But Gallagher shook his head. “We can’t cancel your debut. I’ll have to find you something more modest to wear.”
Modest sounded promising.
He scowled at the skimpy black costume. “I could borrow something, but the oracles wear too much, the sirens too little. Alyrose will know what to do.” His scowl deepened as he glanced at his watch. “Sit tight.”
“As opposed to prancing down the midway?” I said as he pulled the tent flap back, but he let the canvas fall closed without so much as a smile.
He’d only been gone a few minutes when the tent flap rose again.
“That was fa—” My words tumbled into a tense silence when my gaze fell not on Gallagher, but on Clyde, who was carrying what appeared to be a yard sign, turned away from me.
He laid the sign on a table already piled with boxes and supplies as the canvas fell closed behind him. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“Because my costume won’t cover the bruise you left on my stomach.” I expected knowledge that his boss was angry to take some of the wind from his sails, but when he only stalked closer to my cage, my confidence wavered. I backed toward the far side of the cart. “Gallagher went to Alyrose for an alternative, but he’ll be back any minute. Any second,” I amended with a closer look at his face.
Spite rode his features like violence rides a bullet.
“Well, no matter what you’ll be wearing, you’ll have to come out of that thing first.” Clyde eyed the gray dress I still wore. “Why don’t we surprise him and take care of that?” He shrugged, faking amiability while my pulse rushed so fast I felt dizzy. “One less thing on his to-do list.”
“No,” I said, but Clyde was already headed for the table by the closed tent entrance.
He reached for something behind a box on the table and lifted a long black stick with a forked tip and a red handle. An electric stock prod. Perhaps the very instrument of torture that had landed me in captivity in the first place.
A jolt of fear lit my lungs on fire until I realized the real problem was that I’d stopped breathing.
Clyde carried the prod toward me like a sword. “I’m going to open your cage, and you’re going to get out slowly and handcuff yourself to the side. Then I’m going to cuff your other hand, and if you so much as twitch, I will shove this stock prod somewhere where the welt won’t show.” He flicked the costume with one finger. “No matter what Gallagher brings back, it won’t cover much, so my choices are pretty limited.”
Air slid in and out of my lungs so fast it couldn’t have been much use to the respiratory process.
“Calm down. You’ll be fine if you cooperate. Ready?” Clyde pulled a key chain from a clip on his belt. He opened the lock on my cage, then slid the panel back with a metallic clatter. Cattle prod held ready, he tossed a set of handcuffs through the opening at me. “Put that around your right wrist.”
“It’ll mess up the makeup,” I said with as much confidence as I could manage.
“Not if you’re careful.”
I studied him for a second, looking for any sign that he might hesitate to electrocute me, and when I found none, I clenched my jaw and clicked the metal loop around my right wrist, careful not to damage the prosthetic claws. Clyde was right. The theatrical makeup wouldn’t rub off without some serious pressure, and if either of us had to put pressure on my bound arms, I’d have bigger problems than damaged makeup.
“Now crawl out of there and fasten the other cuff through the wire mesh.”
Hay crunched beneath my feet, poking at my bare soles. My left hand shook as I secured my right to the front of the cage, but it shook even harder when Clyde slapped half of a second set of cuffs around my left wrist. I resisted instinctively when he tried to pull my arm back, but when he threatened my thigh with the cattle prod, I gave in, biting my lip to hold back the protest poised behind it.
This was payback. The bastard wanted to see my fear, and I would have swallowed my own tongue to hide it from him.
Still wielding the prod, he cuffed my ankles to opposite wheels of the cart, which was only possible because the leg irons were separated by a fifteen-inch length of chain, designed to let prisoners walk.
And just like that, I was bound, spread eagle, to the front of my cage.
Clyde laid the cattle prod on the ground and went back to the table, where he picked up a large pair of scissors.
“Wait. You don’t have to do that. Just uncuff me and I’ll put the costume on. I swear.” I was well beyond caring if it messed up the fake claws or showed off a bruise. Gallagher’s threat had been accurate—life with Clyde as my handler would truly be hell.
“Shut up and hold still.” He knelt in front of me and began slicing up the left side of my thin linen dress.
Fear thickened my tongue. “Won’t Alyrose be mad about the damage?”
“Nah.” The blade was cold against my hip as it sliced through first the dress, then the side of my underwear. “We got a couple hundred of these, and shit happens, ya know?”
I felt sick thinking of how often “shit” probably happened in the menagerie.
“I bet you had a real nice childhood, didn’t you? Good schools? Birthday parties. Vacations. Right?”
My nausea swelled with the realization that Clyde’s barbaric lesson actually had a point. And that it was starting to sink in.
I wasn’t immune to the realities of life in captivity. The fact that I could read and add and navigate a map didn’t make me the exception; it made me an object lesson. A target for all the handlers who’d grown up with fewer advantages than I’d had and who now had the opportunity and determination to prove themselves my betters.
Material fell away from my skin and I closed my eyes. Clyde’s scissors cut through the side of my bra. He stood and looked down into my eyes.
