blinked wide leopard eyes. “Rent us for what?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” Finola’s voice was full of bitter resentment. Like Lenore’s, it now held none of the calming effect she’d once used to help her friends through the transition from captives to masters of their own fate in the liberated menagerie. The collar had robbed her of her purpose in a way no cage ever could have.
“Why is your shirt inside out?” Lala asked.
I followed her focus to the shallow V-shaped neckline of my scrubs top, where the back side of the seam showed. My jaw clenched. They’d stripped me while I was unconscious, then put my clothes back on inside out. Was that intentional, so I’d know...
Know what?
“They were looking for your tell,” a soft voice said from my left, and I turned to see a young dryad sitting against the wall, braiding a long length of hair, among which grew thin woody vines blooming with small white flowers. “To figure out what you are.”
She held one hand out to us, palm down, and I saw that her veins appeared bright green beneath her skin, rather than the normal blue or blue green. Her feet looked much the same. If she were ever allowed back into the woods—the forest nymph’s natural habitat—she would be able to bury her feet in the dirt and draw sustenance from the earth’s nutrients, like a plant.
But I could tell from her pale skin and the dark circles beneath her eyes that nothing more yielding than concrete had been beneath her feet in a long, long time.
“They couldn’t have done anything more than examine you unless they paid the rental fee. There are cameras everywhere. No one gets away with anything here—neither the jailed nor the jailers.” She returned to her woody braid. “I’m Magnolia, by the way.”
Without waiting for us to return the introduction, she stood and wandered across the room toward a small cluster of captives gathered against the opposite wall.
My focus followed her, taking in the large, mostly empty room. “Where are we?” The walls held a series of tall, narrow windows. I couldn’t tell which direction the sun was coming from, but the weak daylight felt like early morning. Equidistant apart on the ceiling were two dark security camera domes, like the kind used at any department store for 360-degree surveillance.
“At first I thought it was a holding cell.” Lenore tucked her knees up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. “But there’s a bathroom through there.” She nodded toward an open doorway on the opposite wall. “And I think those mats and blankets are to be slept on.”
I followed her gaze to the left, where three stacks of blue vinyl-covered gymnastics mats were lined up against the interior wall, with folded blankets neatly piled on top.
“You’re right. This is a dormitory.” My focus skipped from face to frightened face. “Ladies, I think we’re home.”
Lenore slumped against the wall. “Well, it’s bigger than a cage. And at least we’re together.”
I nodded because I didn’t want to poison her optimism, but I felt none of it. Vandekamp hadn’t rescued us from the misery of a new menagerie; he’d delivered us into a whole new brand of captivity. A fresh hell.
“So, has anyone tested the collars, beyond the one-finger booby trap?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Zyanya tapped the concrete floor with one long, thick claw—a remnant of the feline form that, along with her eyes and incisors, remained even when she took on human form. “I tried to shift earlier, but the second I thought about taking on fur, my whole body froze from my chin down. I couldn’t move at all.” She trailed the point of one nail over the front of her collar. “How does this thing work?”
“I think it recognizes increased levels of adrenaline and feline hormones. Basically, it senses what you’re going to do before you can do it, and it sends electric impulses into your spine, temporarily paralyzing you.” I turned to Lenore. “What about you? Have you tried to sing?”
“No, but I tried to inject a suggestion into my tone of voice earlier. It was an accident. I was trying to help calm Rommily, and I didn’t realize what I’d done until I was flat on my back, immobilized.”
“It doesn’t prevent visions,” Lala said with a shrug. “I guess those aren’t much of a threat.”
That, or Vandekamp hadn’t been able to isolate the proper physiological signals.
“Speaking of guards, where are they?” There was no one in the large room but us and our fellow captives, yet the door wasn’t made of steel or iron, and it didn’t meet the standards typically required by facilities licensed to house cryptids.
“Who knows?” Mirela said as she stroked Rommily’s hair. “I’m starting to think they’re not needed here. These damn collars won’t let us leave the room, except to go to the bathroom. And there’s one of those sensors in the bathroom doorway too, in case they need to stop us from emptying our bladders, for some reason.”
“It’s all about control.” My hand strayed to the collar, trying to ease the persistent feeling of constriction, and only Zyanya’s quick grab for my wrist saved me from another brutal shock. “This place is cleaner and nicer than the menagerie, because the upscale clientele pays for exotic and beautiful, not skinny and dirty.” The thought of exactly what that clientele would expect for its money made my stomach churn. “But the truth is that Vandekamp has a measure of control over us that Metzger could never have dreamed of. We won’t have any hope of getting out of here until we figure out how this system works.”
“Maybe they can answer those questions for us.” Mirela stared across the room at the other female cryptids.
“Maybe.” I studied our new roommates. Most were shifters or anthropomorphs, like sirens and oracles, but several were species I’d never seen in person. I counted three nymphs, who had feathers, leaves and vines in place of normal human hair. A young echidna had the upper body of a human woman and the lower body and fangs—and likely the venom—of a very large snake. They watched us warily from several small cliques, however none, other than Magnolia, seemed willing to breach the gap and make an introduction. “But until we get to know them, it’s probably better that we don’t ask.”
“Why?” Lala said.
“Because they might be willing to sell us out for extra food or privileges,” Zyanya explained, and it broke my heart to know she spoke from experience. “Or for time spent with their children.”
“Children!” Mirela turned to her in sudden horror. “Zyanya, what happened to your kids? Did Vandekamp buy them?”
She shook her head slowly, and an old ache reawakened deep in my chest. I’d known the cheetah shifter for weeks in captivity before I’d found out she had children. The only way Zyanya knew of to deal with being isolated from them and unable to protect them was to keep the pain of separation to herself and to hoard her memories.
“He didn’t buy any of the kids,” Lala said.
I exhaled slowly. The coup I’d incited had cost Zyanya her family. There had to be a way to get the kids back. I had to find a way.
“Do you have any idea where—” A sudden thud turned us all toward the exit, where the door was now propped open by a
