“But I overheard the Mosca in the market talking about going back to Earth for another supply run. And that comic book was stamped with a date in the future.”
He took the glass from her and swallowed her concerns with another pour of alcohol. “Many artifacts are counterfeit—you cannot trust the comic books are authentic. And we do not concern ourselves with the Mosca. If they believe Earth exists, perhaps they have not been back yet to verify its destruction.”
“But have you verified it? Have any Kindred seen it with their own eyes?”
“A ninety-eight point six percent rate does not require verification.”
She didn’t listen to his talk about percentages and statistics. All Cora heard was that there was a chance; the stock algorithm had made mistakes before. Margins of error.
Maybe this was a mistake, too.
“You forget that I can read what you are thinking,” he said. “You still hope to return to Earth, even knowing the high likelihood it is gone. Perhaps the Mosca would be able to help you, but they are an unscrupulous species. They would just as likely betray you. The wisest course of action would be to forget your dreams; if you will only agree to obey, I can request an extension from the Warden. He won’t like it, but I have some sway. I could make the enclosure more comfortable for you.”
On the wall, the fake stars shimmered. He had already risked so much for her—and now he was willing to sacrifice more. She picked up the glass and twirled it in her fingers.
“It isn’t about the comforts of Earth. It’s about what’s real. My life at home was as fake as my life here. I was never allowed to be myself—I always had to be a senator’s daughter. My mother couldn’t be an actress, like she wanted, and it made her bitter and resentful. I could never be a songwriter, because my dad’s handlers thought that if any of my songs got online, it would hurt might dad’s chances at reelection. We had to be these artificial versions of ourselves, always smiling when we were sad, cloaking our real emotions, just like you do.
“If I can go home, I can change that. I can truly live, even if it’s painful. I want a real relationship with my father and my mother. We can be a real family again, even with the divorce—we were making progress. I want to write songs about the things I’ve been through, and I want to fall in love with someone I choose, not who was chosen for me.” She tore her hand away from her necklace. “You probably don’t understand that.”
He was quiet for some time, and then very slowly rubbed the scar on his neck. “I understand more than you think. I could not have observed humanity for this long without being affected by it. The others of my kind are fascinated by the brightly colored parts of humanity: your clothing, your architecture, the tricks you can perform. I’m not as interested in those. I like the quieter part, like how humans wish on stars knowing they won’t be answered. And what you told me once, about how some mistakes are worth making. I have made mistakes myself.” He took the glass and took another sip, as though he could swallow whatever memories pained him. “That is why your capacity for emotional depth intrigues me. The Kindred do not have those notions. Forgiveness. Sacrifice. They are remarkable traits.”
His face had looked so otherworldly at first, like a god, or someone from her dreams. But now she knew he was just a person, and he was young too, and felt things like guilt and shame and the need for forgiveness.
“You should not be ashamed to be one of the unintelligent species,” he said, looking into the glass. “The intelligent species are not perfect, though we may pretend to be. We can lie. We can manipulate. We can betray. Your kind are not capable of the same level of evil as mine is.” He set the glass back down, and the liquid settled. It was cold in his room, but he didn’t seem to feel it.
“Yes, we are.” She thought of the girls at Bay Pines who bullied each other just for fun, and of her friends who had vanished after her arrest, and even of herself, who had been so careless with Lucky’s heart. She took the glass and downed the rest of it. “You admit that the Kindred lie. Were you lying when you said your people had taken us for our own benefit? All your talk about swearing altruistic oaths . . .” She looked down into the glass. “It isn’t true, is it?”
He didn’t answer. This close, his eyes weren’t just black; there was depth to them, like the cut crystal of the glass.
“Tell me why the Warden really had you take us,” she asked.
The angles of his room felt extra sharp. The tension was heavy in the air, nearly at the point of bursting. No more lies. Please.
He leaned in slowly. “Our oath is not a lie. We do see ourselves as stewards, and not just because of our fondness for humans. It is our duty to ensure your survival—and all the lesser species’ survival—because the universe would lose its richness without humanity, and diversity of thought leads to the ultimate intelligence.” He paused. “But you in particular. You six. There is more to it than what we have told you, and more to your enclosure.”
“So you admit that those researchers have been manipulating us.” Her vindication was immediately swallowed by anger. “But why would they mess with the puzzles? Why put us in such strange pairs? Why turn the others against me?”
“Mali has mentioned rumors to you that certain humans are beginning to demonstrate signs of perceptive ability. Some have claimed to be mildly psychic, even telekinetic. None of the claims have been verified. The six of you were chosen, in part, because of your potential to display perceptive ability, if your minds were pushed in the correct manner. Challenging your concepts of time and space, for example. Altering the weather. Putting pressure on you in terms of presenting puzzles with variable rewards.”
She stared at him like he was speaking another language. All of it, everything, had been an attempt to see if they were evolving. The headaches. The irritability. The fighting among themselves. The scrape of anger clawed her once more. “It was under the Warden’s orders, wasn’t it? And those researchers were more than happy to screw with our heads. But we could have killed each other, like the last groups. We still could! When Rolf finds out Nok’s sleeping with Leon, it could all go to hell!”
