The Cage

by Megan Shepherd

  As though someone had flipped a switch, all the lights of the shops turned off, plunging the town into a darkness lit only by twilight.

  “Um, was that supposed to happen?” Nok asked.

  A single light flickered back on—the drugstore’s. It was on the end of the row of buildings, next to the boardwalk. The front door had always been sealed.

  Now it was wide open.

  “Finally,” Leon muttered. “Valium. Percocet. They’ve taken pity on us.”

  Lucky shot him a look. “I doubt our captors want you to get high.”

  Hesitantly, Cora approached the open doorway. There was no countertop. No toys or candy. No black windows. If there was a puzzle, it was well hidden.

  “I’ll go in first,” Lucky said. “If anything happens, let me do the talking.”

  The five of them crammed into the drugstore, which looked the same size as the other shops from the outside but was considerably smaller inside. The odd angles made her head twist with pain. She spun, looking for numbers or buttons that might indicate a puzzle.

  The front door slid closed.

  They were packed together like cattle, pressed against the walls, and Cora’s lungs started to seize up. She’d been claustrophobic ever since the accident, when her father’s car had crashed into the river. The doors’ automatic locks had shorted out, locking them in. Water had first swallowed her ankles. Then her knees, then her waist, until her father had broken the windshield with a flashlight.

  “Hey!” Leon pounded on the door. Cora’s heart was racing. Breathing was getting hard. Nok clenched her arms tightly over her chest. Rolf’s nervous fingers were tap-tap-tapping away. Every once in a while he would rub the top of his nose, adjusting glasses that weren’t there.

  The bare walls made sense now. It wasn’t a puzzle.

  It was a trap.

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  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  18

  Cora

  “CORA. STAY WITH ME.” Lucky gripped her arm. She must look pale. Her shoulder found the wall, which was sturdy. I won’t fall. I won’t . . .

  Just as her legs went slack, Lucky caught her. The pressure in the room began to change. Leon bellowed. The hair on Cora’s arms rose, and she clutched onto Lucky as the pressure ripped her apart, piece by piece by piece. For a terrifying moment everything was a blur, like the dizzying sensation of passing out, and she thought she might have found the release of sleep of last. But then it let up, and her vision returned.

  They weren’t in the drugstore anymore.

  They were in a large chamber with an arched ceiling made of molded metal blocks that fit together in interlocking seams. It wasn’t the same room she had materialized in before, though the same starry light came from the seams, filling the chamber with a muted glow. A jumble of equipment was hooked to the walls like a gun armory, only there were giant needles and sensors instead of knives and triggers. Blue cubes the size of her fist pulsed above the doorway and the wall cabinets. A cold examination table sat in the middle.

  Cora’s nails dug into Lucky’s leather jacket. “Look.”

  In the corner was a small cage. A human girl sat locked inside, with dusky dark skin and stringy black hair hanging in her eyes. She wore a dark scrap of clothing that left her legs and arms bare, and was crouched like a feral animal, glaring at them through her braids.

  “What the . . . ,” Leon started. “Who the hell are you?”

  The girl didn’t answer. Either she didn’t speak English, or she didn’t care. Her hands slowly curled around the bars.

  “You deaf, girl? I asked—”

  The door beneath the blue cube opened, silencing him, and a Kindred woman entered. It was one of the researchers, the one with high cheekbones and a thin nose, who had spared a glance back at Cora. She ignored the poor cramped girl in the cage.

  Her black hair was pulled back in a tight knot, not a hair out of place. She now wore a stiff white uniform with cerulean trim and a row of intricate knots down the side. Seven knots, Cora counted. The other researchers all had had six. Did that mean she was a higher rank? She’d been too distracted to count the Warden’s knots—seeing as he’d been choking her to death—but it had been far more.

  “I am Serassi.” The woman spoke flatly. “I am your medical inspector. It is time for your physical assessments. You may disregard the human subject behind those bars. She is here for observation purposes only.”

