Lights dimmed all over the stadium, except for three spotlights in the ring. The gate at the other side of the arena slid open. And finally Gallagher stepped onto the sand, into the empty spotlight a third of the way into the oval ring. Then he turned to look up at me. As if he knew exactly where I’d be.
The lights in my box brightened, throwing a square of illumination on the stadium seats just below. Gallagher’s gaze found me, and the image of him on the overhead screen zoomed in for a close-up. The audience turned to follow his gaze.
I gasped, surprised to find myself the center of attention again, and in my peripheral vision, all six of my customers turned as if they’d just then noticed I was there.
“Why are the lights on?” one of the men demanded.
“So he can see her,” Pagano answered.
“It’s her!” the woman next to him half whispered, her focus suddenly fixed on my face, though she’d hardly looked at me all evening. “So it’s true? He fights for her?”
“It’s true. Nothing else seems to motivate him,” Bowman said as if I weren’t standing right there, listening. “Not even his own safety.”
“That’s so beautiful!” one of the women said, but the man to her left scoffed.
“It’s a gimmick, Cherie. They don’t feel things the way we do. They’ve just been trained for this act, to draw in new customers. Like teaching a monkey to dance.”
My face flushed red-hot, but I only bit my tongue and clutched the tray, trying to pretend I couldn’t hear them.
“What is she?” a man in the second row asked. But I fixed my gaze on the screen, where a close-up of Gallagher showed details I couldn’t see from the private box.
His wounds had completely healed, and somehow they’d multiplied. His torso and arms were covered in thick, irregular scars, which had already begun to fade from fresh pink to an older shade of white.
That couldn’t be right. I stepped closer to the glass.
Gallagher’s hair had grown out beneath his cap, not just to stubble, but to a full inch and a half of hair, where there’d been only scruff the last time I’d seen him.
That couldnothave been just days ago.
My tray clattered to the floor. Glass shattered and wine splashed the wall and pooled on the wood floor.
How much time had I missed?
“Damn it!” the nearest lady cursed, using a napkin to brush drops of pinot noir from her shoes. “What the hell is wrong with her?”
“What’s the date?” I demanded, stepping over the tray and the broken glass.
On-screen, Gallagher frowned. He could tell I was upset.
Bowman and Pagano rushed toward me from the rear of the box, but they froze when I grabbed the lady’s arm. So did she. Bowman aimed his remote at me, while Pagano pulled his stun gun from his belt. “Let her go, Delilah,” Pagano said.
“What day is it?” I demanded.
The woman began to hyperventilate. “I...I don’t...”
I grabbed the phone sitting on the arm of her chair and pressed a button to wake it up. The date slid across her lock screen, and my eyes widened.
Two months. Twofuckingmonths.
I hadn’t lost days. I’d lost eight full weeks of my life.
“In a landslide decision, the US House of Representatives hasdeclined to pass the so-called cryptid labor law, which would have allowedownership of several specific species of cryptids by private citizens. Insiderscite concern for public safety as the reason the bill did not pass.”
—from the September 27, 1997, edition oftheToledo Tribune
Delilah
Pagano pulled me away from the woman—Cherie?—and cuffed my hands at my back while Bowman radioed the event coordinator and asked for a server to fill in.
