Gallagher didn’t smile. The others seemed relieved that I was able to look at my mysterious homicidal compulsion with a sense of humor, but he wasn’t buying it.
The worst thing that captivity had stolen from me was control of my own body. Cuffs and cages had restricted my movement. Vandekamp’s collars had literally paralyzed me. Oliver Malloy had used Gallagher against me. But thefuriae’s hijacking of my body to commit outright murder was a particularly brutal incarnation of that hell and a vicious betrayal, considering that she’d been not only a trusted ally but apartof me for the past year.
“You can stay here,” Gallagher said as he cut into his omelet, still watching me.
“I’m not sure that’d be smart,” I whispered, eyeing his breakfast, though I’d just finished my own. “Neither Genni nor Rommily could stop me if something...happens. Also, I don’t want to be very far away from you or Zy—” who’d helped deliver several babies in the menagerie “—while I’m this close to going into labor.”
God,pleaselet me be close to going into labor.
Gallagher nodded. But he didn’t look happy about it.
After breakfast, Genni sat on the floor with the whiteboard and one of the newspapers Lenore and Zyanya had found at an old-fashioned newspaper stand outside the post office during their last run into town. Newspapers were the cheapest print we’d found for her reading lessons, other than the novels we’d found in the cabin, which she’d already read.
“A-rayg-ned,” she sounded out as she wrote a word on the whiteboard. Her assignment was to read an article and write down all the words she didn’t know, to be looked up in the 1956 edition dictionary we’d found on the shelf above the fireplace.
Frowning, I stood from the table for a better look at her board. “Arraigned,” I corrected. “Thegis silent.”
“Arraigned,” she repeated in her French accent.
I gave her a smile and poured myself a glass of juice.
“Slawg-ha-ter,” she murmured as she wrote another word. That one I knew without having to look.
“Slaughter. Thegand thehare silent.”
Genni frowned up at me, holding a blue dry-erase marker. “Why do they put letters in the words if you’re not supposed to say them?”
I laughed. “That usually means the word originated in another language, where there are different rules and exceptions for pronunciation.” Her brows rose and she opened her mouth, but I beat her to the punch. “That happens in French, as well.”
Her mouth snapped shut. Then she went back to her newspaper. “Surr-o-gate.”
My hand clenched around my glass. I set the juice on the counter and crossed into the living area, where she was spread out with her things. Lenore looked up from her novel when she noticed me. “What’s wrong?”
“What is she reading?” I tried to bend and pick up the newspaper, but my stomach got in the way and my hips protested the movement.
“Here.” Lenore plucked the paper from the floor with an apologetic smile for the pup. She glanced at the headline, and the blood seemed to drain from her face. “Delilah, you may want to sit down.”
I groaned. “Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to get off that couch?”
“I’ll help.” She patted the center cushion, and when I’d lowered myself carefully, she handed me the newspaper.
Killer Cop Claims No Memory;
DC Remembers the Reaping
“Oh, shit.”
Genevieve rose onto her knees, peering over the top of the newspaper.“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
“Nothing,” Lenore said. But the pup wasn’t fooled.
“This happened last Saturday.” More than a week ago. I’d read about the mall shooting while Gallagher and I scoped out the university lab, but at the time, there’d been no mention of the reaping. “When did you get this paper?”
“Yesterday.” Lenore tapped the date at the top of the page, which said the paper was two days old. “What does the article say?”
I scanned the print. “The cop that shot up a mall food court last week says the last thing he remembers is clocking in for his shift. He woke up half an hour later with a hole in his shoulder and people screaming all around him. He says he doesn’t remember shooting. Or being shot by a fellow officer on duty.”
Lenore leaned closer to read for herself. “And people think he’s a surrogate?”
