The entire time Cora smiled, and smiled, and smiled, just like her father had taught her to do. Her mind was too tired to fight anymore. It was clear that this newfound peace was shaky, at best. Lucky might believe that they were a happy little group in a perfect little prison—except for Leon, of course, insane in the jungle—but the others clearly didn’t. Mali was as cryptic as ever. Rolf eyed Cora suspiciously, while Nok’s smiles were so frost coated that Cora shivered like she was back in the alpine area.
Evening fell, and the artificial stars appeared one by one, and Lucky followed her heavy footsteps upstairs to the bedroom they would now share. She crossed the threshold and stopped abruptly. The fog in her head returned.
A quilt rested on the bed. A Persian rug was stretched on the floor. Watercolor paintings hung on the wall. A ceramic dog sat on the foot of the bed. It was like taking a dizzying step back into her old bedroom—into her old life. There were even constellations drawn on the ceiling.
“I wanted to surprise you.” Lucky came in behind her, fiddling awkwardly with a book on the shelf. “I listened when you told me what your bedroom was like, and I’ve been redeeming tokens for similar prizes. I know it isn’t exactly the same, but I hoped it would make you feel better. Like this was home.”
She sank onto the corner of the bed. Memories spilled back, of scribbling lyrics at her desk, gazing at the stars outside, petting Sadie. She picked up the ceramic dog. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine she was back on Earth.
But she let the dog drop to the floor. It wasn’t Sadie, it was a toy. The thing that Lucky didn’t realize was that her bedroom in Richmond had been as artificial as the one here. She had come home from Bay Pines to find every trace of her mother gone, moved to an expensive condo in Miami that she’d only see on weekends after a long flight. As if to make up for it, her father had completely redecorated her room. He’d covered the stars she’d painted on the walls with expensive wallpaper. He’d hung elegant curtains over the windows where she used to stargaze. He’d poured thousands of dollars into giving her a room fit for a princess—or for a daughter who’d taken the fall for him—but he had only succeeded in excising everything that had made it hers.
She felt just as hollow as she had at home. She wanted those stars back. She wanted her room back. She wanted her life back—the real one.
Lucky leaned in. “I’ll always look out for you.” He kissed her cheek.
As he closed the door and pulled her down with him onto the bed, she couldn’t find words for how catastrophically heartrending it was. His lips were on her cheek, her forehead, her neck, her mouth. He whispered in her ear how he was so glad she had been standing in the surf twenty-one days ago, how he had been so afraid she would hate him, how he would take care of her forever. Her tears were hot against her cheeks. He kissed them away without asking their reason. He said they had a chance to change the world. They would have children that would grow to have children of their own, ensuring the continuation of their species, under the Kindred’s guidance. He said they were so lucky that out of all humans the Kindred chose them to entrust with this important role. He said their love was going to save humanity.
Cora had thought, when she’d so desperately agreed to obey the third rule, that she could do this. She had thought that the relief of giving in would make up for the awful feeling of bowing to the Kindred’s will.
But the voice inside her was screaming now, and she wasn’t sure of anything.
Lucky shrugged off his leather jacket, setting it carefully aside, not rushing anything. Cora glanced at the black window as she shed her dress. She had to believe Cassian wasn’t watching. If he was knowingly letting this happen, then she really had been blind. Cassian said he’d never be cruel to her, but this was the definition of cruel—watching this happen, knowing how terrible it was. He must be able to see inside Lucky’s head and read his intentions: that they would sleep together tonight, that they’d soon be as deliriously in love as Rolf and Nok, that Cora would get pregnant too, and then next year the same thing, and the year after that. It might have been paradise for the others, but it was Cora’s hell.
As Lucky slid one camisole strap over her shoulder, she looked at the ceiling, at the stars he had drawn there. He’d done the best he could, but it would never be right.
A realization suddenly struck her.
That’s why Cassian isn’t stopping this.
