LITMIR.BIZ

       Delilah

      A couple of hours after the sun set, Woodrow, the gamekeeper, stepped into the dormitory to conclude our first-day orientation with an announcement that lights-out would be in half an hour. He told us to clean our teeth with the brushes we’d been issued and use the toilets, then warned us—again—that failure to follow orders would result in serious consequences.

      The long-term Spectacle captives began filing into the bathroom in two lines, clearly accustomed to the routine. Lala and Mahsa were the first from our group to join them, and I stepped into line after them. “How was your work assignment?” I asked, as we shuffled forward after the others. “What were you doing?”

      “Vacuuming some big room,” Lala said.

      “Scrubbing the kitchens,” Mahsa added.

      “Multiple kitchens?”

      “Yeah.” The leopard shifter shrugged. “Two of them, in two different buildings. There may be more, though.” Her eyes widened. “Did you see the bushes?”

      “The topiaries? Ridiculous, aren’t they?”

      “Yes,” Lala said. “But they’re beautiful. Especially the nymph with roses for hair.”

      We shuffled forward again, and the women who’d been first in line began to exit the bathroom. “So, did you see any way out? The property seems to be walled in, but I assume there’s a gate up front? And maybe one in the back, for deliveries?” We’d all been unconscious when we’d arrived, but I couldn’t imagine them driving tarp-covered cattle cars past the massive front building and the valet stand.

      “I—” The oracle flinched, and her hand flew to the collar at her neck.

      “Lala? What’s wrong?”

      Simra turned around, a couple of places in front of us and frowned at me as if I’d just asked a colossally stupid question. “She’s not allowed to talk about certain things.” But I didn’t understand until she tapped the shiny steel collar around her own neck.

      Holy shit.

      Vandekamp’s collar was preventing her from speaking specifically about gates and exits? How was that possible, short of paralyzing the vocal cords entirely? There was no way any electronic device could tell what someone intended to say before the words even formed.

      Or was there? If the collars could anticipate a shifter’s intention to shift based on the anticipatory hormones, maybe the speech block worked similarly. Maybe the collar’s receptors simply detected the presence of whatever nervous hormone people produce when they’re about to break a rule. Or maybe it sensed spikes in blood pressure, like a lie detector. Maybe the collar simply read the physiological signs of our intent.

      Stunned by Simra’s revelation, I shared a horrified glance with Mahsa and Lala as the line shuffled forward. Why was I allowed to ask questions about things others weren’t allowed to discuss?

      The most likely answer seemed to be that since I hadn’t known the question was forbidden, my body didn’t react with any signs of anxiety that could trigger my collar. Would that change, now that I knew?

      Disturbed by the policing of my very voice, I shifted my thoughts from the fact that we weren’t allowed to talk about something to what we weren’t allowed to talk about.

      Exits, locks...

      Vandekamp was censoring information that might help plan an escape.

      When I got to the front of the line for the toilet stalls, Finola leaned forward to whisper from behind me. “Is that hand sanitizer?”

      I followed the siren’s gaze to a line of four liquid dispensers on the wall. The sign hanging above them notified us that they were to be utilized every time we used the restroom, though I couldn’t imagine that more than a few of the captives could read. “Looks like.”

      We shuffled forward as one of the stalls emptied, and Zyanya spoke up from behind the siren. “Why do they care whether we brush our teeth and wash our hands?”

      “Presumably it cuts down on communicable illness in such tight quarters,” Lenore said.

      “Yes, but I suspect that’s a secondary concern.” I stepped forward again, and found myself second in line. “Our value and appeal both decline if we’re sick or dirty.”

      When we’d all flushed, sanitized and brushed, Lala and I helped several of the other captives arrange the gymnastics mats on the floor and distribute blankets. There were no pillows or pajamas, and the mats were worn and thin, but the accommodations were both cleaner and more comfortable than anything we’d had in our carnival cages.

      The menagerie refugees and I claimed spots on the left side of the room, in our own little cluster, and seconds after we’d all chosen a mat, the lights overhead were extinguished, in both the big room and the bathroom. We were left with only the light shining in from the series of tall, narrow windows, through which I could see several security light poles.

      An instant later, every collar in the room briefly flashed red, and I wondered what new restriction had just been placed on us.

      For several minutes, I lay on my side, thinking about collars and tranquilizer rifles and blood tests and topiary cryptids locked in their poses. After having survived the menagerie, I’d thought I knew what to expect from imprisonment. I understood how to deal with chains and cages and hunger, but this shiny, antiseptic captivity felt like the glittery wrapping on a box full of horrors, just waiting to be unwrapped.

      In the near dark, one of the forms to my right sat up on her gym mat, and I recognized Zyanya’s silhouette even shrouded as it was by baggy scrubs. She turned to me, waving one hand to get my attention, and I sat up to see what was wrong. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

      Her hands flew to her throat, and even in the thick shadows, I saw the fear and desperation in every motion. Zyanya was terrified.

      I scooted off my mat and reached for her, but when I tried to ask what was wrong, there was no response from my vocal cords. I remembered the flash of red from every collar in the room.

      Vandekamp had silenced us—all of us—evidently for the entire night.

      Anger raged like a storm inside me. Having lost my voice earlier made this instance no easier to bear.

      With the press of a single button, Vandekamp ripped from all of us a right I’d considered not just inalienable, but literally impossible to steal without a scalpel and the courage to face the bloody reality and cruelty of a sadistic and permanent mutilation.

      He’d made the process so neat and easy that it required no thought or effort, and his conscience probably never had to justify the reasoning behind such a barbaric practice.

      Zyanya’s hands began to shake. Her mouth opened, forming silent words too fast for me to read on her lips. I seized her hand, and with it, her attention. I pointed at my own collar with my free hand, then covered my mouth, trying to explain that she hadn’t permanently lost the ability to speak. That we were all suffering the same temporary loss.

      The shifter’s forehead furrowed, fury dancing in her luminous cat eyes, and I knew she understood. And she was pissed.

      Her rage called to the beast inside me, which uncoiled like a snake ready to strike. My vision sharpened until I could see Zyanya perfectly well in the dark and my hands ached for something to grab. For some damage to wreak.

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