  Another door opened, and the Caretaker entered.

  Cora’s breath caught. She would never get used to seeing him. His imposing size, his dreamlike beauty. Her body hummed with the memory of his touch, how foreign and frightening it had been, and how he had spared her from the Warden. Then she remembered the girl in the cage, and her fury returned.

  They’re monsters. Even him.

  While the Kindred exchanged words, Cora balled her fists. If she’d had the guitar string garrote right then, she could easily have wrapped it around either of their necks and pulled. But she had nothing. She felt helpless.

  Their conversation paused. The Caretaker’s head jerked toward her an inch, as though he heard her thoughts. The back of her neck went cold, and that creeping worry returned, that maybe the Kindred could read their minds. But that didn’t make any sense. If the Kindred could read minds, wouldn’t they know about her plan to find the fail-safe exit and escape?

  “We will call you in numerical order to approach the table,” the Caretaker said. “The medical inspector will record your body mass and perform a series of tests to evaluate your health. This process will not be painful or unpleasant unless you chose to make it so. Boy One, you are first.” He looked at Rolf. “Remove your clothing.”

  Cora’s eyes went wide. Rolf’s went wider.

  They wanted them naked?

  The first day in the cage, Cora hadn’t showered or changed clothes because of the black windows in the bathroom. Eventually she’d had to. But there was a big difference between stripping in front of a black window and here, with the Kindred, not to mention the other captives and the girl in the cage.

  Leon cursed. “Is he serious?”

  Cora kept her eyes fixed on the Caretaker. Did he understand why they were so reluctant? Did nudity mean the same thing to his people? In the cage, the human girl watched impassively, rocking slowly back and forth. Cora started to wonder if she was even human.

  “In adherence with Rule Two,” the Caretaker continued, “we require you to cooperate. These tests are for your own benefit, whether your limited minds can comprehend that or not. Now approach the table, Boy One.”

  Rolf went white as porcelain.

  “This isn’t right,” Nok whispered. “What’ll they do to him?”

  Cora watched her throwing him nervous glances. Nok might have been acting before, manipulating Rolf into protecting her with wails and tears, but her concern for him was real now, as was her fear.

  Cora grabbed Rolf’s shirt and pulled them all into a huddle. “We’ll all face the wall, okay? We won’t look. We’ll give each other privacy.”

  “What about them?” Nok asked. “And that girl in the cage?”

  Cora turned to face the Kindred, digging her nails into her palm to take her mind off her fear. “You have to turn around too, or else we won’t do it.”

  It was a hollow threat. They could make them do anything, of course.

  “Your request is impossible, Girl Two.” Serassi cocked her perfectly coiffed head. “I must see you in order to perform my tests.” Cora searched for some emotion in the medical officer’s face. A human might have smirked at her quaint modesty, or threatened her, but this was none of those things. This was perfect skin and unflinching gaze, as blank as a machine.

  “Well, that’s okay. You’re sort of a doctor.” Her eyes slid to the Caretaker. “But you have to turn around.”

  “Very well.” He sounded amused.
Serassi’s head jerked in surprise, and she said a few words in his language, but he ignored her.

  “Boy One,” he ordered.

  As soon as Rolf stepped forward, the Caretaker faced the wall. Cora was shocked that he actually did as she asked, as though she had a modicum of power over him. Cora and the others turned, but the caged girl kept rocking. Cora heard Rolf’s clothes pool on the floor, then a clink of equipment, and a quick intake of breath.

  “Doctor,” Leon mumbled beside her. “More like a veterinarian.”

  Behind them, Serassi told Rolf—Boy One—to put his clothes back on. He returned to the wall and cleared his throat. “No poking and prodding. It’s a type of sensor they run over your skin. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s quite cold.”

  “And the girl in the cage?”

  Rolf’s cheeks flamed. “She didn’t turn around, but she didn’t seem to care either. She looked . . . bored. I’m not positive she speaks English.”

