Delilah
“Wake up, Delilah.”
The surface beneath me felt hard and rough, but neither cool nor warm. Light glared through my closed eyelids, and something snug was wrapped around my neck.
My eyes flew open, but the world remained hazy. The three women bending over me had blurry faces, and their grayish clothing was shapeless and unfamiliar.
“She’s waking up,” one of the blurry forms said, and I recognized Lenore’s voice even without the mental tug of her siren’s lure. I exhaled slowly. I was among friends.
“What happened?” Blinking to clear my vision, I pushed myself upright on a rough concrete floor and reached for my neck, but someone grabbed my hand.
“No, don’t touch it!” Lala cried.
The faces were finally starting to come into focus.
Lenore. Lala. And Zyanya, the cheetah shifter. A few feet away, Mirela sat next to Rommily, who was curled up asleep on the floor with one thin arm tucked beneath her head. In addition to those stupid gray scrubs, they all wore—
My hands flew to my neck, and my fingers brushed smooth, warm steel that had taken on the temperature of my skin. I felt along the curve of the high-tech collar until I got to the hidden hinge at one side, distinguishable only by a tiny crack where the two sections were joined. “How can they—”
“Don’t!” Lenore cried as I slid my finger beneath the front of the collar. Excruciating pain shot through my entire body, lighting every nerve ending on fire. My jaw spasmed, trapping a terrified cry of pain inside, and the jolt didn’t end until someone knocked my hand away from the collar.
“What the hell was that?” I demanded when my jaw finally unclenched, as painful aftershocks coursed through me, far outlasting the initial pain. I leaned back against the concrete wall to keep from falling over. I felt like a human lightning rod.
“You can touch the collar, but if you pull on it or put your finger under it...that happens.” Lala’s gaze was full of sympathy. “We’ve all tried it. They really don’t want us taking these things off.”
“As if we could,” Zyanya snapped. “The damn joints locked the second they snapped it closed, so this shock treatment’s overkill. These things aren’t coming off until someone cuts them off.”
“They’re not afraid we’re going to take the collars off,” I said, as my gaze roamed the large concrete room, where we sat among at least two dozen other women of various humanoid and hybrid species, each of whom wore the same uniform and collar. “They don’t want you to pull on the collar because the needles will damage your spine.”
“Like they care,” Lala said.
“They care about the money Vandekamp has invested in us. Just like Metzger did. If you give yourself nerve damage, you’re worth less to them. Which gives them less incentive to keep you alive.”
“On the bright side,” Mahsa said, and I turned to find the leopard shifter curled up in a nearby corner. “I haven’t seen anyone beaten yet.”
“Give it time,” Zarah said, as she and Trista padded toward us on bare feet. “Only paying customers get to cause damage.”
“What does that mean?” Mahsa crawled closer, and we formed a protective ring of former menagerie captives.
“Exactly what that gamekeeper said. This isn’t a circus, ladies,” Trista explained, pushing long pale hair over her shoulder. “The rumors about the Savage Spectacle seem to be true. They rent cryptids to their customers with no bars and cages to stand between them.”
I’d heard no rumors. But then, I hadn’t spent my entire life in captivity, piecing together an understanding of the outside world through stories traded with new prisoners.
“We wondered how they did that.” Zarah ran one finger over the outside of her collar. “Now we know.”
Mahsa 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 gray-clad figure lying on the floor, sprawled into the hall from the shoulders up.
“Rommily!” Mirela was up in an instant, dark wavy hair trailing behind her. Lala and I raced after her.
The ambient buzz of soft conversation died as the other captives turned to watch, and just as Mirela grabbed Rommily by the ankles, the poor, fractured oracle began to convulse.
“Somebody help!” Mirela shouted as she pulled her middle sister through the doorway and back into the dormitory. But when she knelt next to Rommily’s head, the older oracle suddenly stiffened. Her eyes went wide and her jaw clenched so hard her teeth ground together.
“Pull them back!” I shouted at Lala, as she stared at her sisters, horrified and confused. “They’re too close to the sensor.”
I tugged Mirela back by one arm while Lala pulled Rommily by her ankles, and as soon as they were more than a foot away from the door, the convulsing stopped. Mirela blinked up at me in confusion, and I suddenly wished I’d pushed her into the hall instead. Surely the convulsing would have stopped once she was away from the doorway, whether she was inside or out. The sensors were based on proximity, and they didn’t care which direction the signal came from. Right?
“Are you okay?” Lala asked her sisters, and her voice drew me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah.” Mirela sat up and leaned over her middle sister, who only looked up at us, blinking tears from her eyes. “Rommily, what hurts?”
Heavy footsteps clomped toward us from the hallway, then two armed handlers stepped into the room. The first held his remote at the ready, the screen facing away from me. “Back up,” he warned, one finger poised to cause more pain.
When Lala carefully pulled Rommily back, Mirela and I followed her.
“What happened?” the second handler demanded, glancing at the screen on his own remote. “Our system indicates that Oracle 02—known as Rommily—tried to breach the doorway.”
“She wasn’t trying to breach.” Mirela stood, putting herself between the handlers and her younger sisters. “She just got confused.”
The second handler pointed to the doorway, where I noticed that a pinpoint of red light glowed from the apex of the arch. “Do not pass. It’s pretty damn simple.”
“She’s...disoriented.” I joined Mirela, trying to decide how best to explain about Rommily, to protect her. “Traumatized. She doesn’t always understand what she’s told. Or what she sees. It’s not her fault, and it can’t be fixed. So I suggest you get ready to make some exceptions on Rommily’s behalf.”
The second handler stepped closer, as if his presence could possibly intimidate me more than the collar around my neck already had. “Is that a threat?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Most definitely.”
Neither of them seemed to know how to respond to that.
“Just keep an eye on her,” the first one said at last, glancing from me to Mirela, to Rommily, then back to me.
Evidently I’d just become an honorary oracle. Which was fitting, considering that I’d just predicted an early death for anyone who messed with Rommily.
Or with me.