Page 35 of A Malicious Menagerie (Fangs & Fables #1)

I wrinkle my nose. “Name-wise, that’s even worse than Sunny Shores Retirement Village.”

He snorts, his smile widening, and really, who is this man? Certainly not who I thought he was. “I didn’t name it. If I had, I might have picked CLAWS. Cryptid Liberation and Welfare Society.”

“Still kitschy.”

“So sue me.” He shrugs. “In any case, our organization is involved in protecting cryptids and mythological creatures from exploitation. It started in 1916 when Teddy Roosevelt created the National Park Service. It follows that he would find some… unusual creatures in the course of his conservation efforts. And so he started FABLE, in secret, to protect these creatures and shield their existence—”

“Nathan,” I interrupt, exasperated. “I don’t need a history lesson. I need to know how I’m going to get out of this alive.”

“You have to understand,” Nathan hedges, and I know I’m not going to like what comes out of his mouth next.

“There’s a whole black market out there for cryptids and their parts.

I’ve been with Mathis for two years, trying to earn enough trust for him to reveal his contacts. I can’t just throw away years of work.”

“So you’ll just let Mathis get rid of me,” I surmise bitterly. “Like the others.”

“Anna, I could lose my job. All that I’ve been working toward.”

“Better than your soul!” I reply hotly. “You’ll really let him kill me? Are you that much of a robot, just blindly following orders?”

His jaw tenses, and I know I’ve struck a nerve. Maybe I’ll feel bad for it later, but for now, I’m going to jab at that exposed nerve until he folds. “I might be able to help you relocate. Flee before Mathis decides you’ve become too much trouble.”

“Not good enough. What about my grandmother? What about Chase?”

“Chase?”

“The werewolf. That’s his name, Chase. Mathis plans to trade him. I’m assuming you know about that?”

Nathan grimaces. “Yes, I know about that. The trade is set for the start of the new year. It takes time to smuggle a Grootslang out of Africa.”

That provides a little relief. I have some time, then. A few months, at least. “I want to save him before that happens. Along with the rest of the menagerie residents.”

Nathan’s eyes widen. “You want to save all of them?”

Between Colby and Nathan, I’m blowing a lot of minds recently. “The ones I’m able, anyway.”

“That’s not feasible.”

“It is with your help,” I assure him, staring beseechingly into his pale eyes. “And anyway… I might already have someone else who will help.”

“Who? Certainly not John.”

“First, are you going to help me? Or are you going to spend another two years picking up Mathis’s dry cleaning and turning a blind eye to his victims?”

It’s a low blow, but an effective one. Nathan winces, though he recovers quickly, taking a deep breath to steady himself.

“There’s going to be another gala not long after Halloween.

I’ve suspected for some time that several of Mathis’s guests are involved in the cryptid trade.

I’d like you to help me gather information.

And if you agree, I will pull some FABLE resources to help you… and some of the menagerie residents.”

“Just one last gala?” I clarify warily.

“One last gala. We can leave as early as the next night.”

“We need a place to take them all and hide them. At least until we can figure out how to get them all home. We’ll need water for the kelpies and the mermaids.”

Nathan rubs his face with a sigh. I totally understand. I’m daunted, too. Terrified, actually. But this is my life at stake—not to mention Nan’s, Chase’s, and every other menagerie resident’s.

“I think I have an idea of where to take them. I’m assuming we’re at least not taking the kraken with us?”

I manage a wan smile. “Don’t assume anything when it comes to me.” Just as quickly, my smile dies away. “But Nan. How do I get her out of here?”

Nathan is quiet for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Suddenly, he grimaces before running a hand over his face with a sigh. “I know a guy…”

“I don’t know that any worthwhile idea has ever started with ‘I know a guy,’” I point out wryly.

“A coworker,” Nathan clarifies, “who would have no qualms about, say, ‘borrowing’ an ambulance and breaking a grandmother out of a nursing home. In fact, it might just be the highlight of his week.”

“Just his week, huh?” I ask, trying to imagine Nathan working with someone so much his opposite.

“Never a dull moment with FABLE,” Nathan replies, deadpan. “So, my question is this: do you think you can convince Nan to fake a heart attack?”

* * *

“I met a new friend.”

After striking my deal with Nathan, I’m a mess. And when I’m a mess, the person who can always set me straight is Nan, but today is different. Today, I have to somehow convince a woman who never lies to play along with the con of a lifetime. So, I’m stalling.

