The Cage (20 page)

Her body started to rack uncontrollably. Not just a nameless face anymore. Not just a grave with plastic flowers she had visited once, secretly, at night. She’d tried so hard not to think about that woman or the son she left behind.
Smile,
her father had said,
even when you’re hurting
i

What a fool she had been. She should have never listened to her father, when he told her to push aside her true feelings. Why had she taken advice from a man who’d had too much to drink and
killed
someone?

“God, Lucky. I’m so sorry.”

Lucky was by her side in a second, his arms around her. “No. If anything, I’m the guilty one.” He flexed his hand, the one that was always giving him trouble. “I . . . I tried to kill him at first. My dad kept a gun in case of intruders. But his men stopped me, and offered me money instead if I corroborated some story he’d come up with, saying you were behind the wheel. He said you wouldn’t go to prison. He said you’d get off on parole. I didn’t care—I had no idea who you were. I figured his daughter was just as bad as him. So when the police questioned me, I told them it was you driving. They asked how I was sure, and I told them with your long hair and blue eyes, that you were a hard girl not to look at.” He shook his head. “I took his money and got on a plane to Montana. I knew if I stayed in Virginia, I’d change my mind. I’d drink too much one day. I’d kill him.” He paced beneath the tree. He kept wiping at his face, even though the rain had long since dried. “I
let
him get away with it.”

She closed her eyes. The memory of water choked her. Her father had jerked the wheel so hard it sent them careening into the river. The impact had stunned her. It hadn’t been until water poured in, and her father had shaken her awake, than they’d both managed to flee the drowning car, swim to shore, and wait shivering for an ambulance.

“He said a drunk-driving conviction would have ended his career and put him in jail for decades,” Lucky continued. “But you hadn’t had a sip to drink. He said you could claim it was an accident; that you’d just gotten your license and there was a glare on the windshield on a rainy night. Involuntary manslaughter. He said you wouldn’t get more than community service.”

Sitting on the bank, shivering in each other’s arms, still reeling from the crash, they hadn’t known the judge would make an example out of her.

Lucky said, “At the time, I was angry. I wasn’t thinking straight. It wasn’t until after the trial that it started eating away at me. Had I sent an innocent girl to prison? You were always in the newspapers, looking so angelic, and I started to realize that it wasn’t your fault you were related to him. He’d played you just like he’d played me.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what he offered you. I hope it was more than I got.”

She leaned against the tree trunk, feeling her head pulsing. She hadn’t told anyone the truth of what had happened that night. Not her mother. Not even Charlie. And now this boy who she’d only known a few weeks, who she’d just had her lips all over, knew her secrets.

“The Kindred must have known,” she said. “It can’t be a coincidence that they would put us together.”

“Maybe they put us together
because
of this. So that I could make up for what happened. I didn’t know what to think when I saw you standing on that beach. I thought it was some kind of punishment for my sins. Then I got to know you. You weren’t anything like your dad. You were his victim. And
my
victim. And dammit—you were pretty. Even more pretty in person than on TV. You do this thing sometimes where you run your fingernails over your lips when you’re thinking, and you have no idea how much that killed me. How much I wanted to kiss you.” He paused. “I wanted to make it up to you. I’ve been trying. I had your back when they accused you of stealing food. I’ve run mazes and swung from trees because you asked me to. I nearly ripped Leon’s face off because he insulted you.”

She stared at him in a mixture of fascination and horror. The mazes? The fight with Leon? He took a step toward her, but she pulled back, wishing the shade didn’t hide his eyes. In a certain light they were the color of coffee, but now they looked black.

“We came up with the escape plan together, Lucky. You didn’t just do it for me.”

A petal fluttered down to his shoulder. He didn’t bother to brush it off. Cora just stared at that petal, wishing he would speak, wishing he would say he believed in their plan.

“I’m sorry.” His voice was so quiet it almost sounded like a stranger’s. “You wanted to go home so badly that you thought some sharpened sticks were going to get us out of here. But Rolf was right. We’d never have escaped from them. I went along with your plan because I wanted to make you happy. I still do—”

He reached for her, but she jerked away. The petals underfoot felt slick now. Sticky. The branches tangled in her hair like they were trying to trap her. She shoved them away. “You were
pretending
you wanted to go home?”

