by Caryn Lix
“Get that look off your face,” he said sharply. “Remember, you’ve got me pegged. I’m not going to hurt you. But”—he moved behind me, and I craned my neck to follow his movements—“I’m also not letting you give us away.” His hand clenched over my jaw, forcing my mouth open. He shoved something inside and knotted a cloth around my head, effectively gagging me.
I made an inarticulate sound of fury. Cage came around to face me, frowning thoughtfully, like an artist examining a masterpiece. “I don’t think we need the theatrics. She’s a mess, and she looks ready to kill us. What do you think?”
Rune scowled, refusing to meet my eyes. “I just want this over with.”
“Okay. Establish the link.” Cage glanced at me. “And dim the lights.”
I screamed at him through the gag, tearing at the cloths around my wrists. Cage knew what he was doing. The bonds didn’t hurt, but I also wasn’t going anywhere without a couple of hours to work on them.
I closed my eyes and forced myself still. Thrashing around screaming only worked in their favor. They wanted Mom to think they were hurting me. I would stay calm and collected, like I was lounging in my favorite armchair in the common area, chai in my cup and manga in my lap. Nanakorobi yaoki. I’d lost track of how many times I’d fallen already.
Mom’s face appeared on screen, and my eyes widened in shock. Strands of hair framed her face, her bloodshot eyes and sallow cheeks. Her hands trembled around her coffee mug, and she had the jittery appearance of someone who’d had way too much caffeine. Was all of this her terror for me? Or was it the stress of the situation taking its toll? I ducked my head, embarrassed by my moment of weakness. I couldn’t believe I’d even considered betraying the company, betraying her.
“How did you—?” she began.
“We have our ways,” interrupted Cage. “More importantly, let’s talk about your daughter.”
He’d positioned me wisely. I glanced at our own video feed in the bottom corner, and the combination of low lights and the angle of the camera made me seem frail and pale. My hair was tangled, and a mark showed on my cheek where Mia had slapped me. I looked, in short, like they’d smacked me around and left me starved in a cell, and that fear was reflected in Mom’s eyes.
Still, she stuck to her guns. “There’s nothing to discuss,” she said coldly. I gaped at her in disbelief. Where was Mom, and who was this hard stranger standing in her place? “What you don’t understand, Mr. Hu, is that while I’m on this station, I’m a commander first and a mother second. I will not negotiate your freedom for the safety of my . . .” She coughed. “Of a junior guard.” She glanced at a console to her right. “I will, however, discuss terms in return for you restoring my communications with Earth.”
Cage snorted. “Not likely. We all know how that ends—with reinforcements blowing out the prison.”
“No, that’s how your current course ends. You may have taken over the prison, but there’s no way you’ve breached Sanctuary’s controls deeply enough to reach our central security system. I control that airlock, and you’re not leaving me any other choice.”
Cage glanced at me and his voice softened, a strangely sympathetic expression on his face. “Your daughter’s here, Commander. I’m sure you wouldn’t blow the airlock knowing it would cost her her life.”
I waited for Mom’s denial.
It didn’t come. I raised my eyes to the screen, shock tearing at my insides. She was bluffing. She was bluffing. She had to be.
Mom dropped her head in her hands, her coffee forgotten on its stand. “If you make me do this,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word, “I will hunt down every prisoner on this station. If the airlock doesn’t get them, I will. You will be responsible for a hundred deaths, Mr. Hu, including your own. Do you understand me?”
“And you’ll be responsible for your daughter’s. That’s cold, Commander. Whatever we’ve done to wind up in this hellhole of a prison, none of us murdered our own children.” His tone verged on cruel, but out of sight of the camera, he laid a steadying hand on my back. I ignored him. My entire attention fixated on my mother, and I waited for her response. She wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t. I was her daughter. She was bluffing. She was . . .
“You can’t manipulate me, Mr. Hu. One last chance,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Please. Let’s discuss terms.”
Cage folded his arms, leaving a hollow feeling on my back where his hand had lain. “No.”