  “Girl One,” the Caretaker ordered. When Nok stepped forward, visibly shaking, he faced the wall again. The process was repeated on her, and she rejoined them.

  “Boy Two,” the Caretaker said. Lucky squeezed Cora’s hand, and then his presence was gone. Cora took a deep breath. She was next. Even at Bay Pines, they’d had a small amount of privacy. They’d had shower curtains. They only had to share a room with one other girl. When they went to the facility’s doctor, they got a paper robe.

  When Lucky returned, brushing the back of her hand reassuringly with his fingers, her hands shook harder. Her throat was dry. She was waiting to hear that she was next.

  “Cora,” the Caretaker said.

  Her tired eyes sank closed at the sound of her name. Lucky tensed beside her. The girl in the cage stopped rocking, and Cora’s eyes shot open again. Something was different.

  She looked over her shoulder and met the Caretaker’s black eyes, and saw half a blink. It made him seem suddenly very human, and that terrified her more than anything. She didn’t like the idea of these creatures having lives, and hopes, and fears, and names.

  That’s when she knew what was different.

  He didn’t call her Girl Two.

  He had called her by her name.

  Behind them, Serassi spoke a few rapid, mechanical words. Cora got the sense that he was not supposed to have called her by anything other than the labels the Kindred had given them.

  He had made a mistake.

  “Girl Two.” The Caretaker quickly corrected himself. There was a harshness in his voice, like he was trying to make up for his slip. He faced the wall. His hands were tensing and flexing by his side.

  “It’s best if you just obey,” Rolf whispered.

  Cora walked to the table in the center of the room, anger braided through her nerves, her hands fluttering at the straps of her sundress. Serassi held a long and flat instrument. She didn’t blink. She didn’t offer encouragement, but didn’t threaten either. Cora tugged the dress over her head so she was in her white underwear and camisole. Her hands hesitated on the camisole’s strap, as her eyes shifted to the Caretaker.

  Why had he slipped on her name, and not the others’? Why had he obeyed her request for privacy, when he ignored theirs? Why did she get so many tokens, when the others only got one? A strange sensation throbbed in her head, like eyes watching her thoughts. She shivered.

  Serassi cleared her throat, and Cora pulled the camisole over her head. She tried to cross her arms over her bare chest, but it was pointless, and Serassi didn’t appear to care. Cora hooked her fingers in the waistband of her panties and took a deep breath, then slipped them off quickly and balled them and her camisole on the table.

  She was naked.

  The room wasn’t freezing, but without clothes, she shivered harder. She kept glancing at the Caretaker to make sure he didn’t turn around, and the other captives too. The girl in the cage seemed to have fallen asleep. Serassi motioned to the table, and Cora stretched out on it. That was both better and worse, because it felt more like a real doctor’s visit, and yet now she was nothing but a specimen. Goose bumps rose on her skin as Serassi ran the instrument over her limbs.

  Cora replayed the sound of her name on the Caretaker’s lips. He had made a mistake.

  She was his mistake.

  She couldn’t imagine such mechanical creatures ever making mistakes. Was there more to them than their stiffness? Was there a beating heart beneath all that knotted cerulean blue? A mind capable of error, and emotion, and even mercy? Finally Serassi removed the instrument and told Cora to stand. She scrambled up and tugged the dress back over her head. A second later, the Caretaker turned around.

  “Boy Three,” he said.

  Leon was already halfway naked as he passed Cora. Fearless—or at least pretending to be.

  At last Serassi announced that the medical exams were over and they would be materialized back to the drugstore. Everyone seemed to sigh, relieved they wouldn’t be in the same room with these monsters anymore—except for Rolf. Cora caught sight of his eyes darting around the room, visually cataloging the equipment on the wall, muttering silent words to himself, fingers twitching like he was working calculations. His gaze rested on one of the blue cubes set into the wall above the doorway. Both his murmuring lips and his twitching fingers stopped abruptly.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  He blinked too fast. “N . . . nothing.”