She sank forward, resting her tired head in her hands, trying to quiet the millions of thoughts warring for her attention. Her neck throbbed as though the Warden’s icy grip was still there. No wonder he’d been willing to kill her—she wasn’t being a good little specimen. She wished she had never awakened in that desert, and seen that ocean, with its strange shimmer and its dead body. Why had they even given them an ocean, anyway? Was it just more manipulation? There was no puzzle there. Eight puzzles in the habitats, eight in the shops—that’s what Cassian had said. And all the environments they’d found had a puzzle: the treetop ropes course in the forest, the maze in the desert, the scavenger hunt in the swamp, the musical puzzle in the grasslands, the harvest game in the farm, the temple maze in the jungle, and the sledding race in the arctic habitat.
A strange tickle spread down her back, painful but not like a headache, and she pinched herself hard. That was only seven. That meant there had to be an eighth, and the ocean was the only habitat left. Maybe it was a puzzle they couldn’t solve—because it was hidden by perceptive technology.
Because it was the fail-safe exit.
She pinched herself harder. She might not be psychic, but she was smart enough to pierce through their lies. She bit the inside of her cheek, tasting blood, and leaned forward. If she was right, they could all escape. “Give me another chance. Take me back to the cage, just for one more day. You might not have been the one manipulating us, but you went along with it. You owe me.”
Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t quite true. How many times had he bent the rules for her?
He turned his head. “That is against protocol.”
“So was taking me to the menagerie. So is having me in your bedroom, I’m guessing. Admit it—you know what they’re doing is wrong. You know I’m more than a gender and a number. I’m a person. Like you.”
Her heart hammered. It was excruciating, being so close to this beautiful bronzed creature who wasn’t human but who was so similar. A crazy thought entered her head: Maybe Lucky was right to be jealous.
His hand flexed on the table, close enough that their fingers brushed, and the spark ran through her, straight to her heart.
“Why do you wish to go back,” he asked, “when we both you know will never obey?”
She bit the inside of her cheek harder, masking her thoughts with pain. “Don’t ask me that. Please. I can’t tell you.”
That’s why the ocean had pulsed so strangely that day—because her eyes knew they were being tricked. Her body knew there was something wrong with the ocean, more than just her fear of deep water.
“I would be risking much for you, Cora. If the Warden found out, we would both be severely punished.”
She didn’t let herself think. “That’s what I want.”
He paused. “Then I will help you. And I will not ask why.”
Silence shrouded the room, but Cora didn’t mind. It was a reprieve from the cage. From her thoughts. From her loneliness. Cassian refilled the glass, and they took turns sipping. For the rest of the night they sat in his spartan quarters and talked, and then they didn’t talk, and they listened to the silence around them.
Cora’s head jerked. She had fallen asleep sitting up. She tried to stand but stumbled, shaky. Cassian stood too, to keep her from falling.
“You should rest,” he said. “When you wake, I will return you to your enclosure.”
He was asking her if she could walk, but she couldn’t find the words to answer. She just wanted to sleep. Her thoughts kept drifting back to her bed at home, the quilt that Sadie liked to curl up on. Even with all the pain, and hurt, and loneliness, she wanted that life back.
The ground fell away from her; he was carrying her to the other room as though she weighed nothing. Her head lolled, her hair dangling. Then came a temperature change and a softness as her body relaxed into the familiar comfort of a bed, though it was harder than she’d like. Her muscles unwound in a way they hadn’t in weeks.
“I will wait in the other room,” he said.
She shook her head. She reached out a hand to touch him, though she wasn’t sure if she wanted to push him away or pull his warmth closer.
“I still have to try,” she whispered.
He didn’t ask her to elaborate, because if he could see in her head, he had to know what she meant: she couldn’t live in a cage. And she couldn’t let the others continue to slide away from humanity.
“Not now,” he said. “Now, just rest.”
She started to drift even deeper into sleep. The mattress dipped where he was sitting; she was tempted to roll toward that groove. He said words she barely heard, about how she was wrong when she thought she was just an animal to him. That he didn’t think of her that way. But it might have just been her dreams taking over.
Her mind drifted deeper, and an hour might have passed, or maybe only an instant, but his weight was still on the bed beside her.
“Cora,” he said softly, more to himself. She felt the faintest touch of his hand on her cheek, his fingers light as if they didn’t know how hard to touch not to bruise her. The metallic skin of his thumb rubbed along her bottom lip.
You don’t know what I’m like in private, when I’m uncloaked.
As she slipped from the waking world to sleep, she wondered if he wanted to kiss her. He had been so curious, that day in the menagerie. His desire to understand humanity had been palpable. Her heart was racing, despite the alcohol. She could still show him. She could press her lips to his—she was aching to. It was so clear now. She wasn’t sure when it had begun, certainly not that first day, nor in the medical rooms. The night he gave her the stars, maybe. She wanted to show him what it meant to be human.
She moved her lips, trying to form his name.
