She imagined Sahel stumbling through a jungle, clumsy, oblivious to what waited for him among the vines. From the darkest corners of her mind, a chilling image grew vivid. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there-the scratches, the bite marks. As was Gede practice, most of his body was shrouded, but dried blood still stained the white linen in places, hints of the gruesome wounds beneath. In life, he’d had a crooked smile, an obnoxious braying laugh not unlike that of a donkey. Koffi hadn’t worked with him in the Night Zoo long, but she recognized his bare face, mahogany brown like her own, framed by tight black curls. Her eyes were fixed on what lay mere feet from her across the worn dirt f loor-the victim. But it was no matter she kept still as stone. Every so often, her stomach twisted, threatening revolt. A quarter hour had passed since she’d last moved her legs were stiff, her mouth dry. It was a nauseating smell, both fetid and sickly sweet, thick in the dusk as it filled Koffi’s lungs.
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