A shaft of light broke through the flowers to land on his face. His eyes were still coffee brown, not black. “Of course I wanted to go home—especially the first few days. I just never believed we actually could. I couldn’t bear to tell you how I felt. It would have broken your heart.”

“And now you suddenly decide to confess everything? Why, because the rain made you feel nostalgic?”

“Because we’re running out of time. Twenty-one days is coming fast. We’re going to have to . . . sleep together. And before that, I wanted you to know the truth.”

“Oh, thanks!” Her voice was laced with venom. “So I not only have to sleep with a guy I barely know, but he also happens to be the one who sent me to juvenile detention.”

“Dammit.”
He was fighting not to raise his voice. “You think I want it to be like this? I want to be back home with an old man and his chickens. I want to visit my mom’s grave one more time. I want to meet you there, back home, and I want to show you the sky in Montana, teach you the constellations. But this is our home now. The others already know it. It’s time we grow up and admit it too.” He stopped abruptly. His words echoed in the quiet space beneath the tree. His eyes had gone dark again. Night must have fallen outside, or else the world only felt darker. “At least we care about each other. And I do care, Cora. I don’t think I’ve ever cared about a person more in my entire life.”

He reached for her, but she jerked back.

“Tell me one thing. Do you believe that I didn’t steal the food?”

He was quiet, his eyes shadowed in black. “If you did, I don’t care. I’m on your side.”

Cora pulled back, ripping the fabric that bound them. Her plan seemed so childish now, using sharpened toys as weapons and fighting their way out—to what? How did she ever think she could make her way home, when she didn’t even know where she was? And yet a force within her came screaming back up.

She wasn’t ready to give in.

She stumbled away from him, tearing through the branches that pulled at her like a thousand clutching fingers. Lucky called for her, but she kept running, faster than she ever had, tearing past Nok and Mali, who were dancing in the rain, past Rolf, who was plucking unsuccessfully at the guitar

Not even Lucky was on her side anymore.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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29

Leon

NIGHT FELL ALL AT
once. The rain stopped abruptly, lingering in puddles on the boardwalk. Leon crouched behind a bush and spied on the cherry tree. He’d seen Lucky and Cora disappear beneath its branches, and he could guess what was going on in there. Another couple forming according to those dots on their necks. First Nok and Rolf. Now Cora and Lucky. Didn’t any of them have an ounce of self-restraint?

“Animals,” he grunted. He stood up and sauntered back toward town. The lights were off in the shops and the house—the others must have gone to bed. The rain had soaked his clothes, but he’d long ago stopped caring. His dress shirt was worn and stained, rolled to his elbows and undone at the neck. The suit pants were caked in mud from crawling through the jungle. He climbed the stairs to the diner and tugged at the door—his stomach howled for food—but it was locked.

“Here.” He turned just in time to catch an apple flying his way. Mali stood in the shadows, her face unreadable beneath the long braids. “There is no food today. Only empty trays except for Cora’s. I find this on the farm.”

His stomach howled louder. What shifty game was Cora playing at, stealing all the food?

He took a hefty bite of the apple. “Cheers. Now if you don’t mind, bugger off.” He started down the steps past her. She so unnerved him, with those shockingly light brown eyes, that permanent scowl. Her hand shot out as he passed, clamping on to his bare forearm.

“Are you returning to the jungle.” She spoke all her questions like a statement, something else that unnerved him.

“Not any of your business, is it, kid?”

Her hand fell away, but that cold stare kept him prisoner. She was like a walking ghost, haunting him.

Ghosts.
He flinched as a shadow seemed to pass through him. He whirled toward the ocean, breathing hard. The feeling of eyes on his back. A presence that wasn’t quite human. It had started the first day; he’d thought it was the Kindred watching behind the panels, but now he sensed it was something else.

Someone
else.

