Menagerie

  My eyes flew open as I shoved myself up with both hands, but the glaring assault of fluorescent light—the source of the buzzing—was like a spike driven through my skull. My arms gave out and my eyes fell shut. My cheek slammed into the floor, and I sucked in a shocked breath.

  The floor. I was lying on the cold, hard floor. Naked.

  My pulse racing, I lifted my head carefully and had to breathe through a wave of vertigo. My head throbbed fiercely. Light painted the insides of my eyelids red. I sat up on my knees, shivering, and folded my arms over my chest to cover myself. Then I opened my eyes again.

  The glare was no longer crippling, but my headache was. I blinked and my eyes started to adjust to the light, but the world was a blur. Another blink, and several dark stripes came into focus.

  No, not stripes. Bars. Thick iron bars.

  Panicked, I scrambled away from them on my hands and knees until I came to a gray brick wall. I leaned my bare back against it, my knees pulled up to my chest, and finally made myself look at my surroundings.

  I was in a corner cell with two walls of iron bars and a rough concrete floor.

  No.

  My heart pounded hard enough to jar my whole body with each beat. The adjoining cell had a hazard-orange floor with No Occupancy painted on it in black block letters.

  No, no, no, no...

  Across a wide aisle from my cell were other, normal cells.

  Jail.

  I was in jail. Because I’d turned into some kind of monster and stuck my fingers through that carny’s skull.

  But that wasn’t possible. I wasn’t a monster, and I had never hurt anyone in my life.

  Yet I could remember exactly how that man’s flesh had felt beneath my fingers. I could still feel the resistance his skull had offered, then that satisfying pop when my fingers had breached it.

  Nonononono. I buried my face in my arms and squeezed my eyes shut, but the images were still there.

  A dangling cigarette.

  A cattle prod lying in the hay.

  Blood dripping down the sweaty man’s face.

  What the hell had I done? How had I done it?

  Tears rolled down my cheeks and I swiped at them with both hands. This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t a cryptid. My parents were human. I didn’t have so much as a birthmark to be examined, much less feathers, or horns, or scales.

  Yet in that tent, I’d had... What had I had, exactly? Weird hair? Pointy fingers? That didn’t fit the description of any cryptid I’d ever studied.

  I examined my hands. They were trembling uncontrollably, but looked normal, other than the blood dried beneath my fingernails.

  I pulled handfuls of long, dark hair over my shoulder. My hair looked normal. Whatever I’d become had left no trace of itself. How was that even possible? The vast majority of cryptid species can’t blend in with the human population—not even shape-shifters. I’d officially learned that on day one as a crypto-biology major, but like everyone else, I’d actually known it my whole life.

  So how could whatever kind of creature I was blend in well enough to hide itself not just from the rest of the world, but from me? How could I not know what I was?

  What else did I not know about myself? If I couldn’t put faith in my own humanity, how much of the rest of my life was a lie?

  I didn’t mean to do it.

  Terrified, I mentally relived that surreal memory over and over, trying to understand what had happened. The only thing I was sure of every single time was that I hadn’t intended to turn into a monster and shove my fingers through a man’s skull. I’d seen it happen. I’d felt it happen. But I hadn’t made it happen. Not on purpose anyway.

  And that meant I could no longer trust my own body.

  I didn’t realize I was pounding my head into the brick wall at my back until the repetitive thuds finally broke through the vicious cycle of my memories.

  The fierce throb in my head felt like my brain was trying to burst through my skull. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The concrete floor had sanded raw spots into my knees and my palms, as well as on more tender patches of bare flesh.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  On my right, a door squealed open on rusty hinges. Startled, I turned to find a sheriff’s deputy heading down the center aisle toward me. He carried a tall stool under one arm and a bundle of familiar material beneath the other.

  The sight of my clothes in his hand triggered fresh tears as I scooted along the wall at my back. When I hit the far corner, I stopped, cradled by solid brick on two sides. I tucked my legs up to my chest again and crossed my ankles to cover my most private parts. I was as shielded and defended as I could get, yet I’d never felt more exposed or vulnerable.

  “Hi.” The deputy set his stool down in the aisle, out of reach from my cell.

  I rested my chin on my left knee and let my hair fall forward like a curtain, hoping all he could see were my shins, hair, and eyes.

  “Do you remember me?”

  He did look a little familiar, but no name came to mind.

  “I’m Deputy Wayne Atherton. You were a couple of years behind me in school.”

  Wayne. Yes. We’d had a history class together my sophomore year.

  “Where am I? Are you in charge?”

  “This is the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department. You’ve been taken into custody as a cryptid living under false pretenses. And as far as you’re concerned, yes, I’m in charge.”

  “Did—” My voice cracked, so I cleared my throat and started over, my face flaming. “Did you take my clothes off?”

  “No, that was a couple of guys from the SWAT team the sheriff called in to assist with your transport. Dr. Almaguer said he would only examine you while you were still unconscious. To check for species-identifying features.”

  Dr. Almaguer. My teeth began to chatter and I set my chin on my knees to make it stop. They’d called in a small-animal veterinarian to examine me—the very man who’d once put my dad’s farm dog to sleep.