As I push Nan’s chair through Sunny Shores’ small garden, I admire the first red and orange leaves speckling the otherwise emerald trees. The air is crisp, hinting at the coming autumn, and I can almost smell pumpkin spice steam and candied apples on the breeze.

“That’s nice,” Nan replies, drawing my attention back to her creased skin and twinkling pale eyes as she looks up at me. “What’s her name?”

“It’s Delia. I met her at work.”

“A coworker?”

“Kind of,” I hedge. “She works for my boss, too, but she more does odd jobs for him.”

Like killing people to fund his charity work.

Inside my pocket, the new business card Nathan gave me feels like a brand.

The paper is thinner and less luxurious than the card he handed me my first night at the menagerie, and it’s even more cryptic.

There are just two initials, N.J., followed by a P.O.

box. No phone number, no email address, and the initials don’t even match the surname he originally gave me.

In case things don’t go as planned and you need to get hold of me, Nathan had said as he gave me the card, and isn’t that a terrifying thought?

“What’s she like?” Nan asks, drawing me back into our conversation.

“She’s really sweet,” I say after considering the question, and she is.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I started bringing Delia blood, and the change in her has been startling.

She went from a violent, mindless predator to a kind, soft-spoken, gentle woman.

“But she’s been through a lot of hardship in her life, so she always seems like she’s kind of sad. ”

We’ve meandered to the far end of the garden and under an overgrown rose trellis whose blooms have long since fallen away. I park the wheelchair in front of the lone stone bench there before taking a seat, the chill biting into my legs.

“Poor girl.” Nan frowns. “Well, it’s good that she has you, then. You’re such a ray of sunshine. You certainly always brighten my day.”

“Nan, you’re embarrassing me,” I tease, but her words suffuse my chest with a warm glow that loosens the cold grip of anxiety on my heart.

“Have you met anyone else at work?” she asks innocently. “Any young men, perhaps?” I flush, and Nan’s blue eyes sharpen. “Anna, have you been holding out on me?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just… new. And complicated. Chase works for my boss, too, but more like what Delia does than what I do.”

“Is he handsome?”

“I suppose some people might think so,” I reply airily. As if Chase isn’t a stone-cold stud who could pose half-naked on the cover of GQ .

“Well? What’s he like?”

“He’s…” I have to pause to gather my thoughts because Chase is so many things. He’s flirty, and kind, and he makes me feel like I’m the only other person in the world when he looks at me.

Chase is… everything.

“He’s a long way from home,” I finally begin, careful about which truths to reveal. “And the way he talks about his family, especially his sisters, is just so loving. And he’s funny , Nan. So funny. He makes me laugh so hard sometimes with his ridiculous jokes that it’s hard to catch my breath.”

“He sounds like a catch,” she notes with a lopsided grin. “So, what’s so complicated? You obviously like this young man, and he’d be a fool not to fall in love with you.”

My blush is radioactive. “It’s a little early for that. Besides, we work together. That always makes things hard.”

Nan waves off my concerns. “Anna, it’s a job . There are always others. But love is rare and precious and needs to be protected at all costs.”

And just like that, Nan has once again cut through all the bullshit to the heart of the matter. I smile fondly, so full of love for this woman who guided me and raised me that it makes my chest tight. And she’s right—my love for her is rare and precious, and I will protect it at all costs.

And that resolution gives me the courage to ask, “Nan, do you remember me telling you about the monkeys at work?”

Her curious gaze meets mine. “Of course. Why?”

It feels unnatural to say it after holding it in for so long. I scan the courtyard, looking for the scary man from earlier or anyone else strolling a little too close. I’m paranoid, but can it be considered paranoia when the threat is real?

Finally, I lean in and drop my voice to murmur, “What if I told you they aren’t monkeys at all?”

Nan’s pale gaze sharpens. “I would say that I’ve suspected that for a while now. But then, what are they?”

I hesitate, my mind whirring. What can I say that won’t make me sound crazy when I’m already flirting with delusional? “They’re people. People like my friends Delia and Chase.”

Nan’s eyes widen. “People?! But the things you’ve said about this place, it sounds like some kind of zoo.”

“It is.”

She looks disgusted. “But that’s…”

“Wrong,” I finish for her, relieved that she sees my point. Or at least the gist of it. “It’s wrong, and I intend to make it right.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I have a plan to free them… but it’s dangerous.”

Her brow furrows. “How dangerous?”

“Dangerous enough that we’d need to leave here. Permanently.”