Just as Cassian could see inside Lucky’s head, he could see inside hers too. He knew that Lucky might have every intention of them sleeping together, but she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Cassian wasn’t stopping it because he knew she was going to stop it herself.
A tear rolled to her chin. She imagined what would have happened if she and Lucky had met on Earth, before the accident, just two strangers. Maybe her expensive car had broken down, and he’d come to fix it in his worn jeans with a rag in his back pocket. She might have loved him there, on the side of the road, on Earth.
But not like this.
She whispered, “Lucky, do you remember when you taught me to spar in the desert?”
He nodded against her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut. The memory was fresh: sand warm against her back, hunger to feel his lips on hers. “Of course I do,” he said. “It’s hard to forget having a beautiful girl under you.”
“I just want to say that I paid attention,” she choked. “And that I’m sorry.”
She dropped her hand down, curling her fingers around the ceramic dog on the floor. If she told him how wrong all of this was, he would only smile and whisper something about fate. He would never force her to obey Rule Three, but he’d never understand, either.
She thrust her hip up, throwing him off balance, escaping the mount like they had practiced. His surprise gave her enough time to slam the ceramic dog into the side of his head, where it connected with a sickening sound.
He slumped against the bed, moaning.
Tears spilled from her eyes as she held on to him and murmured apology after apology, hating what she had done, hating the Kindred for making him into this twisted person. She pulled on her dress and gave his forehead a trembling kiss. He would wake with a killer headache, but that would be nothing compared to his heartache when he realized she’d deceived him.
The hallway was quiet. Mali’s door was closed. Nok’s and Rolf’s voices came floating up from the living room—she couldn’t go out the front door or they’d see her. She pushed up the bedroom window as silently as she could, and climbed onto the roof, dropped to the grass, and raced out into the town square, where she doubled over, feeling sick and guilty and confused, and fought the urge to throw up.
The Kindred had taken Lucky for his morality, only to twist it. They could cut off her hair, sell it to the highest bidder, cage her, but they wouldn’t twist Cora.
She wiped the sweat from her face and stalked to the nearest black window. Sunrise wouldn’t be for a few hours, but she wasn’t going to sit around and wait.
She hurled her fists against the black glass. “Come on! Why are you waiting?”
Tears ran down her face as she smashed harder and harder, frustrated that it didn’t shatter, or even bruise her palms. She wanted to feel something, even if it was pain.
The hair on her arms started to rise. She gritted her teeth and spun around.
Cassian stood before her. So calm. So collected. As formally as he had the first time he’d appeared, his cold eyes regarding her like a stranger, despite their trip to the menagerie, despite everything he’d revealed, despite the fact that he could reach into her head and see everything she had ever done and thought.
He folded his hands. “I assume by your actions that you are refusing to obey the third rule.”
“That’s right.” She took a slow step forward, challenging him. “I’ll never obey, so you might as well remove me. But I’m not going without a fight.”
A flicker of emotion crossed his face. He hadn’t expect
ed this final act of defiance, but Cora had nothing to lose. They’d twisted Lucky into believing this was home. The others detested her. She was facing a lifetime of being toyed with by the Kindred. She couldn’t fight them forever, but it would feel good to try.
She smashed into him, pummeling him with her fists. That electric spark came when their skin connected, and energized her more. Unlike the illusions of the cage, Cassian was real, and so was his flexible metal armor, and it bruised her fists.
He trapped one of her wrists. “Stop this.”
She didn’t. It felt good to fight, even if he only stood there. She kept struggling as tears streaked down her face. She hurled accusations at him, in words and in thoughts, but he didn’t respond.
She shoved him again, uselessly. “You were supposed to take care of us! You knew what the Warden was doing, but you didn’t even try to stop it!”
“You do not know what actions I have taken.” His voice was lower than usual. He glanced at the black window. “I am on your side, Cora. But things cannot change in the blink of an eye. The Warden is powerful. When he has a plan, nothing gets in his way. Not you. Not me.”
