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Alice hated how socially inept she could be, hanging behind Mary and Neal, Amber and Tony.
When they had invited her to join them on a trip across the island, she had been so eager to get out of the sleepy resort and do something other than think about all the things she couldn’t control that she undoubtedly missed all the cues that they wouldn’t really want her along. It didn’t even occur to her to put together all the pieces and realize what a personal journey this was going to be.
The ride itself had started well; Neal drove the resort Jeep down the ridiculously winding, bumpy road to the airstrip they’d flow into, and they laughed and talked about the state of the track and the incredible heat, and the island, and the wedding, and their plans to go snorkeling. From the airstrip, it was still a merry trip, over a road that was nearly but not quite as bad as the resort road, to the compound on the other side of the island.
But as they drew closer, the mood dampened, even if the sunny day did not.
When they pulled into the overgrown drive, the party was sober and quiet.
And now she was the most awkward fifth wheel since the wheel itself was invented, watching the two couples wander hand-in-hand through the abandoned compound and the charred remains of the zoo where Neal and Tony had been tortured.
The jungle was starting to spill in over the lawn around the compound. Alice could tell that it had once been neatly groomed and sharp-edged, but now it was almost blurry as brush crept in from the forest, sending tendrils of vines and shoots of roots across the unkempt grass.
The arboretum they walked solemnly through was still mostly standing, but Amber exclaimed over how damaged it was and even Alice could see that neglect had not been kind to the more delicate plants within.
“There were so many birds when I was here,” Amber said thoughtfully. “Hummingbirds, and orioles, I remember.”
They all stopped and listened.
“I don’t hear any birds at all,” Alice observed. There were insects, and frogs, but no birdsong.
The compound was even more eerie after that realization.
The house itself was largely undamaged, but had clearly been stripped and stood empty, with gaping dark windows. Here, too, jungle had started to take over. Green vines trailed up over the walls, and skinny saplings spotted the lawns and choked the gardens.
Rain had washed the worst of the soot and ash away, but the bones of the zoo behind the house were still black, twisted and warped. The wall around it looked like it had been burned to the foundations by impossible heat. No cage was whole, but some were half-standing, at least one wall ripped open and burned down on each of them.
It was a stunning display of power and Alice was awed by the sheer scope of the damage.
This was the act of someone who clearly had no intention of being caged again.
She wished she had a hand of her own to hold, watching the others cling to each other. Even though she hadn’t been imprisoned or abused in this place, she could imagine what it had been like, how horrifying it would be to be caged and forced to stay in her animal form.
No offense, she told her bear.
Her bear was as bothered as she was. No one is meant to be in a cage, she said gruffly.
They found, picking through the rubble, the cell where Tony had been held.
“It wasn’t that long for me,” he said, with a sympathetic sidelong look at Neal, who had spent ten years in his own enclosure.
Amber clung to his arm. “I remember how it hurt you,” she said fiercely. “I remember.”
Mary said nothing, her fingers twined tight with her mate’s.
They found Neal’s cage next; it was little more than a few black bars striking up through concrete, and some crumbling steps.
“I tore the lock off the door when I was finally free,” Neal said thoughtfully, crouching at what must have been a doorway once. “I gave it to Gizelle. I wonder if she still has it.”
He spoke mechanically, like it was something distant and half-forgotten, but when Mary knelt and put her arms around him, he hunched over as if he still felt pain.
Alice retreated swiftly, knowing she was unwelcome in the moment of comfort. Amber and Tony had already returned to the arboretum, and Amber was sitting on an unbroken portion of bench while Tony made her drink water and fussed about her health.
Alice wandered to the back of the zoo, over the scar of the wall, to the shaggy lawn that overlooked the sea. They were so high here that the waves were barely wrinkles below them, and the noise of surf was a distant hum. A road, half-washed out, led steeply down to a long dock and a half-moon of beach.
There were burned bars and chunks of rubble even here, as if they had been thrown from the zoo in a fiery explosion. Alice tested one of the dark concrete slabs with her hand, expecting the black to rub off on her like fresh soot, and was surprised when it came away clean. She sat on it, pulled her knees up against her chest, and wished she weren’t thinking of Graham.
He might not say much, she thought, but his solid presence beside her would have been comforting.
She glanced back at the zoo, where Mary and Neal were sitting together in the bones of his cage. He had his arms wrapped around her, and she was murmuring in his ear as she held him.
She could have that, it suddenly occurred to Alice.
She could have that unwavering support, that true bond, that unflinching comfort.
Graham loved her.
It was more than his blurted first words, it was more than the way he had rushed to protect her from Gizelle’s mate. It was the way he gazed at her when he couldn’t help it. It was the trust he cautiously extended her, like he was afraid of being pushed away... with good reason considering her insistence that there was nothing between them but animal need.
She could have the same security and partnership that Mary and Amber had found, that same happiness.
All she had to do was accept that she loved him in return.