An entire room full of women nodded, eyes wide and terrified.
“It’s time to go. Just a sec.” I ducked into the hall again and grabbed one of the unactivated batons. “Gallagher and I destroyed the collar system, which means the door sensors and remote controls don’t function. So here’s how this is going to work. There are a dozen more of these on the floor in the hall.” I held up the weapon. “This is an electrified baton. If you don’t have claws or fangs or some kind of natural defensive ability, grab one. Turn it on, but only touch this rubber handle, because the rest of it will shock you. If someone tries to grab you, hit him or her with it.”
“What’s the best way off the compound?” Lenore said, and I actually heard most of her question, though it seemed to be coming at me from the other end of a long tunnel.
“Through the woods,” Magnolia said.
“No.” Simra shook her head. “That’s too slow. We need cars.”
“She’s right.” I turned to Lenore and Zyanya. “Take them to the parking lot and find the largest vehicles. Do you remember what Abraxas showed us? How to hot-wire a car?”
Several of the former menagerie captives nodded. Most of them had been taught to drive out of necessity, because Metzger’s was atravelingmenagerie.
“Good. Pile into the vehicles and leave. Just go.”
“Where?” Lala asked, as I handed her my baton.
“I don’t know. Ishouldn’tknow, that way if they catch me, I can’t tell them. Later, when and if it’s safe, we’ll try to find each other. You and Mirela will be our best hope of that.” Through their premonitions. Though the shifters might be able to track anyone who fled on foot. “But tonight the goal is to get out of the Spectacle. Okay?”
The crowd nodded again, though several of the women looked more scared than eager.
“Okay. Go.”
“What about you?” Zyanya asked as the women pushed past me into the hall, wide-eyed gazes searching for danger in every direction.
“I have to open the rest of the doors, but then I’ll be right behind you.”
She pushed a poof of dark curls back from her face. “I’ll help.”
“No.” I met her gaze. “Help them.” I nodded at the rest of the women. “You know how to drive and you can pass for human. They need you. I’ll be fine.”
The shifter nodded reluctantly. Then she stepped into the hall and began herding the women toward the rear exit.
I freed the men and gave them the same instructions, though I had no more batons to hand out. For safety in numbers, I ran with them in the direction of the employee lot, then veered toward the “stable,” where Vandekamp kept prey for the hunt. But before I could open the door, it opened on its own, and nearly two dozen shifters and nonshifting hybrids—including three centaurs and a satyr—nearly trampled me.
The last one out the door was Payat, who’d recovered from the hunt.
“Hey!” I grabbed his arm, and he whirled on me, ready to fight until he saw my face.
“Delilah!” He pulled me into a hug. “I’m so glad to see you!”
“You too. How’d you get out?”
“Gallagher unlocked us. He’s looking for you.”
Alive with relief, I kissed him on the cheek. “Zyanya and the others are heading for the parking lot. Can you help her get everybody out of here? And if you see Gallagher, tell him I’m heading to the infirmary.”
Payat nodded and gave me another brief, tight hug. Then he took off running.
Eryx
Deep in the maze of hallways beneath the arena, the minotaur sat up, suddenly wide-awake in his windowless cell. From two doors down, the cockatrice gave another ear-piercing shriek and clawed the concrete. She’d been irritable since her narrow defeat of thewendigo, because she’d lost the last two inches of her tail to the cannibal in the ring, but this wasn’t her usual angry ranting.
The cockatrice sounded...excited.
Across the hall, the chimera roared, and the hairs stood up on Eryx’s thick forearms. He stood and looked through the window in his cell door, and at first he couldn’t process what he was seeing. The chimera’s goat and lion heads were pushing each other aside to claim the view through its window. They were so close to the door that breath from the lion’s muzzle fogged the glass.
The minotaur’s eyes narrowed as he watched. The collars should have shocked and immobilized the beast before it got within two feet of its door.