Mom’s gaze drifted in my direction. “They’re dangerous,” she managed, her skin ashen. “If this goes on any longer, if they manage to break free, they could kill hundreds of people back on Earth. I . . . I can’t let that happen.”
I made a strangled sound of protest, of denial. The prisoners had the potential to be dangerous, no arguing that. But from what I’d seen over the last day, Omnistellar was wrong. If they managed to escape, they were more likely to go into hiding than on some murderous rampage across the planet. But I couldn’t tell her that through the gag.
Mom looked helpless in the face of my silence. “I know you understand,” she said, closing her eyes and drawing a shaky breath. “We owe our loyalty to the planet, Kenzie—to Omnistellar. We have to protect the many before the few. I love you, sweetheart. I really do, and I’m s-s-sorry.” She heaved a sob. “So sorry.”
I screamed through my gag, but Mom had looked away. Her face grim, her jaw set, she pulled up a screen and pressed the button.
FOURTEEN
NOTHING HAPPENED.
My heart hammered in my ears and I tasted bile at the back of my throat. Had Mom been bluffing? But no, she looked as shocked as me, her eyes wide in terror. “You . . ,” she gasped.
Cage’s jawline went rigid. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” he said, his casual tone belying the tension in his arms. “Blow the airlock with your daughter inside.”
“You can’t have reached central security. You can’t.”
“We control the entire AI, Commander. We blocked your access to the airlock before we did anything else.” A grim smile touched his lips. “Rune is truly amazing once she gets going. If you read our files more closely, you would have known that. But then, we aren’t really people to you, are we? Just animals to be fed and monitored. So why would you bother?”
I swallowed what felt like a golf ball as the world swam around me, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the tears, willing myself to stay strong. My own mother tried to kill me. Me, and every prisoner on the station. Oh, I knew the policy. Procedure. Sanctuary’s criminals were too dangerous to be allowed to run free.
But I was her daughter. And she had been willing to let me die alongside them. Not just let me die but actively kill me. Her own daughter.
I opened my eyes to see Cage peeling off the top of his jumpsuit, revealing the bandaged wound on his left shoulder. “You know what this is?” he asked conversationally.
Mom studiously avoided my eyes. She was visibly shaken, her hands trembling as she folded them in her lap and focused all her attention on Cage. “I’m sure that hurt a great deal,” she said. How could she sound so calm? How could she not feel my anguish—my fury—at her betrayal?
“So that answers your question about how we hacked your comms,” Cage continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Among other things. Here’s what I want you to do, Commander Cord. Check out our files—all of our files—and see what we can do without those bloody chips in our arms. Then think about what we’re doing to your daughter and what we’re going to do to you, once we get through that door. And I’m telling you now, we will get through.” He nodded to Rune, and she moved to cut the comm.
Something scuffled behind Mom, and her head jerked up. “Wait!” I cried, the gag muffling my voice. But even without my intervention, Cage and Rune had both frozen.
“What was that?” Mom demanded.
“Mom, don’t!” I shouted involuntarily, but of course the gag garbled the warning. I shook the arms of the chair, pleading
with my eyes for Cage to step in.
He hesitated half a second before saying, “Commander Cord—wait.”
Mom leveled her commanding stare at the camera. “I don’t take orders from you, boy.”
“We think someone else is on the station. Commander, please, stop!”
But she didn’t listen. She drew her pistol from her waist and stalked off camera.
A second later, her scream shattered the quiet.
I shrieked into the gag. “Commander!” Cage shouted, grabbing the console and leaning forward. “Commander Cord! Are you there?”
Silence. Then a low, slithering hiss followed by a thud and a whoosh, like something was being dragged across the floor.
Then . . . nothing.
I shook the chair, almost capsizing it, choking on my gag. Cage and Rune raced to my side and untied me. The second my arms came free, I ripped off the gag and ran to the camera. “Mom!” I shouted, craning my neck as if I might be able to see past the camera’s lens. “Mom!”
