Free Fiendish by Brenna Yovanoff Page A

the door, and I got out and followed him.
    * * *
    At the zoo, nothing was moving. The sky had darkened to an inky shade of blue and the packed dirt yard was sunk in shadow. Up at the house, all the lights were out.
    “Are they in bed already?” I whispered, mindful of what Shiny had said about Greg Heintz shooting at us. Growing up in the Willows had instilled in me an understanding that if there was one thing you weren’t supposed to do, it was walk right up into someone else’s yard without being invited. And it was probably worse if you were planning to steal their badger.
    Fisher shook his head. “It’s early, still. They’re probably in town, watching the tents go up like everyone else.”
    We let ourselves in through the gate and followed the long, weedy driveway up to the house. We walked without talking, but now and then, Fisher lost his footing on one of the hard ruts or slid a little on the gravel. I had an idea that maybe he couldn’t see in the dark as well as I could, but I didn’t know if that was because his eyes were bad in the dark, or because mine were very good. I thought I might just be more used to it than most people.
    We crossed the yard to the low chain-link fence that wrapped around the zoo, and Fisher reached over the top of the little gate and unlatched it.
    Inside, the rows of cages went on and on. As we picked our way along, we passed something with a huge humped back that looked like a raccoon, or maybe a groundhog. It was sitting with its face turned to the corner so all that I could make out was a mass of thick brown fur.
    Fisher stood in the middle of the zoo with his shoulders set, like he was about to explode at any second. His mouth was hard, but as soon as he saw me looking at him, his face went blank again.
    When I kept looking, he glanced away. “This place is sick.”
    “Why does he do it?” I whispered. “Keep them like this?”
    Fisher shrugged. “It’s just how he is, collecting anything he can get his hands on, storing it up, selling shit to people who need it.”
    “Like what? Animals, you mean?”
    Fisher shook his head. “Other stuff. Moonshine, guns with no numbers on them, stuff you don’t need to know about. Living things, though—I guess he likes to keep those for himself.”
    I was a little offended that he should be telling me what I did and did not need to know about, but the list he’d given me was all kinds of unlawful, dangerous in ways I didn’t even fully understand, and so I just nodded.
    We wound our way through the zoo, past the cages of ducks and possums and rabbits. I was headed straight for the badger, but Fisher stopped at one of the dove coops, looking in through the mesh. “These guys could come out too, if they want.”
    There was a metal bolt on one side of the door, but even just running my fingers over it, I could tell it was useless. Rusted shut. Whoever was in charge of the doves just poured the feed in through a slot at the front and changed out the watering tray from time to time. Looking at the scum of feathers floating on top, it seemed to have been awhile.
    Fisher didn’t even bother with the door. Instead, he hooked his fingers in the wire and yanked. Wood creaked and then the staples popped out in a silver spray all over the ground. The whole side of the coop peeled away in one big sheet.
    When he went to throw it away, the edge of it sliced across his arm, leaving a neat row of gouges, like the dotted line in a book of paper dolls. He hissed and dropped the screen.
    For just a second, there was nothing but that patch of torn-up skin. Then blood rose in round drops all along his arm. In the moonlight, it looked black.
    He wiped the blood away, and when he did, I nearly gasped aloud. His skin was closing as I watched, sealing up as easily as it had torn.
    Almost without thinking, I grabbed his wrist, pulling his arm up close to my face, but the marks were gone. There was nothing left but that smudge of blood, already