Chapter Twenty-Two
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Authors Note: I got sick of this chapter, so here ya go.
Damian was admittedly nervous about getting on the bus again after what happened last time.
The bomb around his neck, the hijackers threatening their lives. The long hours that felt an eternity before the leader miraculously surrendered.
It was a comfort that the school had indeed installed emergency buttons that would alert the police if there was another hijacking, or other life endangering events.
Ewen and Emile seemed less effected, but they didn't have quite the experience he had. And Forger who looked completely unbothered, reaffirmed his beliefs that she must be a little insane.
The ride was uneventful however, and it soothed over any anxieties he might have had.
The hijacking was just one incident. It probably wouldn't happen again. He felt surprisingly better about it as he stepped off the bus and the Wald and Cecil Halls were lined up by their homeroom teachers.
A man who wore a dark green shirt tucked into light brown pants, met them at the zoo entrance to take them on a tour. He went over rules and the buddy system that they were all expected to follow.
Ewen and Emile disputed who would be Damian's buddy, and in the end, neither of them were. Damian wasn't interested in dealing with their argument and paired them up together. His plans would be disrupted with them around anyway, and he found someone else to walk with as he considered.
He'd been thinking and thinking all week to come to a definitive conclusion on Anya Forger. The bit of info he received about the hospital not yielding much but inconclusive assumptions. There were so many questions he had that he couldn't answer yet, and she remained a mystery to him.
This was taking too long, and he was making too little progress. He had to resort to a method he was hoping to avoid.
He had to talk to Forger.
Everything about the kidnapping intrigued him, but to be honest, he had other questions that he was more invested in having answered. He was too unsettled to leave it alone.
Damian stood beside his buddy in the double line and knew Forger was somewhere behind him.
How did he approach her about this? How did he subtly ask these questions without her catching on? What did he say? Would Blackbell be a nuisance? Probably. . .
He contemplated this as the the zoo man, Mr. Gable, led them inside.
—
Anya and Becky followed the line of students that trailed behind the tour guide while the teachers kept close by.
Mr. Gable proudly gave the name of the large pond that greeted them at the entrance, and they started down one of the many paths that bordered it, routes easily traversable on an otherwise empty weekday. The foliage grew thick between the pens and paths and wooden walkways transitioned smoothly to dirt lanes that some students complained would stain their uniforms.
"Bengal Tigers." The tour guide read the sign aloud to the children as they crowded the sturdy metal fence of the enclosure made to look like a rainforest, a small pond sitting picturesquely in a bowl of grey stone.
Mr. Gable went on and on about them as Anya studied a tiger taking shade from the early sun. Another lay in the open, but it wasn't staring directly at her like he was.
She'd found reading animals to always be a little weird, and sometimes hard. Their thoughts would be murky with the limited sense of consciousness they had, or simply be unintelligible. It depended on the species and their level of awareness.
There was none of this however, and she felt his mindset with astonishing clarity. She easily understood that her bright pink hair that attracted his attention, marked her has his first meal if he could get at her. The in-satiating viciousness of tearing her limb from body was appealing to his savage instincts which he had never been able to partake in. Instincts that passed by with every walking meat stick that came through.
Anya suddenly thought she could see it materialize as a hungry glint in his eyes. An intense want, no need, to break away from his resting place and rip out her throat. He would have if not for the fence blocking his way. If not for his astounding laziness in the slow mornings that weighed his sleepy self to the mossy floor.
Anya gasped. How rude!
"What is it?" Becky asked at her display of seemingly random aghast-ness.
"Nothing." She laughed sheepishly, rapidly changing her disposition.
"Who would like to see us feed the tigers?" The man asked and a wave of excited agreement raised from the children. They were led to a side of the fence, usually only reserved for zoo people, and the man's co-workers appeared from a building attached to the large enclosure.
The raw meat was thrown and the tigers ran for them like the predatory animals they were. Anya thought there was not much difference in the other felines they saw in that regard. The leopards, lions, and mountain cats, all holding a dangerous hunger that turned the children into meat sacks in their perspectives.
Anya was glad to move on where it was easier to block out their fantasies to rip into them all, and Mr. Gable lectured them on the black bear they came to visit.
A few brave students tested the waters first by feeding fruit to her through the fence. The bear, Navy, sniffling at their tiny fingers to leave their hands moist from her wet breath.
Anya didn't get to feed her, but stood close to the metallic barrier.
The contrast was stark between the cats and the bear.
Navy didn't care at all they were there and had no aggression or defensiveness towards them. A feeling Anya could only describe as sadness took hold of her instead. She didn't like being locked in this cage, she didn't like the cold silvery bars that prevented her freedom. She acted in repetitive movements and ate from the kid's hands in habitual disinterest. A detached numbness to help her forget where she was and how she lived.