After a long moment with nothing but Sanctuary humming in the background, I braced my fists against the console, my head hanging low, hair falling around my face. I closed my eyes and struggled to breathe normally, to control my temper.
It was a lost cause. “You son of a bitch!” I screamed, spinning on Cage and landing a solid punch that sent his head snapping back and his body reeling into the wall. I drove my knee into his gut, and he doubled over.
“Kenzie!” Rune yelled. “Stop!”
Rage choked any response. I swung at him again, but this time he caught my fist and yanked me off balance. He whirled behind me, pinning me between him and the wall. I pushed off with all my strength, almost dislodging him, but he wrapped his arms around me, trapping my hands at my side.
I screamed again, twisting in his grasp. “Kenzie!” he shouted in my ear.
“What’s going on?”
Alexei’s voice cut through my fervor, and I dropped my head to the wall. I stared straight ahead, my gaze focused on a smudge in the gray metal, my chest heaving with barely controlled sobs.
Voices rose in a swell of noise, none of the words making sense. After a while, they quieted, and footsteps receded. Cage turned with me still in his arms and pulled me to the floor. I landed half in his lap, my head on his shoulder. His grip relaxed in stages, as if he was afraid I’d go after him again. He needn’t have worried. I’d expended all my energy in that first attack, and only fear remained—blind, consuming terror for my mother.
Slowly, his grip turned from restraining me to holding me, one hand on my back, the other on my head. I clutched the front of his shirt and hid my face in his shoulder, biting my tongue until I saw stars so that the pain chased away the humiliating urge to cry. I couldn’t let myself lose control. Now more than ever, I had to hold to my self-discipline.
And, I reminded myself, I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t have any facts at all. I had to believe my mom was okay.
Slowly, my breathing returned to normal, but I lingered, postponing the moment I’d have to face Cage again. He didn’t seem angry and didn’t really have any right to be—yeah, I’d attacked him, but he’d taken me hostage and tied me up, so I figured we were about even on that score. Still, I’d been trying to maintain my composure, remain the tough, together guard, and here I was huddled in his arms like a frightened child.
But when at last I lifted my head, I found no judgment in Cage’s expression. He stroked my hair back from my face and brushed his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping away ghosts of unshed tears. “I’m sorry, Kenzie,” he said quietly.
I nodded. “But you’re not going to let me go check on her.”
He hesitated. “I will, but only if . . .”
“Only if I take you with me.” I laughed, a short, angry bark. Anger surged in my chest again. I closed my eyes, drawing deep breaths.
“At this point, it’s as much for your safety as anything else,” he replied. “I wouldn’t let anyone out there alone.”
What difference did it make? There were no shuttles on Sanctuary, and no way to escape the station. Sooner or later, Rita or the other guards would return, but until then, we were on our own. And I had to know what had happened to Mom. “All right,” I whispered. Near-hysterical laughter bubbled out of me. “Happy now? You got what you wanted. I’ll take you out of the prison.”
His hands stilled on my hair. The guard inside me screamed my name, told me to get off the dangerous prisoner, to put some space between us. I didn’t know what kept me huddled against him. Stockholm syndrome? Or something a little more insidious?
Nothing made sense anymore. Something horrible had happened to my mom seconds after she tried to kill me. I was alone on the station with criminals who might not be criminals, wondering if the corporation I’d trusted all my life might not be as noble as I’d always believed. And, oh yeah, someone—or according to Anya, something—was apparently stalking Sanctuary’s inhabitants.
Maybe it was no wonder I was clinging to Cage like a child.
He sighed. “I don’t . . .”
“What?” I tipped my head back and our eyes met, dangerously close. He searched my expression, and his own softened, bringing his exhaustion into sharper focus. Still, the hand stroking my hair was strong and controlled. Everything about Cage was controlled, I realized, from the way he managed his power to the way he led the other prisoners. Strangely enough, he was a lot like me: struggling to prove himself in circumstances he hadn’t created, desperate to live up to the expectations of others. It was why I’d always identified so strongly with Mecha Dream Girl, and now that same compulsion drew me to Cage.