His voice was monotone, but she detected a note of tenderness, and all the fight slipped out of her. Cassian wasn’t the one she wanted to punch. It was the researchers. It was the Warden. It was whatever system classified humans as a lesser species.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t do Rule Three.”
“I know.”
This was it. The moment it all ended. He might be trying to change the system behind the scenes to make conditions for humans more favorable, but it could take weeks. Months. Years. And time was up for her. He would have no choice but to lock her in a cell so she could perform cheap tricks. The others would go crazy, and without her there to stop them, they would end up bleached bones in a jungle.
“It never would have worked between Lucky and me. The algorithm got it wrong when it chose me.”
She could feel his demeanor change. The pace of his breathing slowed.
“The algorithm didn’t chose you. I did.”
Her eyes went wide. She forgot to fight. “What do you mean?”
“Boy Two was selected first. Then the algorithm selected a suitable female match. Her name was Sarah. She had a high level of intelligence and morality that would complement his attributes.”
“Then why isn’t she here?”
Cassian’s hands tightened on her wrists. She felt the telltale pressure building, knowing they were about to be dematerialized to a menagerie or a prison or somewhere she couldn’t even imagine.
An instant before the pressure overtook her, he leaned in close.
“Because then I saw you.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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45
Nok
NOK RECLINED ON THE living room sofa, sucking on a butterscotch, her feet resting in Rolf’s lap. He kept talking about the baby, whether it would be a girl or a boy, what they would name it, but Nok only half listened as she trained her eyes on the stairs to the second floor. Cora and Lucky had gone up there, after they’d left the diner. Was Cora actually going to go through with the third rule? If so, it changed everything. Nok had been sure Cora was a lost cause. At first she’d been thankful to have another girl; back in London, she’d never have survived the flophouse without the other models, and she needed a friend here just as badly. All that had changed, though, the moment Serassi had appeared to her in the salon.
“You will reproduce in thirty-six weeks,” Serassi had said flatly, and given her instructions on proper prenatal health, but Nok hadn’t listened. A baby. She was going to be a mom. She’d looked around the salon at all the stupid nail polish and hair machines and seen her reflection in the black window: pink strand of hair like a silly teenager, band T-shirt pulled down over one shoulder. Mothers didn’t look like that.
She couldn’t do this alone.
“What do you think about Holly, if it’s a girl?” Rolf asked. “Or Ivy. Maybe Violet. Anything that has to do flora. If it’s a boy, it’ll be more of a challenge. Alder, after the type of tree?”
“They’re all lovely,” she murmured.
“Do you think we’ll raise our baby in this house? Or will they give us our own house in one of the other habitats?”
“I don’t know.” She sucked on the butterscotch, a hand pressed against her stomach.
As soon as she’d realized she couldn’t raise this baby on her own, she’d set about subtly establishing influence over the others. “Controlling men is the only way women like you and me will survive,” Delphine had said. All her manager’s old lessons came flooding back. Getting men to give you presents with a coy look. Bending them to your will with one smile. She already had Rolf willing to do anything for her; it wasn’t hard to win over Leon, either—he’d wanted what every boy wanted. She’d win over Lucky in time too. Mali had been harder—a coy look and a smile did nothing for her, but Nok had patiently bought her friendship with painting parties and dancing in the rain, teaching Mali all the things about humanity that she hadn’t ever experienced on Earth.
That had left Cora.
Cora, who had whispered reassurances in her ear when she’d huddled on the toy-store floor the first day. Cora, who had squeezed her hand when she couldn’t sleep, and told her she’d keep watch. Cora, who had caught her in a lie but hadn’t told the others. A girl who, in another life, could be her friend. But here, with her crazy theories about escape and desperate attacks on both Lucky and Rolf, Cora was only a threat.
Rolf was watching her expectantly. She cleared her throat.