This did not sit well with Anya and she immediately went to the zoo man to tug on his pant leg.
"Oh, hello." He said pleasantly.
"The bear should be in the wild." She pointed to the animal, averse to telling him that Navy was sad, for fear he would wonder how she knew that.
"Why do you say that?" Asked the zoo man, instantly giving her pause in her quest for justice.
Crud, she thought. Anya should have planned this out. She really should have seen that question coming, it was so obvious.
"Cause. . . 'cause bears shouldn't be in a cage." She improvised, though felt it was the truth.
"Well, I'm afraid she was raised in captivity, she wouldn't survive in the wild."
"But. . .but. . ." Anya tried. She didn't want to think how miserable Navy would be for the rest of her life in the zoo.
"I know. She probably doesn't like it here, is what you're thinking, right?"
"Uh. . . " Could he read minds too?
"Sadly, some animals don't, but when their bred for this sort of thing, it strips them of their ability to adapt in the wild."
"Really?" A nearby kid said.
The man nodded and Anya knew she'd never be able to forget about this. She wasn't sure she liked zoos very much anymore and she couldn't put Navy out of her thoughts as Mr. Gable led them through the rest of the bears. None of the grizzlies or the brown bears were depressed but she felt it in a polar bear as it swum in circles in it's pool.
After that, they saw a pack of wolves and most of them slept.
Mr. Gable said they were nocturnal and spent most of their waking hours at night.
They also saw caribou and hippos, and a couple zebras which, despite Anya's growing dislike for the zoo, made her glad she had come.
They were brought to the monkeys next where the capuchins swung from ropes and trees and relaxed comfortably in the limbs eating dried fruit and nuts.
The enclosure was spacious and it was a comfort to Anya to see them happily swinging about and picking at each other's fur. Before the students were given fruit and nuts to feed them, the man gave a detailed spiel. Habitats, diet, behavioural tendencies and such.
Anya listened if only because she knew they'd be quizzed on it later.
"Hey." A voice said beside her after the man was done, and she turned to see Damian.
Crud, she thought again. She'd been dodging him since they'd arrived, knowing his intentions, but he stood here anyway. Quite the difference from a couple months ago when she would've done everything in her power to ensure the success of the friendship scheme.
". . . Hey. . . " She said, surprised his friends weren't flanking him, but a random boy instead who was paying them no attention.
There was silence.
Anya held a piece of mango out through the fence to the shy monkey she'd been trying to entice nearer for the last couple minutes. He edged closer, deeming her safe to approach and reached a hand out when another who'd been hogging a lot of the treats, snatched it away first. The shy monkey shrunk away at the sudden intrusion and Anya lost her chance.
"Bad monkey! You have to share!" She chastised the hogger as it swung off to steal someone else's fruit.
"Hey." Damian said again and Anya turned back to him. "How did you know that bear was sad?" He spoke casually, almost indifferent, his unusual civility belying the intense curiosity behind it.
He'd noticed then. He'd caught the reason she'd asked Mr. Gable to release Navy. He'd noticed her weirdly intense focus on the other animals after that as well. And it might not have meant anything to anyone else, but it did to him, he saw it for what it was. She was able to detect the animals feelings.
Just as she'd always seemed to do with him.
Anya blinked. "You couldn't tell?" She said, wholly prepared for this. She'd seen this coming from a mile away and couldn't let him probe so close to the truth without preventative measures.
"Anya thought it was obvious." She said, her best tactic, to make him doubt himself and his own reasoning. She'd seen her papa do it, maybe it would work on Desmond too.
"Um. . . ." He hadn't expected that answer and her big eyes looked especially innocent in that moment, a very purposeful attempt to throw him off.
She took advantage and sighed the heaviest, weariest sigh she could. A sigh of wisdom and experience she did not have. "You have a lot to learn." She patted his shoulder patronizingly and his face screwed up in indignance.
She left before he could say anything else, and her eyes went wide as soon as her back was turned. She grabbed Becky's hand to lead her to another section to look at a monkey and pretended not to notice Damian studying her suspiciously. He felt a weird sense of assurance that he was right about her, mixed with the very doubt she'd hoped to plant in him.
Anya maintained her distance from Desmond as the classes were brought to the next species of monkey and an enclosure of chimpanzees. Occasionally she used Becky to shield her from Damian's view.
It made her anxious how much he caught onto. He shouldn't know about the hospital, he shouldn't know it wasn't a regular kidnapping, he shouldn't know there was something off about her. He was close, much too close for her liking.