Rune’s words echoed in my head. If I’d been born in a noncorporate city and Cage a citizen of Omnistellar, would our places be reversed right now? I reached out a tentative hand and slid it over his arm, his shoulder, his neck. His hand tightened against the back of my head.
The position abruptly became far too intimate. I grew aware of his body cushioning mine, and I scrambled to my feet. Instantly, I felt cold and bereft, like I’d been abandoned—which was stupid, since I was the one who’d ended the embrace. To hide my consternation, I crossed to the screen and resumed searching for any sign of Mom. The camera showed an empty view of the command center. “Where’d everyone else go?” I asked, my voice almost normal.
“Let’s find out.” He regarded me. “Actually, why don’t you take a few minutes in the cell to clean up while I talk to them first?”
Great. That gave me a pretty good idea what I looked like. I’d made a fool of myself in front of Cage, but I’d hoped to retain at least a bit of dignity in front of the others. I nodded and let him lead me out of the server room. Once we hit the common area, every eye turned to us, but I kept walking. Cage shifted positions subtly, half hiding me, and for a moment I let him. I tucked myself behind him and drew my strength from his hand against my back, and just for one damn second, I didn’t let myself think. It was maybe the most freeing experience of my life.
Fortunately, it seemed like all of the prisoners had gathered in the common area, so I didn’t meet anyone on my way to Cell 10. After Cage left me there to join the others, I quickly used the toilet, praying no one would come along. It was another glimpse into the prisoners’ lives—not even privacy for that basic function, since they all shared cells. Afterward, I washed my face with cold water, smoothing my hair into place as best I could. Without a mirror to check, I just hoped I looked presentable.
I hesitated a second longer, realizing I was completely alone. I might sneak past the common room and . . . what? Cage had a point: right now, there was safety in numbers. Besides, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to escape anymore. I wasn’t sure of anything.
He must have given orders, because although I got a few curious glances as I returned, most prisoners kept their eyes fixed on him. They hadn’t managed much in the way of weapons aside from some metal rods, black and twisted at both ends. I remembered Alexei was pyrokinetic. Had he s
at there melting through prison bars? He looked tired enough that it was a possibility, slumped on the couch with Mia behind him, her hands on his shoulders. I wondered how they’d wound up together. I pictured asking Mia and had to smother a grin. Good to know I could still laugh at something, I supposed. Unbidden, the look on Mom’s face when she pushed that button skittered through my mind, killing any inappropriate humor. I bundled all that emotion—fear and betrayal and anger and confusion—into a little ball and swallowed it down to deal with later.
The prisoners scrutinized me, less hateful and more frightened than the first time I walked through their midst—not of me, but of the general strangeness. They parted as I came to Cage’s side. He and Rune stood at the front of the room, and Cage slid a hand onto the small of my back when I drew near, as if to steady me. This time I didn’t even consider resisting the gesture. I even leaned into him. Part of me knew I should pull away, but we were so far beyond that now.
“So that’s it,” he said. “Kenzie’s going to take us into the station proper, and we’ll figure out what’s going on. I need a small group of volunteers. The rest of you stay here and wait for us to come back. Take care of each other.”
A long moment of silence greeted this pronouncement, after which Kristin, Rune’s cellmate, spoke up. “So you’re looking for volunteers to go hunt for a potential murderer with a few metal pipes to defend yourselves. Is that it?”
Cage shrugged. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. That’s it.”
She spat on the ground. “This is ridiculous. I thought this plan was dumb when you first came up with it, but I figured, hey, any chance of escape. But now? This has gone so far off the rails we—”
Mia slapped her metal bar into the palm of her hand so loudly everyone winced on her behalf. “I’ll volunteer,” she said, crossing to Cage’s side. Without a word, Alexei rose and followed.
Matt muttered something under his breath, but when he spoke, his voice was steady and calm. “I’m in.”