Mali’s eyes flickered to the cherry tree. “Cora and Lucky kiss behind those branches. They will soon obey the third rule.”

Leon snapped out of his daze.

“You really are a little spy, aren’t you?” He ignored the fact that he’d been spying as well. “Well, don’t worry about those two. Cora looks sweet, but trust me, that girl’s got a dark streak. She’s not obeying a thing. And Lucky won’t either, as long as she tells him not to.”

“They have no choice. The twenty-one day mark approaches.” She took a step to her left, head shifting like a snake. “They must obey. We all must.” Her hand snaked out to grab him, and he slapped it away.

“Hands off. Don’t get any ideas about you and me.”

“You have no choice.”

“What’s the Warden going to do, get his Caretaker to lock me up? Joke’s on them. It was only a matter of time before I was behind bars back on Earth anyway. Here’s a piece of advice: stay away from me. I’m not a good person.”

A vision flashed in his head of a girl with green eyes and a heart-shaped scar on her chin. A headache tore through his scalp. She’d been the first thing he’d seen when he woke. He’d been on the boardwalk, head throbbing and vision blurry, and a beautiful Middle Eastern girl leaning over him with the most shocking green eyes.

“I’m Yasmine,” she’d said. “I don’t know where I am. . . .”

Mali tapped his forehead, jerking him back to the present. “The Kindred do not take bad persons.”

Sweat poured down his forehead. He wiped it away, trying not to think of the girl with the heart-shaped scar. “You don’t know a thing about me.”

“Yes I do. Cassian lets me watch you before putting me here.”

Leon froze. His heart started thumping extra hard. He turned on her slowly. “What exactly did you see?”

Yasmine’s green eyes flashed in his head again. She had woken him on the boardwalk, and he’d jerked upright. His head had been pounding and he hadn’t been thinking straight. All he knew was, he was somewhere he didn’t belong, and there was an ocean and shops and a beautiful girl. He’d grabbed her hard enough to bruise her. He hadn’t meant to threaten her. But she must have been so scared already, and his size frightened people. . . .

“What did you see?” he growled.

“I see you taking care of Nok. You know she is scared so you sneak to the farm when no one is looking and get her a peach. You leave it for her on the bed.”

He sighed in relief. Mali hadn’t seen, then. That look of fear crossing Yasmine’s face, and her tearing away, and him chasing after her, certain she had answers, still so dazed he didn’t know what he was doing. She’d run straight into the ocean and dove into the water. Leon had yelled at her to come back. By the time he’d gone in after her, she’d stopped moving.

Drowned.

While trying to escape from
him
.

He stopped pacing and glared at Mali. God, he hated how she never seemed intimidated by him, no matter how he tried to push her away. He hated most of all how much he liked the shape of her face, and that stringy hair, and that cold look. He’d thought Yasmine had been beautiful too.

He jabbed a thick finger in her face. “Listen, kid. You may think you understand humanity, but you’ve been living with those bastards for too long. I’m done with this whole social experiment. They can mess with time, spy on me, I don’t care. I’m done with this—you most of all.”

He stomped past her toward the house, where he ripped off a few sheets from a spare bed and stuffed them into a pillowcase, then stormed out the back. The jungle called to him. He’d never belonged in this pretend town anyway. He should have taken Yasmine’s death as a hint that he belonged alone. A cold shiver ran through him, and he whirled toward the ocean.

Was it Yasmine’s ghost? Was she the one giving him headaches?

He liked the solitude of the jungle. No talking. No arguing. No stringy-haired girls with scarred fingers. There were the black windows, sure, but what did he care if he was on display? Let them watch. All they’d see was a guy not giving a shit.

“Be careful.”

He nearly jumped. Mali stood behind him on the path. How she’d moved so fast to get there, he wasn’t sure. In fact, in the moonlight and shadows, he wasn’t sure she was real at all, and not a hallucination brought on by stress.

“There is a reason the Kindred create the town. Humans are not meant to live on their own. Away from the group you start to lose yourself.”

The branches around her rustled, and when he caught up to her, ready to unleash a string of curses, she was gone.