She continued to avoid him as they went to the last of the primates, the gorillas.
They were not given food to feed them.
Anya liked watching a female gorilla carrying her baby who clung to her back. It reminded Anya of her Mama who always protected her.
The man talked as they walked away and moved from a cobble road to another dirt path. A canopy of leaves slowly overshadowed them and metal fences rose at least ten feet tall on either side of the students.
The trees inside were scant of branches, most of them reserved for the tops, to flourish and shade their heads. Underneath were the deer, ears pricking at the small army of nearing children.
As Mr. Gable launched into yet another dialogue, Anya joined the kids at the fences where the deer returned their stares.
There were a couple here that were sad also, and Anya wished she could help them. One in particular paced in the back with no destination and dragged his hooves in the dirt. Where could he go anyway? He went back and forth, pausing occasionally to lift his bowed head, and back to pacing. Movements that were pure habit and had lost all meaning.
Anya didn't know if she'd ever be able to come back to the zoo after this. She didn't want to feel what they were experiencing ever again, but couldn't help it while she was here.
Their minds felt unnatural, dissimilar than the others and she guessed they might be going insane. Is this what insanity felt like? She'd never encountered it before.
She'd heard of it once or twice but never really understood it.
Now she did.
Their minds were broken and cracked, warped into something they weren't supposed to be. They suffered inside and chafed at the confusion and frustration they were left with. It compelled them to act and think strangely; urges of self-harm and neglecting their appetites, preforming vain motions that only served to pass the time that they barely acknowledged anymore. It had all started to run together.
Their minds weren't just different than the others.
They were wrong.
She'd never felt anything so disturbing when she realized what it was. How utterly frightening to dive further into his head and discover the damage on his psyche. The mental fractures were deep and she physically jerked away as they tried to pull her in, extracting herself before it messed with her mind too.
She inhaled deeply, gripping the fence as she steadied and grounded herself in the moment until the alarming distortion of her senses faded.
No. She didn't think she could ever come back to the zoo.
She quickly calmed herself and watched the deer in concern. How come he was still here? Why couldn't the zoo fix this? Were they really going to keep him here even though it was hurting him? Were they aware this was happening? They knew some got depressed, but were they aware to what extent?
"That one's sad too, huh?"
"Mmm." Anya said and leaned her forehead against the fence, realizing more and more that that was only the surface of it.
She couldn't help but relate to him somewhat. She hadn't exactly been going insane, but she'd been locked up too. She hadn't had freedom or help either, just like the deer staring blankly at the ground. Like the deer who now swayed on his hooves and contemplated the weeds he knew he should eat, but didn't want to—
. . .
. . .
. . .
Anya whipped her head around when she realized Damian had spoken to her. A jolt that he'd caught her fixing so intently on the deer and that he'd noticed.
He wasn't looking at her, but the same buck she'd turned away from, maintaining the relaxed demeanour he'd had all morning.
She hoped he didn't think she was being weird again.
"How can you tell?" He asked.
Dang it, of course he did.
He looked at her then and none of the agitation he often had in her presence permeated his thoughts. He stood in calm assurance and only Anya felt the foreboding it produced.
He was confident he would get to the bottom of this and he was ready to catch every clue that she might drop.
Anya regretted taking her time in one spot, she should have been watching for him.
"Um. . . .because . . .it's obvious. . . " She fumbled, repeating her earlier words, though she could feel it carried less oomph. The deer had left her shaken and it still seized most of her thoughts. The force of unstableness had been slightly overwhelming and she didn't know how to handle it.
She'd come across many minds, many types, but not this. This was new territory and it was scary. She'd felt it pulling her in, infecting her own mind with the deteriorating confusion and deprived reasoning. What would have happened if this was a person? Would she have lost herself? Human minds were much stronger than an animal's, she was afraid if she came upon such an individual, she wouldn't be able to bring herself out.
'No.' She thought. 'I've never found someone like that before, why should I ever?' She persuaded herself even as she brushed aside an intrusive thought to rip out the rods in her brain.
"Right. . . " Damian said, unconvinced, and she forgot he was there for a moment, so lost in her thoughts.
"Go away Damian." Becky shooed him with a hand absentmindedly, her gaze on a deer who sniffed curiously at her.
He ignored her. "I wonder if he's okay." He commented and Anya knew he was baiting her to say something. Anything that he could glean from.
She only looked back at the buck and didn't answer, mostly because she didn't know how.
"Maybe he'd eat something." Damian glanced at the apple slices a few students tempted the deer with.
"He doesn't—" He doesn't want to eat, she almost said. ". . . look hungry." She finished.
Damian noticed the hitch in her words.
