by Cassie Cole
The frozen chunk of meat was numbing my fingertips. No point in delaying any further. I raised it to the level of Caesar’s mouth and pushed it between the bars. Slowly, he leaned forward and opened his mouth, revealing his long fang-like canines. He took the meat in his mouth with shocking gentleness, lowered it to the ground in front of him, and then stood up on his hind legs with his front paws through the bars of the cage.
Even though there was nothing aggressive about the gesture, I jumped back instinctively. His paws flexed toward me. He looked like a dog that wanted to be petted. I was tempted to reach out and rub his belly, to give it the physical touch that so many big cats craved. At my residency, the tigers were docile enough to cuddle and play and hug. My old instincts pushed me forward…
I stopped myself just short. It was too dangerous. Caesar seemed tame, but the bottom line was that I didn’t know.
I backed away, locked the outer fence, and returned to the Mule to examine him while he ate. He was a little chonky as my animal conservation professor used to say, with a thick layer of subcutaneous fat underneath his fur. Too heavy was better than too scrawny, but it meant he wasn’t getting enough exercise. His coat looked good, shiny and full. There was some dandruff around his collar, though. That was probably due to a lack of fat in his diet. I made a note to add chicken necks to his diet once a week.
“See you later, Caesar,” I said as I started up the Mule. “We’ll see if we can get you moved to a bigger enclosure.”
He watched my Mule drive away, and seemed sad to see me go.
8
Rachel
The tigers in the next enclosure weren’t as docile as Caesar. I didn’t know who was who, but I checked them off the list all the same: Bella, Chloe, Luna, Lucy, Lily, and Nala. Six females. They ran up to the fence and jumped up, snarling and snapping at each other while I prepared their meat trays. I wasn’t sure where they got fed. I had to walk the interior perimeter of the fence while they followed on the inside, loping along eagerly. Finally I found a section of the fence where the metal coating was worn off and rusted, just like the section on Caesar’s cage. I had to make three trips to bring all six trays of food up to the edge. By then the animals were very excited to get fed.
As soon as I pushed the first chunk of frozen meat and bone through, four tigers leaped up and snatched at it. I jumped back while they fought over the food, then hurriedly grabbed the next tray. I had to do it quickly to make sure all six tigers ate, otherwise the biggest and meanest one would get each piece. When I was done I backed away, my heart racing as much as it had when I leaped the fence to escape the zoo yesterday.
“Okay, noted,” I said. “I need to use the feeding stick for you girls.”
I spent ten minutes taking notes on each animal. Since I didn’t know which was which yet, I had to distinguish them by markings. One had a notch in her left ear. Another had a white-tipped tail whereas the other five were orange-tipped. Most of them looked healthy, although one had a thinner coat and was panting more than the rest.
When I got back, David had the next eight bins ready. He turned off the band saw when I entered. “I just remembered: you still need to sign the job paperwork.”
“We can fill out all of that when we’re done feeding the animals.”
He grimaced. “Well. I’m afraid that if something happens… We need you to officially be an employee. For insurance purposes.”
I picked up the next two trays of food. “If something happens to me, I give you permission to forge my signature afterwards. The animals come first.”
He shrugged and got back to work.
It took us three hours to feed the entire zoo. First the rest of the big cats, then the wolves, then birds, then the various other animals. I took lots of notes on each one. Every animal was vastly different in terms of temperament and health. The wolves had dull coats, indicating a vitamin deficiency of some kind. Nothing seemed wrong with the birds—which fared better in captivity than most animals—but the chimps had swollen eyes. That could have been caused by a lot of things. An irritant in the cage, local allergies, a mosquito-based virus, or too much grain in their diets. I would need to do some research.
It was overwhelming suddenly being in charge of so many animals. I felt the weight of responsibility press down on my shoulders with each one I observed. I was the only thing keeping them safe and healthy, now.
I loved every minute of it.
Once all the animals were fed and happy, I helped David clean up the food prep room thoroughly. We got down on our hands and knees to scrub the floor, first cleaning the fresh mess we had just made and then trying to get through the older levels.
Again, I was struck by how sexy he was. The muscles in his arms flexed wonderfully as he scrubbed the floor. There was a thin layer of five o’clock shadow on his face, and his skin glistened with sweat. It was tough not to stare.
He caught me looking. I quickly turned away.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“I was just wondering what you do for a living.”
David was quiet for a minute, like he knew I had been checking him out and was covering for it. “I own two Crossfit gyms in Richmond.”
“That makes sense. You look like you work out a lot.”
He stopped scrubbing and raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
Shit. I could feel myself blushing. “You’re a fit guy, is all.”
He resumed cleaning. “I try to prioritize health in my life.”
“That’s good. Health is important.”
I winced as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Health is important? I bet I sounded like a ditsy blonde idiot. Guys normally didn’t have this effect on me.
Then again, most guys didn’t look like him.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to feed all the animals without you.”