  The pressure in the room started to build. Cora closed her eyes. She’d ask him about it later, when they were safely away from the Kindred. She never thought she’d be relieved to return to their prison.

  One by one they started to flicker and fade: Rolf, then Nok, then Leon, then Lucky. Lucky clenched her hand as he flickered away, until she was holding nothing. She braced herself for the rematerialization sensation, but it never came.

  The pressure faded away.

  Her eyes snapped open. The starry light was brighter, stinging her eyes. She whipped her head around in surprise.

  “Take me back,” she choked.

  “Not you, Girl Two,” the Caretaker said. “We require you to remain here.”

  She took a step backward, at the same time that the Caretaker came forward.

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  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  19

  Cora

  AN ICE CUBE OF fear slid down Cora’s back.

  The Caretaker’s head turned toward Serassi. “You as well. Leave us.”

  Had he just given an order? Cora had thought he was just the hired muscle, but Serassi’s mouth went thin, and she turned sharply and left through the opposite door obediently.

  Cora pressed her back against the wall. The caged girl had fallen asleep; she mumbling in her sleep, useless. Apart from rematerialization, the door was the only exit—and the Caretaker would stop her before she could pry it open.

  The Caretaker took another step forward. The dead girl flashed in her head. Then waking in the desert. And the Warden’s hand around her neck. Something deep within her pulsed with anger, and she sprang like an animal. Her fingernails clawed the Caretaker’s skin, splintering with sparks of pain as she dragged them across his chin and neck and uniform, ripping jagged lines that vanished almost instantly. If he felt any pain, it didn’t register.

  His hand clamped over her shoulder as he shoved her against the wall, knocking the air out of her. Blood seeped from her jagged nails. Her fingers throbbed. The wall seams dug into her back, their light warm and pulsing.

  “Let me go!”

  The Caretaker’s hands tightened around her wrists. He wore gloves now that prevented any transfer of electricity, but she could still taste metal deep in her throat. She was glad he wore gloves, but in the next second, crazily, she wanted to feel that electrical sensation again. It was like a drug, the only thing that cut through her sleep-deprived fog, and that only made her angrier.

 
“Do not try to fight,” he ordered.

  “I’m tired of not fighting!”

  Surprise flickered across his face. His chest rose and fell quickly. It made him seem so very nearly human, and she drew in a sharp breath.

  He’s feeling something.

  She stopped struggling. He seemed cold, acted stoic, but underneath that exterior there was a beating heart, a warm body, hot blood. Did he feel things like sympathy? What about pain? Desire?

  His jaw shifted. Even without pupils, she knew he was looking straight into her eyes. He took one last deep breath, and the pace of his breathing slowed, and the heartbeat pulsing in his hands returned to a regular rate.

  He released her wrists but didn’t move away.

  “Yes. In answer to your question, we feel all those things. Sympathy. Pain. Desire. They are unintelligent emotions—signs of weakness. Complete eradication is impossible, so we attempt to suppress them in public. Some of us are better at it than others.”

  Cora dug the heel of her palm against her temple. “But . . . I didn’t say anything.” She dragged her fingers through her hair, then dropped them abruptly. “You read my mind, didn’t you?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. She wished for the ability to steady her own pounding heart as easily as he had.

  “That’s how you know my song too, isn’t it? You probed in my head and found my memories. That’s why you keep playing it on the jukebox.”

  “The Warden thought it would calm you.”

  “The last thing it does is calm me!” Her voice echoed in the chamber. The sleepy girl in the cage stirred awake and looked at them. For a second, Cora realized how they must look. Only inches apart. Her back pressed to the wall. Flushed face and rumpled clothes.

  Panic filled her. Would the girl think it was a tryst? Did that even happen between humans and Kindred? But the girl just gave a long yawn and started picking at her toes. Cora’s chest sank in relief, but it didn’t last for long. The Caretaker still watched her with those eyes that could reach too far into her head. How were they supposed to escape from creatures who could read their minds?

  He hadn’t blinked once, she realized.