“Did you go swimming and skating with your human friends? Let human boys touch you? You let all those boys think they had something good and clean, didn’t you? Something sweet and soft?” He severed both the shoulder of my dress and the strap of my bra in the same cut.
The soft snip made me flinch, but I clenched my jaw, determined not to give him the reaction he was after.
“I bet you never told them you were a dirty animal. A monster wearing a girl’s face. What would they have said if they’d known? How do you think they feel now that everyone knows what you are?”
My resolve faltered when he stepped back to look at me, half-covered in flayed linen. In that moment, I understood that the menagerie was filled with two sorts of people. Those who felt that the inhumane treatment of cryptids was unfair, but needed the work. And those who were attracted to jobs like Clyde’s because the position of authority came with a socially acceptable outlet for the true evil that burned within them.
I blinked away tears. Wars were not won from crying.
“Well, we all know where you belong now, no matter what you look like. As soon as you figure that out, your life’s gonna get a whole lot easier.”
Clyde’s barbarically illustrated point came through loud and clear. The only way to avoid being forcibly put in my place was to step into it voluntarily. To give up any claim to humanity and admit that I belonged to Rudolph Metzger, because he’d bought me, and he could do whatever he wanted with me, and no one would stop him because the law wasn’t concerned with the well-being of subhuman species. Not even those who’d acquired the prefix less than twenty-four hours before.
The choice wasn’t really a choice at all. Fighting them every step of the way could get me killed. But if I submitted, I would die a little every day until they were able to drive my walking corpse like they drove the centaurs and the satyrs. Maybe they’d drug me, once they figured out what I was, but maybe they wouldn’t have to.
How much trouble could I possibly be once I’d given up the possibility of
ever being free?
Two more snips severed the material over my opposite shoulder, then the other side of my underwear, and scraps of ruined fabric pooled on the straw beneath me.
That linen dress had felt insubstantial when I’d worn it, but hindsight assigned it the strength of armor. I would have done anything to have it back.
Clyde stared. He looked simultaneously ravenous and satisfied. I wanted to cover myself, but the cuffs held me in place, exposed and vulnerable, wearing nothing but the shredded remains of my dignity.
I closed my eyes. The world seemed to be spinning too quickly, and I prayed that it would sling me loose. Dislodge me from this living hell.
Clyde stepped so close I could feel his breath on my face. He brushed hair from my shoulder, and my eyes flew open. “Don’t touch me.”
He only laughed and my skin crawled while his gaze wandered. “Do you want to know what you’re worth?” He slid his fingers into the hair at the base of my skull and pulled my head back, so that I had to look up at him. “Can you guess what the old man paid for you?” The coarse cotton of his uniform shirt grazed my skin.
I held as still as I could. It took most of my concentration to keep my eyes dry, my mouth closed, and my psyche intact.
“Fifteen thousand dollars. Ten for the state of Oklahoma, five made out to the honorable sheriff himself—though that part’s off the books. I bet that’s less than your car cost, isn’t it? Less than a year at your fancy college. If you turn out to be too much trouble, he’ll sell you for half that and take the rest out of Gallagher’s salary, but none of that reflects what you’re really worth. Do you know what you’re worth, beast?”
When I didn’t answer, Clyde pulled back on my hair until I couldn’t close my mouth. Until my throat was stretched so tight I could hardly breathe. “You are worth nothing. No matter what the old man paid for you. No matter how much money you bring in for the menagerie. You will never be worth what it costs to feed and clothe you, no matter how little you eat and wear. Do you under—”
Suddenly he flew backward and his hand was ripped from my hair. I sucked in a startled breath, then lost it entirely when Gallagher spun Clyde around and slammed him into the side of the cage, inches from my left hand.
The boss of livestock pressed his forearm into the smaller man’s windpipe, pinning him to the bars. “If you ever hurt her again, I will rip your limbs off and feed each distinct part of your corpse to a different exhibit.”
I gaped at him, my heart pounding.
“Back off.” Clyde’s voice was weak and scratchy from the pressure on his throat. “I was just having a little fun with the uppity bitch.”
“She is mine.”
“I’m not,” I insisted, though every self-preservation instinct I had was telling me to shut up and let them fight it out. “I’m not anyone’s.”
“Mine,” Gallagher repeated, pressing even harder with his forearm. “The old man assigned her to me. I’m the boss of livestock. It’s my paycheck on the line, and you will not fuck with my paycheck. Got it?”
“Fine,” Clyde croaked. “I was just trying to help, but whatever.”
Gallagher let him go but refused to back away, so the smaller handler had to sidestep him, rubbing his throat.
“Go see that the centaurs are fed and watered, and make sure Abraxas picks out their hooves before the show.”
Clyde stomped toward the closed tent flap, his gait stiff, his fists clenched. “Ruyle sent over the temporary sign. He’ll need a name for her by next week.”
“Noted.” Gallagher picked up the stock prod, and I couldn’t tell whether he intended to confiscate it or find a very special place to store it, so Clyde couldn’t forget it next time. “Go.”
Clyde left—quickly—and as soon as he was gone, Gallagher turned to me, still holding the stock prod. Anger had dilated his pupils and clenched his jaw, and with one look at him, a fresh bolt of fear shot up the length of my spine.
