Menagerie. Rachel Vincent
was protecting her kid. The sheriff would never...” Atherton didn’t bother to finish. We both knew the sheriff would.
“Mrs. Marlow,” Pennington continued from the next room. “As an officer of the law, I have to ask, why didn’t you turn the changeling over to the proper authorities when it became clear that your daughter was never going to be returned?”
The changeling. He wasn’t even using my name anymore. I’d become a thing.
“She didn’t know she wasn’t human,” my mother said. “I didn’t know for sure. If I’d given her to the police, they would have put her in the state refuge, where she’d have been less than a snack for the first troll or ogre to find her. She was a baby, Sheriff.”
“Yes, and I’m sure she was adorable.” Pennington leaned back in his chair again, and though I couldn’t see his face, I could picture his patronizing expression perfectly. “A few years ago I saw a baby tiger in the zoo, over at Tulsa. It was behind a thick wall of glass playin’ with its handler, chasin’ a bit of string with a stuffed mouse tied at the end. That baby tiger was the cutest damn thing I ever saw in my life.” He paused dramatically. “A year and a half later it ripped that same handler’s arm off and bit through her jugular.”
My mother didn’t even flinch. “You’re suggesting Lilah is like this tiger?”
“I’m tellin’ you she’s worse. The tiger acted on instinct. Your Lilah made a deliberate decision to—” Pennington crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, we’re not sure what she did to that poor man. What we are sure of is that if you’d done your civic duty when she was a baby, we wouldn’t be sittin’ here now. I suspect the state’s attorney will have a few things to say to you about that, but I could put in a word on your behalf, if you were to help us out. We really need to know what she is. You must have seen something when she was growing up that could help us. There musta been signs that she was different from the other girls.”
“There weren’t, Sheriff,” my mother insisted. “That’s why it was so easy for me to believe she was human, no matter where she came from. Lilah was normal. She was smart, and kind, and always the first to go to bat for the underdog. I was always so proud of her.”
My mother’s face blurred beneath tears I couldn’t hold back.
“So, you never saw anything strange about her hair? Or her eyes? Or her hands?” Pennington asked, and my mother shook her head. “Not even when she got riled up about something?”
“No. There was never anything like that.” My mom leaned forward, her arms folded on top of the table, and I recognized the fierce look in her eyes. “Look, Sheriff, I have no idea what Lilah did to that man, but I have no doubt that he damn well deserved it.”
Deputy Atherton twisted a knob at the bottom of the glass, and my mother’s voice went silent. He pressed a button on the same panel, and the glass frosted over until it became reflective again. My viewing was over.
“She loves you.”
“Yeah, and I’m afraid that’s going to get her in serious trouble.” I rotated my shoulders in the futile search for a more comfortable position as he slid into the chair across the table from me. “What’s next for her?”
The deputy exhaled and pushed a strand of brown hair from his forehead. “Pennington’s approved a rush order on her blood test, so we should hear back within twenty-four hours, assuming she’s human.”
Because identifying one of thousands of cryptid species by blood was complicated, but confirming humanity was pretty quick.
“She’ll have to stay here until we’re sure, though.”
“Can’t you just let her go home? She’s no threat, Deputy.”
Atherton shook his head. “Standard procedure, for public safety. Anyone suspected of having cryptid blood has to stay in custody until the results are in. I’ll take her some coffee and a stale cinnamon roll, but that’s the best I can do.”
“What about me?” I shifted in my seat, trying to ease the pressure on my shoulders. “Am I going to sit in a cell until they figure out what I am?”
“Looks like it, and you should probably consider that a stroke of luck. Pennington’s had a couple of the guys out front looking at options for where to send you since before you woke up, and the very best of them is going to make this place look like a luxury hotel.”
A fresh jolt of fear tightened my chest. “Please tell me Pennington’s not the final authority.”
Atherton shrugged. “The law’s a little fuzzy on that. If that carny was in the morgue instead of the psych ward, Pennington would have to call in the state police. That’s standard for all capital offenses. But since he doesn’t have to make that call, he’s probably not gonna. If you turn out to be a surrogate, you fall under federal jurisdiction, but that’s another call he’s not going to make unless he has to.”
“So my fate is in the hands of the sheriff of a county with fewer than fifteen thousand people in it.” My mouth was dry, and my hands had gone numb, but because I wasn’t human, they could keep me as long as they wanted without so much as a sip of water or a trip to the bathroom.
“Yes, but I think you’re better off here than you would be in state custody.” The deputy folded his hands on the table while I watched him through a strand of hair that had fallen over my eye. “The state reservation is over capacity. They’re sendin’ the overflow straight to an R & D holding facility, and that place...”
Atherton stared down at his hands, and the fact that he was clearly stalling made my heart beat too hard.
Cryptid research and development was big business, with both the government and the private sector, but regulation was virtually nonexistent. Animal activists raised hell if a pharmaceutical company wanted to test new shampoo on a sewer rat, but R & D could inject environmental toxins beneath a selkie’s removable seal skin all day long and no one blinked an eye.
“They don’t tag ’em or count ’em, Delilah. I made a couple of calls, and a guy in records told me that since the lab opened fourteen years ago, they’ve sent in more than five times the max capacity—all kinds of cryptids—and there’s no record of any of them ever officially leaving the facility. But they fire up the industrial incinerator about once a week.”
My pulse jumped, and I struggled to keep breathing slowly. Evenly. “What’s the alternative? Hotel California?”
The deputy nodded. “Otherwise known as the Oklahoma Cryptid Confinement Center.”
“Same thing.” Because there, every sentence that wasn’t a life sentence was a death sentence.
“The only other option I can think of would be a private collection. I know this guy out in—”
“No.” Chills shot up my spine. Werewolves on leashes, declawed and walking around like pets. Selkies and naiads swimming in giant koi ponds. Fauns serving drinks at private events in nothing but gold chains and collars. I shook my head vehemently. “I’m nobody’s pet.”
“That’s not up to you.” Atherton leaned back in his chair, his forehead crinkled in irritation. “I’m going out of my way to help you, and your appreciation looks a lot like ingratitude.”
Indignation sharpened my vision until I finally saw the deputy clearly. “You want me to be thankful that you’re willing to sell me as a living party favor instead of sentencing me to a cryptid prison?”
The deputy’s eyes narrowed. “You need to take a good, objective look at what you’re facing here, Delilah. OCCC is an open-population cryptid prison. There are no guards. No cells. No rules. Helicopters make periodic supply drops on the grounds. You’d fight for every scrap of food and clothing until the day some troll or adlet eats you for breakfast. Is your pride really worth dying for?”
Fuck!