"I wonder why that one's sad." He gestured with a jut of his chin to another deer a little further away.
"What?" Anya's gaze was directed to a doe grazing on weeds who raised her head, mouth full, and looked about for predators as if she was in the wild, and went back to eating. She wasn't paying much attention to the kids but wasn't depressed or losing her sanity.
This confused Anya and she spoke without thinking. "She's not. . . sad. . . "
And when Damian looked at her in surprise, which he tried to hide, she understood too late what he was doing.
'Wait, seriously?' She heard him think when she tuned back in.
Damian had half-expected he was wrong about her, despite his confidence. That it had all been in his head and he was looking for something that wasn't there. But she actually knew what the deer were thinking just by looking at them, how did she do that? Why she didn't want him to know about it?
"Oh?" He said simply, thoughts racing in a jumbled mess and feeling smug at the same time.
"She. . ." Anya began to sweat. "Doesn't act the same way." She said, but it was too late. He knew she was lying, he was completely convinced he was on the right track, that he was right. That Anya had some sort of sixth sense.
"Huh." He said and Anya could have sworn she saw him smirk, but then it was gone.
CRAP! She thought.
Anya had to get out of there before he said anything else that was on his mind. He had too many questions and not enough answers, so she grabbed Becky's hand ready to drag her somewhere else.
"Huh? What?" Becky looked at her from the deer she'd been enraptured with.
"This way children." Mr. Gable called and swept his arm for them to follow before Anya could go anywhere, the teachers counting heads as the students formed into loose lines.
As it was, Damian ended up right behind her.
He was feeling triumphant over the victory, and also baffled. It eased the doubt he'd been having, while entirely confounded on how Anya did what she did.
Anya broke away from him as soon as they spread out to study the next animals, pulling Becky with her. She skirted around Damian through the next couple stops and prevented him from getting a glimpse of her if she could help it. And before Anya knew it, they were stopping for lunch in a picnic area that looked like a barn without walls.
The two girls found a table as far away from Damian and his friends as they could and Anya felt calmer.
It's not like he would actually find out. Who in their right mind would seriously think telepathy was possible? Even her Papa hadn't considered it until he saw hard evidence, and Damian wasn't going to get that.
Anya refused to stay in a state of anxiety because Damian was curious. She would just have to be more careful, more alert. He wouldn't ever find out.
Anya used this to comfort herself and relaxed.
He wouldn't ever find out. He wouldn't.
She pulled out her pre-packed lunch as everyone else did, and many of them were unaccustomed to food that hadn't been made just minutes before they ate it.
"I can't believe I wasn't allowed to bring my chef and a barbecue." Becky was saying. "Would it really be so bad to have some freshly cooked meat?" She said as she brought out her fancy cuisine.
"That's not enough?" Anya referred to the decadent meal of generous proportions that had fit in her bag against all odds.
"Of course it is, but it's . . . .it's not the same."
"Are you going to eat all of it?" Anya asked, eyeing the sausages, any interest lost in Becky's plight.
"Of course not, I'd explode. Here. You can have some." Becky shared it with Anya, and Anya shared her's with Becky.
They had a lively discussion on the animals they saw while they ate, and which ones they'd want as pets. Anya was sure she'd want a gorilla, and Becky was adamant it was a bad idea.
The thirty minutes designated for eating went quickly and the teachers gathered them all up to continue on to the sumatran elephant.
The kids flocked to a fence yet again and marvelled at the size of the large mammal. The elephant paid them no attention as the guide rattled off facts about her.
It was immediately clear to Anya that the elephant was annoyed these noisy pink flesh bags were disturbing her once peaceful afternoon. A cranky old lady who had used up all her patience in her long life and would much rather enjoy some peace and quiet than deal with squealing, rambunctious balls of chaos.
She very obviously turned away from Mr. Gable and walked in the other direction when he called her name. A grouchy attitude as she ambled off into the large pen that led Anya to catch sight of something in the distance.
The pen was viewable from multiple angles and Anya noticed someone standing on the opposite side a good fifty metres away. She didn't mean to give them another thought, but there was a familiar aspect to them. She felt compelled to identify this person who stood shadowed under a tree.
She strained to make them out against the sun glaring in her eyes and the distance that muddled their image. She used a hand as a visor and it helped to see their stance that even looked familiar, the way they held themself. Their dark clothing was obvious in the bright afternoon, and it was hard to tell, but she was sure they were looking at her too.
She didn't need to see the face then, because she saw the hair and why they felt familiar. Why she couldn't stop looking.
Why she knew them.
Her hand lowered almost unknowingly.
Her fingertips turned white from the pressure applied to the fence.
She wasn't sure she was breathing when the world stopped.