He dropped the prod on the table and pulled a ring of keys from a clip on his belt, the anger melting from his bearing. “I’m not going to hurt you, Delilah.”
Relief washed over me, and it was harder than ever to resist feeling grateful for common decency disguised as gallantry. Gallagher wasn’t going above and beyond. He wasn’t risking his job for me. He was hardly even doing the decent thing—that would have required setting me free.
But that was very difficult to keep in mind, after what he’d just stopped. Which was why I had to reinforce the idea.
“I’m not yours,” I said, still miserably aware that I was completely naked.
He thumbed through the keys. “You’re my responsibility.”
“That’s not the same thing, Gallagher. There’s a principle at stake.”
His brows rose as he crossed the hay-strewn ground toward me, and his attention never wandered south of my eyes. “I thought your survival was at stake. You want me to call Clyde back so I can clarify?”
“Don’t be an asshole.”
Gallagher stopped several feet away, scowling. “You’ve grown bold, for a woman chained naked to a cage.”
I tried to shrug. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And my word is my honor.”
The words echoed in my head. Something about the way he said it—the formal cadence—surprised me.
He unlocked my left wrist, and I dragged my focus back on task. Escape. Nothing else was more important. “So, all the keys work on any set of cuffs?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask that.” Gallagher stared at my right hand while he unlocked it, and in spite of his proximity and of the fact that he’d seen me naked the night before, he took no liberties.
He plucked my butchered dress from the ground and handed it to me.
I covered myself as best I could, trying to ignore the bits of straw caught in the linen, poking me in sensitive places.
“Are you hurt?” Gallagher knelt at my feet, and I stared down at the top of his red cap.
“Just my pride.”
“A flesh wound, then.” Metal clicked, and the cuff fell away from my left ankle. “No mortal blow was ever struck through someone’s pride.”
“Says the man standing fully clothed and untethered.”
“Valid point.” Gallagher left my right ankle chained to the cart while he retrieved a wad of black cloth from the table. “Put this on.”
“I can’t, not with the claws.” I wiggled the fingers of my left hand while my right carefully clutched ruined linen to my chest. “What is it?”
“It’s the best I could do.” He slid a sheer, snug black tank top over my head, then over one arm at a time with more professional detachment than I’d seen from the doctor during my last physical.
Gallagher dropped into a squat in front of me and held the matching underwear near my left ankle. “Step through here.” I slid my foot through the leg hole of the black bikini bottoms, then had to wait while he unlocked my other foot.
For about fifteen seconds, I was completely unrestrained, and the urge to somehow recognize the occasion was overwhelming. But I wasn’t stupid enough to make a bid for freedom in broad daylight, only half-dressed, with a very large handler only inches away. Instead, I stepped through the second opening, and as he perfunctorily slid the material into place, looking to the side to give me as much privacy as possible, I swore to myself that I’d find another, better opportunity to run.
Soon.
“Thanks,” I whispered, and saying that one word cost me a good deal of pride. I didn’t want to be grateful for a kindness I shouldn’t have been dependent upon him for in the first place. Surely that was how Stockholm syndrome began. But I was grateful. And it wouldn’t hurt to have the goodwill of the man who was the biggest obstacle to my escape.
“Don’t th
ank me, Delilah.” He reached past me to slide the side of the cage open. “I’m not doing you a favor, I’m doing my job, and that won’t always be pleasant for you.” Gallagher lifted me into the wagon and handed me the costume Alyrose had made, without its hanger. “Get dressed. You go live in half an hour.”
Live. I couldn’t think about that without trembling, so I pushed the inevitable to the back of my mind and tackled the costume, though my concentration was hindered by the fact that I hadn’t slept in almost thirty-two hours and had eaten nothing but a soggy slice of bread all day.
If not for the bathroom break in Alyrose’s trailer, I would have had even more to worry about.
While I carefully puzzled my way into a configuration of satin and sequins that looked more like a harness than a costume, even over the tank top and bikini bottom, Gallagher moved around the tent, mounting and adjusting lights so that they didn’t shine directly on my cage. He didn’t offer to help me, in spite of my trouble with the claws. In fact, he hardly even glanced at me.
“Okay, this is as good as it’s going to get,” I said at last, and Gallagher looked up from the sign he was hammering into the ground in front of my cage.
Something raw and uncensored flashed behind his eyes, but it was gone before I could make sense of it. “Good. I’m almost done here, and I think they’re ready for you out back.” He gave the sign post one last blow, then set the hammer on the table next to the cattle prod.
“Out back? Is that secret code for something horrible?”
Gallagher crossed to the rear of the tent and knelt to unhook one of the canvas panels from its anchor. “In the menagerie, we don’t hide ‘horrible’ behind code words. We put sequins on ‘horrible,’ drape ribbons around it, shine lights on it, and charge admission.”
He pulled the tent flap back and the growl of heavy machinery crescendoed. Gallagher nodded to someone outside, then familiar, slow footsteps thudded toward us from behind the tent, a dull counterpoint to the incessant calliope music, the rumble of truck engines, and the ceaseless shouting of instructions from carnival employees.