But as soon as his thumb had brushed her lips, it was gone, and the weight beside her on the bed was gone, and then she fell asleep to the sound of his footsteps by the window, pacing back and forth, back and forth. Just like a tiger.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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48
Lucky
LUCKY CROUCHED BY THE side of the candy shop, working fast in the moonlight. His palms stung from swinging through the treetop ropes course all night. Without Cora to hold the ladders, it had been difficult, but he’d managed. Now he ran his hand over the plastic water gun he’d bought from the toy shop with all the tokens he’d earned. Back on his granddad’s farm, he’d learned a trick to keep the flies off horses: liquefied cayenne pepper. But if you got it in your eyes, it would blind you.
He stomped on a handful of peppers from the farm, juicing them under his heel, and squeezed them into the water gun. His head throbbed from where Cora had hit him, but he ignored it, just like he ignored the awful hollow space in his chest. He’d only felt this way twice before—once, on a bridge outside of Richmond, after his car had wrapped around a streetlight, and he’d looked over to see his mother slumped against the wheel. The second time had been when he’d met Cora’s father’s men in a drugstore parking lot and taken their check.
He finished filling the water gun and shoved the stopper back into it, then grabbed a jump rope he had modified into nunchakus. He glanced back at the house, where he could make out Rolf reading a book by the window. For a brief moment, he considered staying.
But the cherry blossoms wafted toward him, and he turned sharply and started for the jungle. He knew Cora. She wasn’t that devious. Someone must have put her up to hitting him, pouring lies into her ear for weeks. He knew it wasn’t Nok or Rolf, because he’d constantly been around them. He didn’t think it was Mali—she had no reason to. There was only one person in the enclosure who had violent tendencies too, who could have convinced her to do such a thing.
Leon.
His chest felt even more hollow at the memory of her betrayal, and he had to lean against the railing of the jungle walkway. He pictured her face, the blue eyes with the dark rings around them from not sleeping, and her lips that had tasted so real, and he gripped the jump-rope nunchakus harder.
He ran down the walkway, dizzy from his injury and the distortions. He’d known Leon would be trouble from the start. His father had warned him about Leon’s type—guys who hated authority. Guys who wanted to be soldiers not to protect the country, but because they liked blood on their hands.
He skidded to a stop as soon as he saw a collection of huts scattered around a huge stone temple. His heart pounded harder as he walked as silently as he could through the jungle. A sheet flapped in the wind, covered with odd symbols he couldn’t make out in the moonlight. They almost looked like eyes. Then he heard rustling, and took out the water gun. His plan was to blind Leon first, then use the nunchakus. Four years of martial arts had to be worth something.
He pressed his back against the hut, moving slowly toward the entrance. The jungle was so quiet he could hear his own heart beating. Another shuffle came from within the hut, and he leaped inside, gun raised.
Nok screamed.
Lucky started. What was she doing there? She was alone, wrapped in only a sheet, her pink streak of hair hiding the left side of her face.
“Lucky?” she sputtered. “Is that a gun?”
He lowered the water gun, leaning on the doorway to steady his throbbing head. Her lips fell open, but she seemed lost for words. Lucky’s thoughts caught up with him all at once: Nok wrapped in the sheet . . . how she’d come to him that day on the porch and run her finger down his cheek, and offered to spare him from the third rule.
Had she made the same offer to Leon?
“Jesus, Nok. What are you . . . Is the baby even Rolf’s?”
His words jolted her out of her stupor. She dragged the sheet around her tighter, stumbling to her feet, a fire in
her eyes. “I had to, Lucky. You heard what that substitute caretaker said. They’re taking away my baby because of what Cora did to you. She’s gone crazy. Leon’s the only person who can stop her. I need him, and don’t you dare judge me for getting his help this way.”
She tossed the pink streak of hair out of her face. She had a wild look in her eye that had never been there before. This wasn’t the same skittish, pretty girl he’d found cowering in the toy store. He’d only seen glimmers of her darkness before, like the time she’d kicked Leon in the groin.
“How’s Leon going to stop her?” Lucky said. “Hurt her? Kill her?”
A shadow filled the doorway behind him.
“What the hell is this?” Leon bellowed.
Lucky’s hand tightened on the gun. Blind him, then use the nunchakus. But he hadn’t expected Nok. He hadn’t guessed that they’d been sleeping together. His stomach twisted at that feverish-wild look in her eye.
He was so tired of it all. The betrayals. The hurt.
He looked at his makeshift weapons. What had he been planning to do, kill Leon? He’d felt such hatred in his veins, such certainty that Leon had been the one to twist Cora, but the truth was, all of them were twisted.
He let the water gun fall and shoved past Leon, back out into the jungle.
He ran along the walkway until it bled into the forest. He followed the paths to the clearing with the treetop ropes course. He would isolate himself, like Leon had, for his own safety.
He reached for a branch, but his hand froze.
What if he was twisted too, just like they were, and he didn’t know it? Had he done anything that might have made Cora run? He’d just been trying to show her that he loved her. He’d been trying to keep them both safe from removal.
The hair on his arms started to rise. He stared at it in the moonlight, and then whirled in the clearing. That pressure usually meant the Caretaker was coming. He wound the jump rope around his knuckles, ready to use it to strangle him as soon as he appeared.