by Caryn Lix
“Sanctuary still has too much control—and so does your mother. There are certain safety features I can’t override without physically being in the command center. The airlocks, for one. The station’s unfortunate tendency to vent itself if we leave the prison, for another. I need your mom to back down and give me full access.”
I smirked, although I saw no humor in the situation. Omnistellar hadn’t gotten to the top of its game by allowing prison breaks. Their quest was doomed from the start.
Cage must have read my expression. For a second he looked like he was going to argue, but then he shook his head. “Until then, we have some time to kill,” he said. “Rune? How are you coming on the other sectors?”
“Cells are open, but I left everyone locked in their sectors. I didn’t think we needed a hundred people mingling in close quarters. We’re going to have enough trouble keeping Mia from killing someone as it is.”
I raised my eyebrows at Cage, and he grimaced, turning his back on me to face Rune. “Can you make the computer spit out some food?” he asked her.
“Of course I can. We’re still limited to what’s on the station, so it won’t be anything special. But I can probably coax slightly bigger portions.”
“Supplies on Sanctuary are limited,” I returned angrily. “If you start feeding everyone double portions, we’ll run out before a resupply.”
Cage grinned. “That won’t matter without any prisoners.” He glanced at me. “Now, what do I do with you?”
I shrugged, feigning indifference. The prisoners weren’t what I’d expected. My mom had always talked about them like they were barely human, animals one step away from chewing through the bars and attacking everyone on the station. My own experience back on Earth hadn’t taught me any differently. Cage and Rune seemed normal enough, though. They were full of bluster, especially Cage, but I didn’t think he would really hurt me.
But I was still desperately searching for a means of escape. My encounter with Tyler rankled. What other skills did the prisoners camouflage? I remembered a few from my quick hunt through the files, but only those that stood out—names I recognized, particularly startling abilities, anything that seemed like it belonged in the annals of Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5. The rest blurred like a page from Othello.
Cage folded his arms and tilted his head, studying me with an uncomfortable level of scrutiny until I finally broke eye contact, transferring my gaze to his scuffed boots. I tensed my muscles and steadied my thoughts. I really needed to figure out how to play this. I kept flip-flopping between damsel in distress, helpful friend, and tough Omnistellar guard. Any one of those personas was fine, but not all three in succession. I needed them to trust or fear me, and instead I was irritating them. It was a familiar feeling—the guards on the station always regarded me with something between affection and annoyance. But none of them were quite as volatile as the prisoners.
Well. Rita came close.
“Let’s get you fed, anyway,” said Rune, breaking free of the computer. “Come on. We’d better get in there before everyone freaks out at the sight of unrestricted food.”
Cage groaned, pulling me to my feet by my elbow, and led me along. I didn’t resist. For now, my best bet seemed to be making myself as unobtrusive as possible. With a bit of luck, they’d eventually get distracted—whether by Mia’s temper or some unpredictable event, bound to happen with this many caged teenage criminals—and I could make a break for the stairwell.
One bright spot: Rune hadn’t released the other prisoners from their sectors. The sector-5 crew was more than enough to deal with, but if I escaped, the stairwell would be clear. If I was sneaky enough, I might even have a straight shot to the exit. Of course, all that only worked if I made them forget about me for an extended time.
Could I convince them to give me a jumpsuit like theirs? Among the sea of blue, my black guard’s uniform stuck out like a sore thumb.
Hermetically sealed trays had appeared on tables, seemingly out of nowhere. “From underneath,” Cage said, noticing my gaze. He nodded at the tables, and when I looked closely, I saw the outline of a door in a tabletop. “Sanctuary pushes them up. We’re all monitored to make sure we’re eating what we should.”
“The AI,” I said, bobbing my head. “It’s supposed to prevent food theft and hunger strikes.”
“That’s the theory. Eat too much—or not enough—and the computer locks you in your cell during mealtimes and feeds you individually. If that doesn’t work, a guard drags us to medical and inserts a feeding tube.”
