“Take me away from here. Please.”
Through his clothes, his heartbeat was nearly as fast as her own, and she wondered why he cared so much about her panic attack to ask such odd questions. He hesitated only briefly before removing her from the viewing room, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her when her limbs were too sluggish to move on her own. He spoke in a rush to the blue-eyed Kindred and took Cora through another doorway to a Parthenon-style room that was blessedly silent, empty save for a circular fountain in the center, surrounded by a ring of artificial stone benches.
A bathroom. No matter how intelligent they were, the Kindred still had to take a piss somewhere.
Cassian set her down on the soft cushions around the fountain. He removed his gloves and dipped his hands in the water, then touched them to her face, trying to cool her down, but his touch never cooled her. The water just made it spark more.
Her eyes were closed. She panted for air. Once her head cleared, she grabbed the strap across his chest and pulled him close. She slapped him, hard, across the face.
Her palm stung.
He didn’t flinch, of course—she could never hurt skin as hard as metal. But his throat constricted. He was very close to her, water dripping off his hands onto her dress.
“Why did you strike me?” he asked.
“Because you’re one of them. You’re a monster just like those women down there.”
“I am trying to protect you from that. It is the way the world is, and I want you to understand how dangerous it would be without my assistance.”
“Our enclosure is no different from this one! Run your mazes. Play your games. You’re sick, all of you.”
Cassian’s black eyes shifted between Cora and the door back to the menagerie. “I brought you here to show you how desirable your environment is.”
“Because there we’re only forced to kiss each other, you mean? Here we have to kiss you?”
His eyes darkened to a deeper shade of black. “A kiss is a very common trick. I do not understand why it bothers you to this degree.”
She let her head fall back on the cushions. “Because it’s more than a kiss. It’s Rule Three. Procreation. Taking love and making it a trick, or an obligation. You’ll never understand that.”
The fountain gurgled calmly into the silence.
“Help me understand,” he said, and he sounded sincere. Cora opened one eye, surprised by this. “We have nothing like it in our culture. I’m . . . sorry. I did not understand what it meant to you.”
His black eyes moved back and forth, back and forth, searching her own. He had said that he wanted to understand humanity, but it wasn’t so simple.
“It’s not a trick.” Her temper was cooling beside the bubbling fountain. “It’s not like clapping your hands or giving a bow.”
He paused. “What is it like?”
She wondered, fleetingly, what the Kindred did to show affection if they didn’t kiss. He sounded genuinely curious. Help me understand. His face was so close to hers that she would only have to tilt her chin to show him exactly what a kiss was like. That would teach him more about humans than months of studying them.
What would that electric spark feel like, between their lips?
A drip of water from the fountain landed on Cora’s cheek, and she jerked out of her thoughts, shocked by where her mind had gone. “It’s personal,” she snapped, and wiped the drip off her cheek. “It’s something special between two people who care about each other. It’s very emotional. Something you’d know nothing about.”
His hand had stopped flexing, but his eyes stayed on her lips.
“You do not know what I am like in private,” he answered. “When my emotions are uncloaked.”
“No. I don’t. I don’t want to, not if you’re anything like the rest of your kind.” When he didn’t respond, her blood burned hotter. “If you’re so fascinated, why don’t you give one of those kids on exhibit a token for a kiss? I’m sure they’d be delighted to show you.” Her words were poison. She wanted him to say yes. She wanted to know he was as bad as the rest of his kind.
“I’m not interested in learning about kisses from them,” he said simply.
His black eyes didn’t move away from her lips for a second.
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35
Rolf
ROLF STOOD AT THE top of the mountain, ankle-deep in snow, gazing at the line of little red flags. At the bottom of the racecourse, Mali waited in her oversized military jacket, sled slung over her shoulder. Lucky stood behind her, looking like he hadn’t slept in days; he’d only come when Nok had dragged him along.
Rolf pitied Lucky—to a point. Earth was gone; it was a fact. Fighting the truth was like fighting gravity. The news had hit Rolf hard at first, too. He’d thought about the little curry shop two blocks from his dormitory, and about the secret patch of tulips tucked away behind the manor in Tøyen gardens, and how he used to count the beautiful red bricks on the walk to school (11,321) as a boy—but there was no logic in mourning what was already gone. Besides, it meant no more bullying from his classmates. No more parents’ rigid expectations. No more being stuck with an entire race of people who were too stupid to see they were destroying their own planet.
But Rolf wasn’t stupid.
He arranged his sled to match up with the red flags. He wasn’t good at the physical puzzles, but this one wasn’t about strength or speed but reflexes. It involved throwing one’s weight at the precise angle and time to turn the sled through the flag course. He’d never sledded with the other children in Tøyen gardens, afraid of being mocked. But he was good at it. Who knew?
“Just go already!” Nok jumped up and down by his side, a smile stretched between her red cheeks. Her lips were stained bright blue from candy. He still couldn’t believe how beautiful she was, and that she was his. On impulse, he pulled her close for a kiss. She laughed and kissed him back.
