Page 59 of A Malicious Menagerie
“Nothing,” I assure him quickly. “It’s just…”
Sensing that this is about to be a serious conversation, Chase sits up and twists to face me. “Just what?”
I take a deep breath before blurting out, “Mathis is planning to sell you.” Then, I wince. There was probably a gentler way of telling him.
Chase reels back, blinking rapidly. “What?”
“It’s true. I overheard Mathis talking to Radha Gupta—the actress who bid to see you shift at the last gala? He’s going to trade you to her in a few months.”
He looks like he’s struggling to process the news, and I can’t blame him.It was hard for me, too, and I’m not the one who might get traded like a baseball card. Still, his first question isn’t what I expect. “How long have you known?”
“Not long,” I hedge. “About a week.”
He looks more surprised by that fact than by the thought of being sold off. And a little hurt. “You’ve been keeping this from me for a week?”
I rush to assure him, “I needed some time to figure things out. And I did. I have a plan to rescue you.”
His jaw drops. “What?”
“It’s not just me,” I rush to add. “It’s Colby and Nathan, too, and—”
“You told two guys you barely know, both of whom work for Mathis, that you want to steal his werewolf?” he clarifies disbelievingly.
I wince. “Well, when you put it like that…”
“What other way is there to put it?”
“It’s not like that! Colby has a thing for Ciara, so he wants to break her out, and Nathan is undercover for this organization called FABLE—”
“Or so he told you, anyway,” Chase replies hotly, springing to his feet and beginning to pace.
I rise as well, wringing my hands nervously as I watch him start a groove in the dirt. “But we have a plan. Colby thinks he can lead the guards on shift into an enclosure and lock them in. And his cousin has a van that will fit the centaurs and the rest—”
“How many beasts are we breaking out?” he demands incredulously. “All of them? The chupacabra you told me about?”
Should I find it encouraging that he said ‘we’ even as he’s yelling at me? “Well, I would love to take them all, but the chupacabra might eat us,” I point out nervously. “We can probably only take residents who can understand the plan.”
“Anna, this is…” He runs a hand over his face, looking way more tired and stressed than he did when he was lounging in my lap. “You can’t do this. You can’t put yourself in danger like this forme.No matter what Mathis plans to do to me.”
“Well…” I can tell by his expression that he’s already dreading what I’m about to say. “It’s not just for you, really.” And I tell him what Nathan revealed about the previous caretakers.
“That son of a bitch,” Chase seethes, still pacing. “I worried you were in danger here, but to know that he never intended to let you go at all…” He pauses, finally slowing to a halt. “What about Nan?”
“Nathan and I have a plan,” I reassure him quickly. “Nan is going to fake a heart attack—”
“She’swhat?”
I rush to finish, “And Nathan’s coworker will pick her up in an ambulance.”
“Anna…”
“We’ll grab her, and then, we can disappear.”
“To where?” he asks, burying a hand in his hair as if I’m driving him to pull it out.
“Well, FABLE owns this abandoned water park across the river. We can all hide out there until we figure out how to get everyone home.”
Chase winces. “Anna, if I get out of here, I’m not joining a slumber party in an old park. I’m going home to my family.”