Matt blocked two younger prisoners, who were running for the table. “Same rules as usual,” he said grimly. “Everyone eats from their own tray.”
“We know,” whined one of the girls, although the look she exchanged with her friend made it clear she’d had something else in mind.
Rune smiled at her. “Don’t worry. For once, there’s more than enough for everyone.” She nudged me toward a table. It was all very friendly, but I noticed the twins kept me wedged between them as we sat on the cold, hard bench. “I pulled an extra tray for you.”
The other prisoners filtered in, their excited cries fading into silence as they caught sight of me. The younger prisoners, most in their early teens, watched me with a mixture of awe and suspicion. From the older kids, I got outright hostility.
Tyler sidled in, caught my eye, and quickly looked away. He scraped his hands through his thin dark hair and chose a seat as far away as possible. “He never really likes using his powers,” Rune explained, sliding a tray to her brother and another to me. “For what it’s worth, we kind of made him.”
A shudder racked my body at the memory of Tyler’s mind in mine, like slimy fingers massaging my brain. So they made him. I scowled at her, wondering how that improved things, and tore into my tray, revealing a better quality of food than I’d frankly expected: a steaming bowl of beef stew, a large bun, some kind of gross pickled vegetable, a carton of shelf-stable milk, and an orange. I recognized most of the fare from the guard’s canteen. “This your usual food?”
“In smaller portions, yes. It’s not fancy, but it gets the job done.”
The portions must have been a lot bigger than usual, because the prisoners’ voices rose in excitement again. I shrugged. I was hungry—I’d come off a six-hour shift without a break before this, and at least a few hours had passed since then. I needed food, and a bit of rest wouldn’t hurt either.
Just as I lifted the spoon to my mouth, a voice hissed mere inches from my ear. “So now we’re feeding guards? Cute.”
I jumped, spilling stew all over my tray. Mia materialized, clearly satisfied with the results. “You . . . ,” I seethed.
Alexei strolled into the room behind her. “There you are,” he said mildly. “I wish you’d stop disappearing.”
“But I can, you see,” she replied, gliding to the head of the table and snagging a tray. Dropping into the seat across from me, she fixed me with a baleful glare, seeming more interested in intimidating me than eating.
I sighed. “Will you be doing this long?”
Mia shrugged and tore into the seal on her food. “I’m still deciding.”
“Eat your dinner.” Alexei dropped onto the bench beside her and threw one of his massive arms over her shoulders. Mia tilted her head briefly onto his shoulder before turning her attention to her stew.
An awkward silence settled. Cage glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, his expression impossible to decipher. Our arms brushed as we ate, and it disturbed me to realize how quickly he and Rune had come to seem like my shields, a barrier between me and the rage of the other prisoners. “It’s probably not as good as you’re used to getting,” Cage said at last, a faint tinge of mockery in his voice.
Mia glared at me, and I glared right back. “It’s pretty close to what we eat,” I replied. “It’s a space station. Supplies are limited.”
“So the guards aren’t as privileged as we thought.” Cage’s mockery had intensified. “Limited
supplies—almost as bad as a prison cell, huh?”
I set down my spoon and fixed him with a daggerlike stare. “Look, if you want to be a jerk, go ahead. But it’s not going to get you out of here any faster.”
Cage leaned back, studying me intently. I got the sense I’d caught him off guard, and I pressed my advantage. “We’re stuck in here together. Why make things harder than they have to be?”
He laughed in spite of himself. “I don’t know what to do about you,” he said, half to himself. “You’re not what I expected from reading your file.”
Neither are you, I almost said, but I caught myself in time. I shrugged instead. “I’m a pretty normal girl, prison guard aside.” I deliberately crammed most of a bun into my mouth and rolled my eyes as if it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. “And I get hungry just like you,” I added around a mouthful of dry bread.
Cage snorted, and I washed the bun down with milk, hiding a guilty smile. For a second I hadn’t been playing him—I’d just been fooling around, and something in him seemed to respond. Maybe that was a strategy I could keep using?