He’d never understood unspoken rules on Earth: social norms that flew over his head, polite conversation, a hierarchy of coolness where he’d always been on the bottom rung. But here, he understood the rules. There were only three! Clean, logical, efficient. The only thing that didn’t make sense was that the food was still missing. At first he’d thought the Kindred just favored Cora, but it made no sense, because the Kindred had sworn to keep them healthy. So it had to be Cora stealing on her own, but if she was gone, who was stealing it now? The only conclusion Rolf could reach was that Lucky had been mistaken when he said the Caretaker had taken her—she must still be here, hiding out like Leon. Maybe they were even working together.
He narrowed his eyes. From the mountain, he could see all the way to the farm. He’d spent the last two days organizing a system of rationing fruits and vegetables to keep them fed. Cora might be trying to starve them, but he would keep them alive.
Nok tugged on a red curl hanging in his face. “Go, silly. It’s my turn next.”
Her candy-blue lips pulled him from his thoughts. The same shade of blue as the cubes in the Kindred’s medical room. He’d studied them at first to distract himself from the idea of stripping nude, and then because curiosity set in. There had been one above each doorway. Several more built into the cabinets. Both the doors and cabinets had opened automatically according to the Kindred’s thoughts—and then it had hit him.
The physical equipment was different, but the theory was similar to the research his colleagues at Oxford’s robotics lab had done on brain waves controlling prosthetic limbs. The blue cubes had to be thought amplifiers. Which meant the Kindred weren’t as powerfully psychic and telekinetic as the others believed. It also meant, if the cubes could be modified, it would hamper the Kindred’s abilities.
A fact Cora would die to know. A fact he would never tell her.
“If I’m going,” he said to Nok, pulling her i
nto his lap on impulse, “then you’re coming too!” She shrieked in surprise as he pushed them down the mountain together. It was a challenge with her added weight and his restricted view. The wind flew by them, making Nok squeal with delighted fear and clutch him harder. They passed trees in a blur: Abies recurvata and Ducampopinus. Her hair brushed his cheek. The snow kissed their faces. He adjusted their angle, and they moved faster, faster, until Lucky and Mali had to jump out of the way as they shot straight into a snowbank.
They flew off the sled, tangled around each other, and landed in the soft snow. Rolf was half buried in it, numb except for the fire raging in his heart.
Earth? Good riddance.
Lucky picked up the token that had slid out of a trough at the bottom of the sledding course. “Here. You earned it.” Heavy worry lines framed his face. He had to be as aware as the rest of them that it was the twenty-first day, and Cora showed no signs of returning. But he tried for a tired half grin. “I’ve never seen anyone navigate the course that fast.”
Lucky tossed the coin to Rolf, who caught it triumphantly. He’d always wanted a friend as cool as Lucky. Soon, once Lucky got over his grief, he’d have a girlfriend and a best friend.
They tromped home through the snow, and he and Nok paused to make a snowman that looked like the Caretaker. Then they returned to town and goaded Lucky into pulling out the guitar. The town square was summery warm. Nok stripped off her snow-soaked dress and jumped in the stream in her underwear, while Lucky played an old country song he said his granddad had taught him. Rolf mentally laid out a new plan for the farm. Asparagus officinalis by the barn and Phaseolus vulgaris beans along the fence. Under his leadership, they wouldn’t even need the diner. Maybe next year the Kindred would let him design all the gardens.
Nok didn’t bother to get dressed after her swim and laid out on the grass to dry in her underwear. Christ, but she was beautiful. Her long limbs gleamed in the sunlight. She tapped her toes in time with Lucky’s music.
“I love a guy who can play guitar,” she said dreamily, rolling over in the grass.
Lucky grinned back, and Rolf sucked in a sharp breath. His fingers started tapping, and he forgot about the Asparagus officinalis and Phaseolus vulgaris. Why was she looking at Lucky so adoringly? Rolf had been the one who won the guitar. He was the one keeping them alive. Nok let out another peal of laughter from some joke Lucky had made, and red flared into Rolf’s cheeks. His eye started twitching.
He stood abruptly and headed for the house.
“Where are you going?” Nok called.
He got his pillowcase of tokens from their bedroom, then pushed through the saloon-style toy store doors, slamming tokens into the counter. He got the painting kit so Nok could draw the birds she missed. The Curious George book set so he could read to her every night. He stuffed all the toys, along with handfuls of candy, into the pillowcase. He carried everything back to the town square and emptied it on the grass.
“What’s all this?” Nok dug through the toys with wide eyes. “It looks like Christmas!”
“Yes, Norwegian style. The gnomes have decided you’ve been very good boys and girls,” Rolf said, emptying the rest of the pillowcase. “It’s time for a celebration.”
Nok tore through the presents, showing Mali the best ones and explaining what they were for. Rolf smiled until Lucky silenced the guitar with a hand on the strings.
“A celebration of what?” Lucky’s voice had an edge.
Rolf glanced at Nok, letting his gaze slide to her bare back, her bare legs. A celebration of her. A celebration of the Kindred. A celebration of having everything he had ever wanted. “A celebration of making it to the twenty-one day mark and still being here.”
A shadow passed over Lucky’s face. “We aren’t all still here.”
