Operation 007 (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 22: Part Two

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 indignantly. 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.