  The deputy propped one foot on the lowest stool rung and set my clothes on his lap. “He didn’t find anything, Delilah.”

  Because there was nothing to find. How else could I not have known?

  “Are you going to give my clothes back?”

  “That’s up to you,” he said.

  I closed my eyes. He was going to interrogate me in the nude. Because he could.

  “What are you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Make this easy on yourself, Delilah. Just tell us what you are, and you can have your clothes back.” The deputy shifted on his stool and my underwear slid from the pile of clothes and landed on the floor. He didn’t notice, but my focus snagged on that bit of fabric. I would have told him anything I knew for a single scrap of my own clothing. But there was nothing to say.

  “I told you, I don’t know what I am. Please give me my clothes.” My cheeks were burning, but my teeth still chattered. “I’m freezing.”

  “Yeah, the sheriff runs warm, so he keeps the air turned down low. Especially in the summer.” Atherton shifted on the stool again, and his tone softened. “Delilah, I can’t help you until you help me. I got orders. So why don’t you tell me what you are, and I’ll not only give you your clothes back, I’ll get you some water. Or something to eat. Are you hungry? Your friends said you didn’t eat much dinner.”

  “Are they here?” Shelley’s scream still echoed in my aching head. Brandon’s look of horror was imprinted on my retinas. “Can I see them?”

  Deputy Atherton started to shake his head, and I buried my face in the crook between my knees, sniffing back fresh tears. “Please,” I said into my lap. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone and I have no idea what happened. Please just give me my clothes and let me see my friend
s.”

  Atherton sighed. “Ms. Wells had to be sedated. Her boyfriend took her home.”

  My throat felt thick, my tongue clumsy. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s terrified. She’s not the only one. The news is out, and people don’t feel safe, knowing you were born and raised here. Knowing you went to school with their children and spent the night at their houses—and they didn’t have a clue. People are starting to remember the reaping, Delilah.”

  Oh, fuck.

  Terror pooled in my stomach like acid, eating at me from the inside. “They don’t think I’m a surrogate, do they?” I peered at him over my knees. My hands started shaking again. “Because I swear I’m not.”

  “How can you know that, if you don’t know what you are? You look human, and you lived among us for years. Just like the surrogates. What are we supposed to think?”

  Panic slowed my brain, yet sped up my words. “This is totally different. I wasn’t hiding or lying in wait, planning something. I didn’t know I wasn’t human. I still can’t believe what happened. You have to tell them that. Tell the sheriff I’m not one of them.”

  “How do I know that’s true?”

  Terror scattered my thoughts into a maelstrom of disjointed theories. Think, Delilah! “There were hundreds of thousands of surrogates, but there’s only one of me.”

  The deputy shrugged. “So far. For all we know, you could be the first in a whole new wave.”

  “No, that’s not what I am!” My arms tightened around my shins, drawing my knees tighter against my chest. “I don’t have any siblings.”

  “Having grown, healthy siblings would work in your favor. Being an only child does not.”

  “Okay... But I’m an adult!” Surely they’d figured that much out when they’d taken my clothes off. “The surrogates were six-year-olds.”

  “Yes, but even cryptids age. The surrogates are now thirty-five years old. Wherever they are.”

  But no one knew where they were, and that was the problem. As soon as they’d been discovered, Uncle Sam had rounded them up like rabid dogs, and no one knew whether they’d been shot, or studied, or cryogenically frozen for later. And that was fine, because the surrogates truly were dangerous. They were the fucking devil’s spawn.

  If the government thought I was one of them, I would disappear, too.

  “I’m not a surrogate.” I pushed hair from my face with one hand and sat up as straight as I dared without clothes on. “I didn’t steal any babies. I’ve never hurt a soul in my life before tonight, and I don’t know how that happened. Think about it. If I’d known what I was, why would I go to the menagerie? Please, Deputy. You have to believe me. I’m not conspiring against humanity.”

  Atherton exhaled slowly. Then he stood, still watching me, and shook out my blouse. “I believe you.” He stuck my shirt between two of the bars and dropped it on the floor. “But I’m not the one you have to convince.” Next came my jeans, bra, and underwear, each dropped just inside my cell. “Get dressed.”

  I glanced at my clothes, then back up at him. “Are you going to watch?”

  He blinked, obviously startled by the thought. “Of course not.” When he walked down the aisle away from my cell, I realized that Atherton wasn’t the enemy. He was just doing his job.

  Unfortunately, his job was to extract information I didn’t have, in order to help the sheriff—

  Help the sheriff what?

  End life as I knew it?

  I lunged for my clothes, then dragged the whole pile back into my corner, where I shimmied into my underwear as fast as I could. I turned my back on the bars to put my bra on, in case he turned around, and had just stepped into my jeans when the brutal reality of my new situation hit me over the head like that carny’s mallet, swinging straight for my soul.

  I’ll never go home again.

  My legs buckled beneath me and my knees slammed into the concrete. My jaw snapped shut with the impact, but I hardly felt it. I was a cryptid living under false pretenses, and no one would care that I hadn’t known. Most probably wouldn’t even believe that.

