frowned at me in the mirror, mint-scented foam dripping down her pale chin. Then she spit into the sink and turned to me. “I didn’t realize you needed a warning. Was it different in your last collection?”
“We’re not from a collection. But that’s not the point.” I traced my collar with one finger. “Vandekamp invented this technology, and as far as I know, no one else has anything like it.”
“We didn’t have it here either, until a couple of winters ago.” Magnolia spoke up from the next sink. “But Simra hasn’t been here long enough to know that. Few have. They used to keep us in concrete cells in another building. Then one day, they put these collars on a few of us and put us in a separate room, with cameras on the ceiling. And they left the door unlocked.”
Vandekamp had been testing his technology on a small sample of the captives, obviously.
Magnolia shrugged. “After a while, they put collars on everyone, and that’s when the nightly engagements began. Before that, we were on display at events, but there was no...touching.”
Chills slid down my spine, forming a cold puddle in the bottom of my stomach.
“This isn’t what it’s like everywhere else, ladies,” I told them softly. “At the menagerie, they could put us in cages and they could put us on display and they could deny us food or clothing, but they couldn’t control our words. They couldn’t control our thoughts.”
“The collars don’t do that,” Simra insisted as she rinsed her toothbrush. “I’m still free up here.” She tapped her temple with the index finger of her free hand.
“Really? If you were to think about pulling all the water out of these faucets and those toilets—” a basic skill among marids “—I mean, if you were to really consider doing it, what would happen?”
She dropped her toothbrush into the holder on the shelf above the sink. “I’d be frozen in place. Or I might be shocked.”
“Exactly. These collars not only prevent you from doing what comes naturally, they prevent you from even thinking about it. Vandekamp is eroding your will.”
“Eroding?” She let water fill her cupped palms, but then just stared at it, frowning.
“With every thought he denies us, he robs us of a little bit of what makes us who we are. Like how massive canyons can be carved from small streams over time.” A concept marids were intimately familiar with. “Vandekamp is the stream, and you are the rock, and by the time he’s done with you, he’ll have carved a hunk right out of your soul.”
Simra’s sad, but not truly surprised expression opened a fresh crack in my already splintered heart. She stepped back from the sink so another woman could have a turn, and I followed her toward the doorway.
“Simra, how long have you been here?”
“They don’t give us calendars.”
Fair enough. I knew exactly how difficult it was to keep track of time when every day was just a cruel repeat of the day before.
“How many fall seasons have you been at the Spectacle?”
“This is my second. I came north to look for Adira after she was stolen from her groom before they could wed by terrorists trying to prevent an alliance between the marid and ifrit kingdoms.”
I blinked, stunned by the story Sultan Bruhier had evidently told his people. Was he trying to avoid conflict with the ifrits?
Either way, it was not my place to deny her the bliss of ignorance.
“I was going to help bring her home,” Simra continued. “To prove my worth as a companion.”
“So you’ve been here about a year?”
Simra nodded.
“I grew up free too.”
“And you really think it’s better to live in a rolling cage and eat scraps than to be here, in a room with showers and toilets and decent food to eat? Woodrow says we’re lucky. We’re not in cages. We’re not being starved. We’re not being dragged from town to town in the back of a stifling, germ-filled trailer. Or being injected with toxic chemicals in lab tests.”
And that was the true danger in the propaganda the Spectacle was feeding its captives—the idea that they weren’t being abused or exploited just because they weren’t being starved or experimented on.
Chains and cages were only one way to crush a person’s soul.
“So what is happening to you?” I asked as I followed her into the dorm room. “What does Vandekamp do with his collection?”
“Whatever the client wants. It’s different for everyone. For every engagement.”
She tried to turn away from me, but I ducked into her path again. “What is it for you?”
“I can’t tell you that.” Her hand went to her collar and her mouth closed. Her jaw tensed. Then she stepped around me and practically ran to the other ride of the room.
“What was that about?” Lenore’s question floated on a fresh, minty breath as she stopped at my side.
“Vandekamp has his captives convinced that they’re lucky because they’re not lab rats or circus exhibits, yet they’re not allowed to talk about what goes on in these ‘engagements.’”
“They aren’t?”
“Not all of it anyway. The collars won’t let them. And I see no more logical reason for that than for the fact that we can’t talk at night. Vandekamp’s just trying to exert as much control over us as he can. It’s like he gets off on it.”
“Delilah.”
I dragged my focus away from Simra and turned to meet Lenore’s concerned gaze. “What?”
“You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.”
But the furiae inside me disagreed.
“It’s not that they don’t want to be helped. It’s that they truly think this is the best life has to offer.” If I couldn’t help them, why the hell had fate saddled me with the vengeful beast already stirring restlessly inside me? “They just need to see someone stand up to these remote-wielding bastards. Once they know it’s possible, they’ll fight for themselves. For each other. Humanity doesn’t have the market cornered on courage and justice. That’s not human nature. It’s just nature.”
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