Cage quickly glanced away, turning his attention to Rune, and stirred his stew with a sigh. “What I wouldn’t give for a bowl of niu rou mian, huh?”
Rune laughed. “Remember that vendor who used to slip us free bowls? It was so good.”
“Niu rou mian?” I tried to shape my lips around the unfamiliar sounds.
“Beef noodle soup, essentially,” Cage chuckled. “It’s good. Once we get out of here, I’ll buy you a bowl.”
I rolled my eyes. “Somehow I don’t think we’ll be hanging out when—if you get out of here.”
He grinned, not missing my slip, and I averted my gaze from what was an entirely too charming twinkle in his eye. “We’ll see.”
That brought an end to conversation, which was fine with me. I was barely keeping my eyes open. I didn’t know how I could possibly want to sleep given the circumstances—a big one being that I was sitting across from someone who would slit my throat as cheerfully as she shoveled stew into her mouth—but with the adrenaline fading, with Mom’s dismissal fresh in my mind, exhaustion settled into my bones. I needed to stay strong and alert, and with my more immediate needs met, my body had moved on to the next logical step.
A giant yawn split my face, and I blushed. Rune laughed. “We’re all tired. Cage, we should set a watch after we eat and let people get some rest.”
“I can watch,” said Mia. “I’m not tired.”
Cage arched an eyebrow at her. “You sure? We all took a bit of a beating today.” He nodded toward the bandage on her shoulder.
“Yeah. I never sleep much anyway.” Mia shrugged. “Although we should dig up a first aid kit or something when we can. The last thing any of us need is blood poisoning.”
“I’ll sit with you for a few hours,” Alexei said, running his hand down her bare arm.
Cage rolled his eyes. “You two know what the phrase ‘stand guard’ means, right? I know you haven’t exactly had a lot of private time lately, but I need you alert.”
A spoon slammed into the table like a knife, directly between his third and fourth finger. Cage stared at it in disbelief.
Mia smiled sweetly. “I’m plenty alert,” she said, retrieving her spoon. It wasn’t metal, just hard plastic, but with the speed she moved, she still could have done some damage. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t broken it.
“I stand corrected,” Cage replied dryly.
Around the room the prisoners drifted toward their cells. “I’ll have to tell the computer to reclaim the trays,” Rune yawned. “I turned off most of the automated systems. Makes it easier to control what’s going on in here, who sees what.”
Cage gave her an affectionate hug. “Worry about it tomorrow.”
Rune took my hand. “Come on, you can be my roomie for the night.”
I nodded, too tired to put up resistance even if I’d wanted to. Cage, on the other hand, shot to his feet and leaped between us. “No. Let her sleep on the couch where Mia and Alexei can keep an eye on her.”
“She’s not going to hurt me. Are you, Kenzie?”
I shook my head, and this time I meant it. Whatever her past, Rune treated me with respect and kindness. I had no intentions of doing anything to harm her.
Cage studied my face and must have decided he believed me. Reluctantly, he nodded. “Mia can see into your cell from here anyway.” He glanced at her. “You’ll keep an eye on them?”
Mia’s face contorted into a mask of hatred. “Oh, I’ll keep several eyes on them. Mine and Lex’s.”
“All right.”
I followed Rune to her cell, very conscious of Mia’s gaze burning a hole into my back. For all their threats, most of these kids seemed fairly normal. Mia was the only one who acted like she actually belonged here, or maybe on Carcerem with more hardened criminals. Why the hell did Cage trust her so much?
The thought gave me pause. Had I seriously just questioned whether these kids belonged on Sanctuary? They had been sentenced here by Omnistellar judges after careful trials and consideration. The company had taken care of me from the moment I was born, and after a couple hours in a prison cell I had started doubting them.
I shook aside a wave of guilt. Nanakorobi yaoki. Falling down was okay. I just had to get up again.
Rune’s actual roommate, a stocky blond girl, hovered in the doorway. “I’m not sharing my room with a guard,” she spat.