  I pushed my arms through the sleeves of my shirt, but had trouble buttoning it. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

  Gone. Everything I’d ever had was probably already gone. My job. My apartment. My car. My clothes. Cryptids weren’t allowed to own property or enter into contracts. Including leases.

  “Deputy Atherton, I think I need to talk to an attorney.” My voice had almost no tone and very little volume. I seemed to be hearing myself from one end of a long tunnel.

  He turned and headed down the aisle toward me again. “They’re not gonna give you a lawyer, Delilah. Cryptids aren’t citizens. You have no rights in the U.S. of A., in Franklin County, or in the incorporated township of Franklin. You are now the property of the state of Oklahoma.”

  Property. No rights.

  “Unless they decide you are a surrogate,” Atherton continued. “If that happens, the feds will come for you.”

  And I would never be seen again.

  I clutched my half-buttoned shirt to my chest and scooted back into the corner, pressing my spine into the seam where both brick walls met. The world seemed to be shrinking around me, as if someone were sucking all the air out of a vacuum-sealed bag. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

  “Is your mother still over on Sycamore?” Deputy Atherton asked, and a fresh bolt of fear opened my lungs. “They’re sending someone to pick her up.”

  “Leave her alone.” My gaze snapped up to meet his, and his brows rose. “She has nothing to do with this. She’s human.”

  “You thought you were human, too, and you were wrong about that. Is there anything we should know before they knock on her door?”

  I held his gaze in silence.

  “They’re already on their way, Delilah. If you know something that will keep her from getting hurt, you need to tell me.”

  “She sleeps with my dad’s shotgun under her bed.” I crossed my arms over my knees and stared at the ground. “Better call first and let her know you’re coming. That, or send an ambulance in advance.”

  Atherton’s brows rose. He unclipped a radio from his belt and relayed my mother’s itchy trigger finger to someone in Dispatch.

  My bare toes curled on the concrete, and I wished for a pair of shoes. My racing thoughts had stilled into a single bold question mark, and the mental silence was almost as confining as the bars caging me.

  “So, what happens now?”

  He pulled a thick, rusty pair of medieval-looking iron cuffs from a pouch at his back. “Come on, Delilah. Get up. It’s time to meet the sheriff.”

  Delilah

  “Turn around and stick both hands between the bars.”

  The theory seemed to be that my hands were my weapons, and that with them restrained in iron behind my back I would be much less of a threat.

  I complied, and the cuffs closed over my wrists one at a time. They were heavy, and the weight felt both surreal and brutally degrading. But surely if I were going to have any adverse reaction to iron—which would narrow my species down to one out of hundreds of kinds of fae—the bars on my cell would have triggered it already.

  Iron was the only way that we knew of to identify the fae. Most of them had one feature or another that clothes wouldn’t cover—feathers, a hollow back, vines growing in place of hair—but glamour was a better disguise than any clothing, contact lenses, or wigs could ever hope to be.

  Once I was cuffed, the deputy let me out of my cell and guided me down the aisle. He didn’t touch me. In fact, he seemed to be walking a couple of feet behind me until he had to come forward and open the door at the end of the aisle.

  The moment I stepped into the open front room of the sheriff’s station, all phone calls and typing ceased. The amb
ient nervous chatter died, and everyone turned to watch me be escorted across the room. None of the stares were friendly. Even the people in handcuffs looked at me as if I were a slimy clump dug from their shower drains.

  My face flamed. I wanted to hide, but the best I could do was let my hair swing forward to shield part of my face.

  Several feet into my barefoot walk of shame, I saw Brandon sitting in a cracked plastic waiting room chair. I tripped over my own nerves and Deputy Atherton started to catch me, then changed his mind. I saw the moment it happened. He was reaching for me, probably out of instinct, then suddenly recoiled. He flinched—as if I were a snake about to strike, when really I was falling face-first toward the dingy yellow floor tile, unable to catch myself with my hands cuffed at my back.

  Brandon stared at his shoes as I staggered, then awkwardly regained my balance on my own. I recognized tension in the cords standing out from his neck, as if he wanted to look, but was fighting the urge.

  “Brandon,” I called once I was steady, and my voice cracked on the first syllable. His jaw clenched, but he didn’t look up. My flush deepened. “Brandon.” Raw desperation echoed in my voice and a couple of strangers sneered at the tender bits of my heart and soul I’d exposed.

  My boyfriend of four years was the only person in the room not watching me.

  “Brandon, please.” My cheeks were scalding and my throat ached. But I couldn’t believe he would abandon me without a word. He knew better than anyone else in the world aside from my mother that I would never hurt someone on purpose.

  Deputy Atherton took me by the arm, evidently having gathered the courage to touch me in the face of my humiliation. “Come on, Delilah.”

  “No.” I jerked free of his grip, and people all over the room flinched. “Say it, Brandon,” I demanded, and at first he didn’t move. Then my roommate and lover—one of my very best friends—stood and marched toward the exit, as if he wanted to run, but pride wouldn’t let him. “Brandon! Say it, you fucking coward!”