Rolf paused. He should have picked his words more carefully. Lucky still thought the Caretaker had taken Cora, but Rolf knew that logically, she had to still be there.
“We’ve all lost people we love.” Rolf tried to keep his voice diplomatic.
Nok found the painting set and started setting out the pots of rainbow colors in the grass. She selected a fat brush and dipped it into the green.
“The way you two are acting,” Lucky said testily, watching her, “playing around while Earth is gone, makes it seem like you don’t even care.” When they didn’t answer, he went back to plucking on the guitar, sunk into a dark mood.
Oblivious to their argument, Nok drew a flower on the back of her hand, a purple lollipop sticking out of her mouth.
Why should she grieve? Rolf wondered. All she’d lost on Earth were parents who’d sold her into indentured servitude, and an apartment full of sickly thin girls, and a talent manager who might as well have been a whorehouse madam. He didn’t have much to grieve, either: his parents had never been affectionate; always pushing him to work harder, isolating him from kids his age. The only people in his life he’d interacted with had been a steady stream of bullies: Karl Crenshaw and the cricket bat. The schoolmates who made fun of his glasses. A professor who had forced him into public speaking.
They’re all gone now, Rolf consoled himself. He picked up a lollipop from the pile and spun it lazily in his mouth.
“Hey, Mali,” Nok said. “Take off your jacket. I want to paint on you, yeah?”
A branch snapped near the side of the movie theater, and Rolf spun on his heels. Was it Cora and Leon, spying on them? He’d never trusted that lumbering Neanderthal. Nothing had delighted Rolf more than when he’d banished himself to the jungle.
Rolf took a step closer to Nok, protectively. Mali had shrugged out of the military jacket, and Nok was using her body as a canvas, drawing bright blue swirls all over her arms. Empty chocolate wrappers surrounded them. Nok’s lips were stained bright purple from lollipops.
“You too, Rolf,” Nok said. “Take off your shirt. I’ll paint you next.”
He cast one look back toward the jungle behind the movie theater, searching for the moving shape of a tattooed Maori or a small blond girl, but the leaves were quiet now.
He sat in the grass and pulled his shirt over his head, and closed his eyes. Rolf would be a canvas if she wanted him to be. He’d be anything for her. He’d be everything for her.
Nok dotted his nose with paint, and he fell just a little bit more in love with her.
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36
Cora
CORA COULDN’T STOP SHAKING as Cassian led her down the dank burrows back to the austere upper levels. The shock of seeing the menageries had lulled her into silence. Caged kids. Missing fingers. Drugged eyes. Cora’s chest knotted with longing for this whole nightmare to be over. She wanted to play in the backyard with Sadie. She wanted to pick up where she left off, be back in Charlie’s Jeep, scrawling lyrics.
Home is the place you never know . . .
Until there is no more home . . .
Cassian’s head cocked toward hers; it was usually difficult to gauge where exactly he was looking, but this time she felt the heat of his gaze. “I thought showing you this alternative would make you content in your environment. Yet in your head, you are only more determined to return to Earth.”
Cora nodded.
“Cora, your home . . .” He stopped. “Never mind.”
They walked in more silence, Cassian’s hand balling into a fist and releasing. There was something he wasn’t telling her, but no matter how she searched his dark eyes, she couldn’t see into his head.
A door slid open, revealing the star-lit medical room. Cassian held out a hand to stop her. “This is your home now. You must accept that.” He removed her shackles mechanically. While he readied the rematerialization apparatus, she leaned against the examination table, running a fingernail over her lips. The pull of home was too strong to give up on. She glanced at the doorway that had closed b
ehind them.
Planning escapes had practically been an extracurricular activity at Bay Pines; Cora and her roommate used to lie awake at night swapping far-fetched ideas, most of them stolen from bad action movies. She’d never taken their planning seriously, but four months after she’d been there, a girl two rooms down had succeeded. She’d bribed a guard to unlock her room at night, then sneaked to the kitchen, which was run by outside contractors she’d paid off to smuggle her out in a vat of food scraps so the guard dogs wouldn’t smell her.
Cora bit on a jagged fingernail. The space station was hardly a juvenile detention facility outside Cincinnati, but maybe she could use some of the same tactics. Trading information. Bribery. Cassian had said that the Mosca only cared about payment. . . .
Cassian’s head jerked to hers, and Cora pinched her thigh, hoping Mali was right that pain could block the Kindred’s ability to read minds.
His black eyes scanned her face. “You are trying to hide something from me.”
She pinched herself harder. “No.”
“You should not inflict pain upon yourself.” His chest was rising and falling a little quickly. It made her remember his face so close in the fountain room, his lips just an inch from hers. . . .
He shoved the apparatus into his chest and darted out a hand to pull her close. He whispered in her ear.
“Obey the rules. Please.”
It was no longer an order. It was a request, and one of the few times Cora had heard his voice sound anything other than mechanical. “I’m not the only one watching you,” he said. “I cannot protect you forever.”
HE RETURNED HER TO the empty drugstore. Beyond the doorway, sunshine spilled over the green grass. Cora stumbled toward the light.
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