Rune shrugged. “Then you can sleep somewhere else. There are a few empty cells, or the couches—although Alexei and Mia might not appreciate you breathing down their necks.”
The girl gave me another look and stomped off. “Kristin,” Rune said. “Not your biggest fan.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Here, you can have her bed.”
We faced each other across the cell. “How long have you been in here, Rune?” I kept my voice soft, gentle, thinking back yet again to my prisoner tactic and hostage negotiation classes. Who knew those things would actually come in useful? I’d always assumed they were a waste of my time.
“I’m not sure,” she yawned. “A while, I guess.”
She looked very small and young, even though I knew she was the same age as her brother. “What do you do all day?” I asked, still trying to build that bond, but also out of genuine curiosity.
“Most days? Um, we get up, we eat, we shower—girls one day, boys the next—and then we take work shifts doing data entry. It’s pretty mind-numbing. We have quotas to fill, and if we slack off, the AI starts removing privileges from the entire sector—limiting entertainment time, stuff like that. So everyone stays honest, because if they don’t, Mia comes after them.”
I grinned in spite of myself. “A fate worse than death.”
“Yeah.” She yawned again, lying back on her paper-thin pillow. “And then we get a break for lunch, usually two hours of rec time where the gym is open after that, and then another four hours of work, supper, and then . . . Why do you care about any of this, anyway?” She flashed me a disarming grin. “What do you do all day?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. I’ve been in here so long, I’ve forgotten what a normal life feels like.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not so sure my life is normal. Honestly, it’s more or less the same as yours. Work, a few hours of rec, and food.”
“Mmm, but you have the freedom to schedule it, or blow it off. Don’t underestimate that.” She glanced at me. “You’re shivering. Do you want my blanket?”
I blinked. It was cold, but I hadn’t noticed when I started shaking. Pulling the thin blanket around my shoulders, I asked, “You’re not cold?”
“I’m used to it. You’re not.”
My heart melted at the intent expression on her face. Was this girl actually trying to give me her blanket? “No. You keep it.”
“I’m sorry, Kenzie.” Her eyes drifted shut for a moment, then fluttered open. “About the hostage thing
, I mean. Cage won’t hurt you, I promise.”
“No?” I asked, although I’d already suspected as much.
“He was just desperate to get out of here. We all were. When Cage and Mia came up with this plan, well—I guess we didn’t really think about you as a person.” She sighed. “That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?”
Actually, it was pretty much exactly what Rita had said about the prisoners. Quickly, I changed the subject. “Is it always this cold in here?”
“Yes. Worse at night. I should have turned up the heat.” Rune yawned again, tossing herself on the bed. “I’ll go do it now, I guess . . . ,” she mumbled. But she was already asleep.
Just like training camp, I thought ruefully—tumbling into bed too exhausted to move, often without even changing out of our clothes. In other words, the place I spent 90 percent of every summer vacation, and the only place I ever made something approximating friends. I glanced at Rune’s sleeping form. Her file said something about corporate espionage. Had she been dragged into it by her brother? It was hard to imagine a judge looking at her and deciding she was a threat, but I didn’t have all the facts. How far would she follow Cage? After all, she’d let him lead her into a prison break.
And Cage himself . . . he was another story. I couldn’t deny his charisma. I got why the others followed him. He had an easy humor that drew you in, and a playfully devil-may-care attitude that you didn’t often see in the real world. You’d expect prison to dampen that sort of approach, but in his case it only seemed to amplify it.
Oh God. I caught myself before that train of thought could derail any further and shook myself back to the present.
Across the cell, Rune shivered slightly. Motivated by something I couldn’t identify, I crossed the cell and tucked the blanket over her shoulders. I caught Mia’s eye. She shook her head, clearly not buying my concern for the other girl, and watched me like a hawk until I’d stretched out on the cot.
I meant to stay awake and watchful, I really did—but within minutes, I’d fallen asleep.
* * *