“Didn’t you feed them yesterday?”
“Yeah, but I did it all wrong. I didn’t even add the vitamin supplements like you did. A few days of that and half the animals would probably be dead.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You would have to mistreat them for weeks to kill one of them. Probably.”
“That’s reassuring.”
I rose from the ground and stretched. Did his eyes flick toward my chest for a second? Maybe it was my imagination.
“Let’s go fill out that paperwork,” I said. “And get some lunch. What kind of food do you have around here?”
He got up and stretched his arms out. Now it was my turn to check him out. “The fridge in the visitor’s center is stocked with the best microwave burritos money can buy.”
“I’m easy to please.”
We washed our hands and arms in the big stainless steel sink set into the wall. His arm brushed against mine while we scrubbed the grime from underneath our fingernails. It felt like electricity shot through my body where our skin touched. I tried to pretend like it was no big deal. He looked like he was smirking as he dried off his hands, though.
When we reached the visitor’s center, David stopped dead in his tracks. “What is it?” I asked.
“You hear that?”
I listened. There was a rumbling car engine in the distance, drawing closer. It sounded like it was pulling into the parking lot outside.
“Sounds like someone doesn’t know you’re closed.”
David shook his head. “That’s not a customer.”
Anthony came running out of the visitor’s center with a grin on his face. “You see? I told you. Didn’t I tell you?”
David nodded. “I’m happy to be wrong.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“That’s our brother Jake,” David said. “I guess he decided to show up and help after all.”
9
Jake
This whole thing was fucking bullshit.
Blue Lake, North Carolina was the last place on the planet I wanted to be. I had managed to avoid it for five long years,
bouncing from coast to coast and scraping together money however I could. Sleeping on friends’ couches and calling in favors. Anything to stay away from this God-forsaken town and the family fucking zoo.
There was a sinking feeling in my stomach as I pulled into the visitor’s lot. It was empty except for a Honda Accord with Virginia plates parked over in the corner by the employee entrance. I wondered what that was all about.
I stayed in my truck for ten long seconds before turning off the engine. “I drove all this way. No use delaying.”
The gravel crunched underneath my combat boots as I crossed the parking lot. It felt like I was walking into prison. That’s what this place felt like since I was a kid. Dad saw to that, running things like a prison warden—whether you were an animal or one of his kids. Every fiber of my being told me to turn around and leave. Drive back to Cincinnati where I had been shacked up until yesterday.
But I had promised Anthony, so I kept walking.
My little brother was waiting at the gate. “I knew you’d come to help. You are here to help, right? We need a lot of help. This whole place does, I mean. We hardly know the first thing about it, and at least you have experience from when you worked here…”
I gave him a big hug. “Good to see you too, baby brother.”
He beamed up at me. “I knew you’d come. Where, uh, have you been calling home?”
“Ohio. Bouncing between Cincinnati and Columbus for the past two months. You know how it is.”
“Yeah!” Anthony said. “I totally know how it is. Well. I mean, not really. I work from home most days. Anywhere my laptop is. But like, I get what you mean for yourself.”
I mussed up his brown hair. Even though he was in his mid-twenties, he would always be my baby brother.
“You didn’t come to the funeral.”
David wore the same cocky smirk he had since we were kids. The smirk that said I’m the eldest brother, and I know what’s best.
“I was busy,” I lied.
David hesitated two more heartbeats, then shook my hand. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot.”
“Okay.”
A girl appeared around the edge of the building. Like she wanted to be part of the introductions but wasn’t sure if she was welcome. This girl was hot as fuck. Tight khaki shorts that hugged strong thighs and a plump ass, with a nice little thigh gap in the middle. She had a full chest underneath her t-shirt and blonde hair that was tied back in a ponytail. But her face was what stopped me in my tracks. She was stunning. Sharp eyes that were a hair farther apart than most women. A mouth that was wide and full. A button nose and cheekbones that I instantly wanted to caress.
But she didn’t belong here.
“Brought your girlfriend home?” I asked David with a sneer.
The girl sputtered and shook her head. “I’m not his girlfriend! Shit. That came out wrong. I didn’t mean to sound so appalled by your assumption, it’s just that…” She extended her slender hand. “I’m Rachel. The new zoo vet.”
I ignored her hand. “What the fuck is an outsider doing here?”
“We need the help,” David replied.
“Dad would’ve hated it,” I said bitterly. “Has she been vetted? She probably works for PETA.”
“I vetted her,” David said.
“Is she even qualified? Or did you just hire a hot piece of ass to stare at all day?”
Rachel made an offended noise.
“She’s not just a hot piece of ass! She’s totally qualified,” Anthony chimed in. He glanced at Rachel and blushed deeply. “I mean. I’m not making any comments on how she looks. I’m just trying to say she knows what she’s doing.”
