AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Amy kept an eye on her surrounds while taking pictures of the exhibit that she’d been assigned to work within. Arriving at six in the morning to get in the eleven shots at different locations throughout the zoo was going to be fun. But only if she was able to make people leave her alone.
So far, she’d been accosted, no other word for it, six times. Employees of the zoo telling her that she wasn’t allowed on the property, nor was she supposed to be taking pictures, much less standing atop the enclosure like she was doing right now. Looking to her right, she put up her hand to stop another man coming to tell her she had to leave.
“Stop right there. I have permission to be here. Yes, I do have the paperwork on me. But I’m not dragging it out so that you can question every signature on it. Yes, I’m going to stand right here until I’m finished. Again, I have permission to be here.” She looked at the primate in front of her before looking in the general direction of the man. “You mess up my shot by trying to take me off this rooftop, and I will hurt you. I might be small in build, but I can and will defend myself and my job if you get all shitty with me.”
“Are you Amy Fowler?” She said that she was. “I was sent to get you. Cuco had her baby about ten minutes ago, and the department would like you to take pictures of her and her mom.” She took the shot and turned her full attention to the man now. “She isn’t going to live long. The baby, I mean. Her name is Lucy, but we’ve known all along that she’s had a heart defect. Can you come and take some shots of her and her mom before Lucy passes?”
“Yes. Of course.” She left her tripod where it was when he told her that no one would bother it. “What kind of shots do you want? I’m assuming that Cuco knows her baby is dying.”
“I don’t know that Cuco is aware of her baby being as ill as she is, but she’s been told that she isn’t well.” Amy remembered that Cuco knew sign language, and that was more than likely how they’d communicated with her. Gathering up what she’d need, she followed the man to the building where the other primates were being held. “The other primates, especially the gorillas, are aware of her illness as well. It’s very solemn in the rooms we’re headed. I’m only telling you that so you don’t do something quickly toward the Cuco. You startle her or upset her, and the others will try to attack. To keep her safe.”
The second the door closed behind her, Amy could feel that the room was indeed solemn. None of the primates were talking or swinging on their equipment but keeping an eye on the cage that held Cuco. She walked up to the penned area where Cuco was sitting in the corner, holding her weak child. Her heart broke for the two of them.
Setting up the camera, Amy pulled out her remote. She didn’t want to have to keep adjusting the settings, so she used her phone attached to the expensive camera to take its cues from her phone and the remote that she had rigged up to talk together. It had taken her two years and a lot of failures to get the two of them to talk to each other, and she was pleased with how it worked. Sitting where a chair had been left, Cuco turned and looked at her. Signing to the gorilla, she told her how very sorry she was about her baby.
The very large female inched her way toward where she was sitting. After a quick look around, she noticed that it was just her and the man who had come to get her. He was on the inside of the cage but not doing anything but looking like he was ready to take a nap. For some reason, she thought that it was just a ploy to get her and Cocu to trust that he wasn’t going to harm either of them. Still unsure what she was supposed to do when Cuco came nearly within touching distance of her, Amy lowered her head and put out her hand.
It surprised her to no end that she laid her baby on her lap. Looking again at the man, she wasn’t sure what to do when he told her to hold Lucy. Just like she would a small child. Picking up the smaller than usual baby, she unwrapped the blanket that she was wrapped in and put her finger into the hand of the child.
“She’s very beautiful. Her eyes are so brown, they defy any thing that I’ve ever seen.” The man, she asked him what his name was, told her to sit down on the floor with Cuco if she would allow it. “Are you trying to get me killed? Or is this usual for you? To make people so nervous they get hurt?”
“Cuco trusts you. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have given you Lucy. I had nothing to do with that.” She glared at him and then sat on the cool floor. “We’ve been trying to get the baby from her since she gave birth. I know it’s not been that long, but we were trying to spare Cuco from having to hold her child until she passed away.”
“Why?” Not taking her eyes off the newborn, she spoke quietly to Doctor Dallas Dixon. “I’d want every moment with my child if I knew she wasn’t going to make it. Just leave her alone.”
Cuco moved closer to her and took her hand into her much larger one. When the baby smiled at her, just a small smile that broke her in ways nothing else had, she smiled back. Amy heard the door open and then close, and another voice spoke to her somewhere behind her.
“Can you tell if Lucy is still breathing, Ms. Fowler?” She said that she was, but not all that well. Like it was difficult for her to catch her breath. “Good. That’s wonderful. Tell me if you can count her breaths, too. I would like to know how she’s doing right now.” After counting them, she told the man what she’d gotten.
“I know that she’s having heart trouble, but why would you need to remove her from her mom?” Dallas told her. “Oh. I guess I didn’t think of that. If you have another baby to give to her, you think that she’ll accept it?”