“Maybe . . . Robin,” Nok said. “If it’s a girl. Or Wren. I’d like for my daughter to know what birds were, even if there aren’t any anymore.”
The bedroom door slammed upstairs, jolting Nok out of her thoughts. She jerked upright, swinging her feet off Rolf’s lap. Lucky appeared at the top of the stairs, hunched over. Blood covered the right side of his face.
Nok gasped. She and Rolf helped him down the stairs, and she pulled off the punk shirt over her black dress and dabbed at his face.
“It was Cora,” he choked. “She’s gone. She ran.”
“She did this to you?” Nok cried. She knew as well as anyone that Cora was growing more unstable, but this?
Rolf was suddenly by her side, and she saw a flash of jealousy in his eyes as she tended to Lucky’s wound. She pulled back a little from Lucky, aware that if she was to keep everyone loyal to her, she was going to have to tread very lightly.
“She was scared.” Lucky buried his head in his hands.
“Scared?” Rolf sputtered. “Stop making excuses for her! How many times have we given her the benefit of the doubt? We ran the puzzles because she asked us to. We collected tokens because she asked us to. We told her the truth about Earth and she refused to accept it. She even broke your guitar. And now this—trying to kill you? She’s gone totally crazy!”
Lucky pressed a hand to his bleeding face. “I don’t think she was trying to kill me.”
Nok bit her lip, looking between them anxiously.
“Of course she was!” Rolf said. “She knows all about how to kill a person. You’ve heard her talk about making weapons out of teddy bears and things . . . I mean, who does that? She must have been some kind of social deviant back on Earth, some sociopath, and now her true tendencies are coming out.”
Nok chewed on her lip. “If that was true, wouldn’t the Kindred have stopped her?”
Rolf tossed her a look like she was a traitor for even daring to speak such a thing. “Why do you think they’ve kept her behind so many times? Why do you think the Caretaker keeps paying her the most attention? It’s because the Kindred know that they made a mistake putting her here, and that she’s dangerous. Didn’t you all see in the diner—she had a bone in her hand! No explanation. Just a
bone. It was probably from that first girl who died. Who’s to say Cora didn’t kill her and hide the body?”
“Could a body really decompose that fast?” Nok asked.
“Time doesn’t work the same way here,” Rolf answered curtly.
Nok flinched. Rolf had found his confidence and then some. She told herself he was just worried about the baby, and the threat Cora’s instability might pose. But the truth was, Rolf had always had a jealous streak. He was jealous when she smiled at Lucky. He was jealous when Cora got more tokens.
Nok raked her nails over her scalp. Her head throbbed so hard she could barely think. “I just can’t imagine Cora would do such a thing. If we could reason with her . . .”
Lucky’s eyes were dazed from the head wound, and he kept clutching at his chest like Cora had ripped the very heart from his chest.
“Maybe she isn’t malicious,” Rolf said quietly. “But we all know that she’s going crazy. For her own good, she can’t be allowed to just run free. None of us are safe with her on the loose. We have a baby to think of now. We need to find her and turn her over to the Kindred. They’ll give her the help she needs and put her in a place that’s right for her.”
Nok chewed on her lip. She glanced at Lucky, who looked like he wasn’t even listening. He kept pressing his fist against his heart, rubbing his chest, swallowing hard.
Maybe Rolf was right.
Pressure started to build in the air, and alarm shot to Nok’s throat as she remembered it was the twenty-first day. Had they come for Lucky now? Surely they would give him another chance. She didn’t want him replaced with some half-feral boy with cold eyes who might pose yet another threat to her child.
A figure materialized in the corner, dressed in black, but it wasn’t the Caretaker. It was a Kindred woman with dark hair, pulled back tight in a different style knot from Serassi’s. The same apparatus jutted out of her chest. The woman tugged off her thick black gloves.
“Who are you?” Rolf asked in a bewildered voice, looking just as shocked as Nok felt. “Where’s the Caretaker?”
The Cage Page 24