The girl stepped toward me. “I’m good at what I do—”
I held out a finger to her. “I am talking to my brothers. Not you.”
“What else were we supposed to do?” David demanded. He sounded like a fucking lawyer. “We can’t run it by ourselves. Everyone who worked for dad already split. We needed to hire someone. It’s done.”
I laughed bitterly. “And you’ve taken charge. Like you always do.”
“I thought you didn’t care about the zoo anymore,” David shot back. “You left and never wanted to come back.”
“I inherited a third of this place. Same as you.”
The two of us glared at each other, fists balled at our sides.
“I’m sorry about dad,” Anthony told me weakly. “I know you two were… You know.”
It felt like I was punched in the gut. It had been nearly a week since he died, but it hadn’t sunk in yet. It didn’t feel real. Not until Anthony said it out loud. I could see the sadness and vulnerability in my baby brother’s eyes, and it hurt because it mirrored my own emotions.
“Whatever. I’m gonna go muck out the cages. Doubt any of you have done that.” I glanced at David. “You never liked getting your hands dirty.” I walked away.
Like I said: all of this was fucking bullshit, and I already regretted coming back here.
10
Rachel
I watched Jake stalk away, angry and dismissive. He was definitely not like the other two brothers. Messy red hair that stuck out from underneath his cotton beanie. A ruggedly-handsome face with reddish scruff along his jaw. Arms that were rippled with muscle and covered with tattoos. He was like every girl’s bad-boy fantasy.
It was a shame he was such an asshole.
David let out his breath slowly. “That’s Jake. He’s a delight.”
“I can see that.”
“We rarely see eye-to-eye.”
“I can see that, too,” I said.
“He’s not usually this bad,” Anthony added. “I think he’s taking dad’s death harder than we are. They were close when he worked here.”
David said, “Let’s go sign that paperwork.”
We went into the visitor’s center and then through a door to what I assumed was the employee section. It was a mess of papers, binders, and boxes of folded zoo maps. David cleared some space at the table and handed me a stack of papers.
“I don’t know what they use here at the zoo, so I pretty much just copied the employee forms from my Crossfit gyms. With some added personal injury waivers. Read through everything and let me know if you have any questions.
I skimmed the pages. I didn’t care about paperwork. In my experience it only got in the way of the real work.
“I want to reiterate why I’m here,” I said before signing. “I’m only agreeing to work here because you’re doing the right thing. Moving the animals to other zoos and sanctuaries, where they’ll have proper homes. I didn’t come here to help you get a shady private zoo back up and running.”
“Understood,” David said.
“Is Jake fine with that?”
“He will be.”
“You said the two of you don’t see eye-to-eye. I don’t want there to be any issues.”
“Anthony and I are on the same page, and together we own two-thirds of the zoo. Jake can disagree with our direction all he wants. It doesn’t matter.”
I nodded and started signing forms. “Jake used to work here?”
“We all worked here,” David replied. “When we were kids. Kind of the family business. But Anthony went to college, and I left soon after that to open up my first gym. Jake stayed and worked at the zoo for four or five years.”
“Why did he leave?”
“He and dad had a falling out. It’s complicated.”
I turned the page and signed the next form. Something about liability. “He seems like he knows what he’s doing.”
“We need all the help we can get. I’m glad he’s here.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “Is the salary okay? I took the average pay from dad’s payroll sheet and bumped it up a little because it looked low.”
I scanned the next page until I came to the number. Four hundred dollars a week, for an initial period of eight weeks. For a normal nine-to-five job that would come out to ten bucks an hour.
But I knew I would be working far more than forty hours a week.
“It’s perfect,” I said as I signed the last page. Money wasn’t the primary reason I was here. This job was to help boost my resume so I could get a position at a real animal sanctuary.
Once everything was signed we got some lunch. The employee fridge had deli meat and cheese and bread, so I made a bologna sandwich with mustard. It was simple, but I wasn’t picky. I had spent the last eight years as a broke college student getting by on cheese sandwiches and Ramen noodles. David rolled up slices of bologna and cheese and ate them without the bread.
“Does the zoo have a database of the animals and their vet reports?” I asked. “You probably don’t know since you just got here…”
“Actually, it’s all on the computer in the vet office,” David replied. “There’s a folder on the desktop labeled Medical Records.”
The computer in the vet office was old and took five minutes to boot up. It didn’t even require a login, and it was still using Windows XP. I opened the Medical Records folder on the desktop and groaned.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Rather than a single database of information, there were four hundred different files in the folder. They were all plain text files, a different one for each individual animal. I opened the one labeled BELLA.txt, which was one of the female tigers.
COUGH ON TUESDAY
KEEPS FIGHTING WITH CHLOE.
MARCH 8: WON’T EAT
FINE AGAIN ON MONDAY
COUGH IS BACK
I closed the file and opened another one. It was similar. There were notes inside without dates or specific information. Just random thoughts that didn’t help me at all.