“We won’t know until we can get the baby there to replace Lucy. I know that sounds cold, but Cuco has had three stillborn in the last five years, and this child is the only one that we’ve been able to have her birth in this structure. If we can get the child from her, we can figure out what is causing her to have so many babies born that die. Her depression after losing a baby is getting worse when it happens. Not that I blame her, but we need to help her out as much as we can. She’s a big part of this zoo, and I’d hate to lose her to something like depression. I—we all want her to be around for a long time if we can.” Asking if she could hand the baby to Dallas, the other man laughed. “He could order her to do that, but he said that he didn’t want to have to do that. Just see if she’ll allow you to hand the baby to him. Please be careful, Ms. Fowler. You’re being watched all around the enclosure, but I don’t want you to be hurt while helping us.”
That was when she saw the man with the rifle pointed in her direction. There were others, too, that had their rifles trained on the primate beside her. In her head, she knew that he’d not shot at her, but her heart wasn’t so sure. They looked determined to do what needed to be done. Glancing at Dr. Dixon, she went back to holding the newborn.
Turning the baby so that she and Cuco were looking at her, she signed again to the primate. Asking her if Dallas could hold her as well. When her arm went around her shoulders, like they were best friends or something, Amy laid her head on the gorilla’s shoulder and covered the little baby back up. That was when she noticed that the baby was no longer breathing. Just to make sure, she slid her hand onto her tiny chest and didn’t feel a heartbeat either.
“She’s gone. Lucy is gone now. I’m going to ask Cuco again—” Cuco gently took the baby from her and walked over to Dallas. After handing him her child, she came to sit next to her again and laid her head on her shoulder again. “What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know. Cuco won’t even allow the people who have been around her most of her life to get as close to her as you are right now. Not even under regular circumstances.” The two men were talking, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. If she’d not been watching them, she never would have guessed that they switched out the babies. “See if you can get Cuco to come for the baby, Amy. I think perhaps with you there, she might be more accepting of the newborn if you are accepting of the child as well. It’s a long shot but one I’m willing to take if you are.”
“Is she a girl?” Mr. Dixon said that it was then laughed. “Look, Buster. I’m a photographer, not a fucking nursemaid. Why the hell did you bring me in here in the first place? To take pictures of a dying baby? It had better be more than that, or so help me, I’m going to fuck you up.”
“Honestly?” She nodded. “All right. I was told there was someone out taking pictures of the primates. I thought that because most of the world is watching Cuco prepare for her baby by internet feed that you were here to get a first-hand picture. Then, I got close enough to you to sort things out in my head. I invited you in here then to keep you close. If you want to know why, I can tell you that now but you’re already pissed off, and I don’t want you anymore upset.” Then he laughed. Like his thoughts on keeping her close were funny for some reason. Not that she wanted to be all that close to him. But damn it…
Ignoring the man for Cuco, she asked her if she wanted to get her child back. If this didn’t work, which she didn’t understand how it would, then she was going to finish up her pictures and go home. The stress of the day so far was—then she realized that the zoo was more than likely open, and her things were still outside. She only hoped that it would still be there when she was finished. If not, then Mr. Bigshot Silverback asshole—
“You’re the silverback. The leader to her. I don’t know how that works, but you’re a shifter. Gorilla shifter and leader. That’s why that other man said that you could order her to do—Christ, oh mighty. Oh fucking no.” She turned her entire body and looked at the man sitting not ten feet from her. “You are not telling me that you have it in your impossibly small mind that I’m whatever they call a silverback’s mate, are you? No. Don’t answer that. I don’t need to, nor do I want to know.”
Amy smiled at Cuco when she looked at her by pulling her face around. She could tell that her face was tight with anger, but she hoped that the primate didn’t understand that. Telling her again that she should go and get her baby, she kept her back to the fucking asshole. A few minutes later, Cuco got up and made her way to Mr. F.A., her new name for the other man.
When she brought her baby back to where they’d been sitting, Amy pulled the blanket away from her face. She did look just like the other baby but for the pretty pink bow that was clipped to her hair. She made sure to rub the blanket over the baby as much as she could as the other man, she’d never caught his name, told her to do. She realized that she was making sure that the baby smelled like the blanket. Thus, she supposed making the blanket smell the same way.
At first, Amy was sure that Cuco wasn’t buying the switch. She poked at the baby several times until it cried, and then she turned her back to it. Amy tried to comfort the little girl, but she wasn’t having it either. Just as she was about to get up, Cuco turned back to her and stared at her.
“We both know that you understand that this isn’t your child. Those two over there either think that all females are stupid and won’t notice a thing because the big men told us not to notice, or they’re just hoping you’re stupid. Which I know for a fact that you’re not.” Cuco just stared at her without touching the child this time. “But while I’d like to think that you’d be a good mom to her, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve lost a baby. This one won’t replace her, never that. But you can share your love with her, and she’ll grow up to have babies that will be loved, too. Don’t you think you could give her a chance at a better life than one raised by humans rather than a good momma like you?”