Nan gapes. “Anna Grace Carmichael, what have you gotten yourself into?”

I wince. It’s never good when she pulls out the middle name. “I’ll tell you everything, I will. Just not yet. Not here. But I’m going to ask you to trust me anyway.”

Nan shakes her head in disbelief. “I don’t understand.”

“You will. Just trust me. Please?”

After deliberating a moment, Nan exhales a shaky sigh. “Of course I trust you, Anna.”

The words are a balm to my soul, but I haven’t revealed everything yet. “Do you trust me enough to pretend to have a heart attack?”

Her jaw drops. “What?!”

“When you fake a heart attack, an ambulance will show up. But instead of paramedics, a… friend will come to help you escape.”

“This is…” Nan pauses, looking worried and lost, and my heart squeezes with guilt. If I could spare her from any of this, I would. But I’m trying to spare her from something much worse. “Why don’t we just go? Now? Today? We’ll pack my things and—”

I’m already shaking my head. “They won’t let me take you out of here.”

“Who’s ‘they?’”

“My boss’s men.”

Nan casts a worried glance around at the well-groomed flower beds and neat hedgerows. “This sounds like something out of a thriller. Are you pulling my leg?”

I bark out a humorless laugh. “If only.”

Nan scrutinizes me for a moment, her pale eyes flickering across my face. “Have you thought this through? Really thought this through?”

This, at least, is an easy answer. “It’s all I’ve thought about. Over and over. ”

“And it’s the right thing to do?”

I reach over to take Nan’s hands in mine and give them a gentle squeeze. “Yes. It’s the right thing to do.”

“But if we need to leave, where would we go?”

“I was thinking Alaska.”

“Alaska!” Nan exclaims.

“Shh!” I hush her quickly before peering around. “What’s wrong with Alaska?”

“It just sounds so… remote. And wild.”

“They have cities, too, you know.”

“And will we be living in one?”

“Well…”

“Why Alaska?”

I blush. “It’s where Chase is from.”

“Anna, I don’t know about this…”

Her skepticism is the final straw, and I’m the camel breaking under the weight of everything .

Of my fear, of trying to do the right thing and feeling like I keep failing again and again, of needing to be the key to so many prison cells.

Tears flood my eyes, the current too great for the dam I’ve erected in my mind.

“Please, Nan.” My voice is small and plaintive, my shoulders hunched. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Nan’s expression softens, and she reaches up with one trembling hand to pet my hair. “I’m sorry, darling. Everything will be okay.”

“It’s just, if we don’t do this…”

“What?” Nan asks gently. “What will happen?”

“They’ll be trapped—all of them. Delia and Chase included. And you and me…” I suck in a shaky breath. “They’ll make us disappear.”

Nan looks horrified. “To where?”

Into a sea serpent’s belly seems like too blunt an answer. “To wherever we won’t be a ‘problem’ for my boss anymore.”

“Anna…” Nan shakes her head slowly. “This is just too much. I need some time to process it all.”

She doesn’t want to believe me. I can’t blame her. Still, her denial hurts. Doesn’t she trust me? When have I ever given her reason to believe I would make up a lie this big? A lie that would hurt her this much? “Of course,” I say, but my voice is hollow. “I’ll take you back to your room.”

Nan is quiet as I wheel her back down the path, but I can almost hear the gears turning in her head. Please, I whisper internally. Please believe me.

As we approach the door that will take us back into the nursing home, my eyes fall on a familiar figure. My feet stutter, and the wheelchair skids a little across the loose gravel.

“Anna!” Nan chastises, frowning up at me. “What…” She trails off when she sees my face, no doubt white as a sheet. Her gaze follows mine until she locates the towering bald man leaning beside the door with his vicious scowl aimed at us. “Who is that?” she whispers in a trembling voice.

“Someone my boss sent to make sure I don’t sneak you out,” I reply in a low murmur.

“My God,” Nan whispers, her eyes rounding with horror. “You were serious before.”

“As the heart attack I’m asking you to fake.”

As we pass him, I can feel his gaze on my face like a dozen needles made of ice. Only once the door closes behind us, leaving the brute outside, do I let go of the breath I’d been holding. “Do you believe me now?” I whisper urgently.

“Yes, but Anna, I don’t…” Nan swallows audibly before trying again. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“You’re the bravest person I know,” I tell her, squeezing her shoulder gently. “You can do it. I know you can.”

I don’t say it, but I know she can hear the unspoken words.

Because you have to.