let me guess. More grilled chicken, green peas and wall staring?”
He actually gave me a small smile as he clicked something on his remote to allow me through the iron gate. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a caged hamster without a wheel. Any word on those test results?”
“Not that they’ve told me. I’m sure you’ll be the first to know.”
But he was wrong. If the baby was Gallagher’s, I wouldn’t know until I was strapped to another table. “Michael, I need a night out.”
He laughed. “So, what, Italian food and a movie?”
“I’m serious. Can you get me the dinner shift? I feel good, and I need more than a stroll around the yard. Seriously. Tell Tabitha the baby needs it.”
Pagano stopped and studied my face, looking for any sign of a ruse, but there was none to find. I truly needed to see something other than the inside of my cell. The fact that a work shift would give me time to observe more of the Spectacle’s security measures and potentially talk to several of my fellow captives was incidental, at that point.
“She’s not going to go for it. This isolation isn’t just about rest. She’s enforcing a gag order. I don’t think she’s told her husband about your...insemination yet.”
I blinked at him. “You heard?”
“Through the glass door. Tabitha’s threatened to fire me if I tell a soul, and she’s paying me triple overtime. She’s not going to let you near anyone you could tell about her plan.”
“So tell her to silence me. I don’t think that’ll hurt the baby, and I won’t make a fuss.” But Pagano looked reluctant. “Please. Just try.”
“Okay,” he said, as he gestured for me to head back in the direction we’d come from. “But I’m not promising anything.”
*
Dinner came and went with no word from Pagano. Someone slid my tray beneath my door, and by the time I got close enough to the window to see through it, there was no one left in the hall.
The sun set, and the lights came on in my cell. I brushed my teeth and paced across the length of my room 467 times. Then Pagano opened my door. He was smiling.
“I couldn’t get you the dinner shift, but I told Tabitha how upset you were and mentioned that your mental health could have a direct effect on the baby. So she said you could have one hour of a special duty.”
“Special duty?” I stopped and ran my fingers through my damp hair. “What duty?”
“Nurse’s aide. One of the shifters got hurt during the hunt last night, and since we’re down one doctor...” He shrugged. “But you’ll be restricted to one room, and you won’t be crossing paths with any of the other staff, just in case.”
“Then what good will I be?”
Another shrug. “It’s mostly just to give you something to do and someone to talk to, to elevate your mood. To keep the baby happy.” But I could tell with one look at him that he hadn’t really been thinking about the baby.
“Thank you.”
He adjusted the settings on my collar and led me down the hall and out of the building. The air outside was unexpectedly crisp and the night was so clear that the earth seemed to be blanketed by a sheet of stars.
“Do you think I could just lie on the grass and look up at the sky for a minute? You can’t see anything but treetops from my window, and it’s been a while.”
“Tabitha would kill me if I let you catch a cold from lying on the ground.”
“But the earth holds heat much longer than the air. The ground’s probably still warm.”
He shook his head, so I continued down the path reluctantly, the sidewalk rough but not really cold against my bare feet.
“My favorite part about running the menagerie was closing time. For hours, there was nothing but calliope music and bright lights, and callers shouting at the customers, trying to get them to play a game or buy some food. But when the customers went home, we could turn all that off, and the world just felt so...still. So quiet. So civilized.”
Pagano chuckled. “That’s not a word often used to describe carnival life.”
“Well, after we’d freed everyone who could safely be free, that’s what it felt like. It was the first time most of them had been allowed to step out of their cages and eat real food. Put on real clothes. Spin around and around, then fall down on the grass, too dizzy to move. There’s nothing more civilized than freedom.”