The Cage (The Cage #1)(36)
Author: Megan Shepherd

She jogged up the stairs. The bedroom door was closed, so she twisted the knob and charged inside, looking for the pillowcase.

The room wasn’t empty.

Cora froze. “Not you too.”

26

Mali

OUT OF ALL THE habitats, Mali liked the beach one best.

She sat in the shade of a red-and-white umbrella, toying with a deck of cards. Lucky’s shiny aviator sunglasses were perched on her face. She scrunched her nose, trying to get used to the feeling of the sunglasses. She’d only ever heard about them from other captives she’d been with before, either her series of private owners, or the two menageries she’d been in, or the other enclosure. Now, as she wrinkled her face and flipped another card, she found them itchy.

A tingle began on her arm. She slid up the sunglasses to watch the hair rise. In another second, footsteps sounded on the boardwalk. Cassian sank into the deck chair opposite her, which groaned under his weight. He wore his dark uniform with knots down the side to show his rank. Five, now. When he’d rescued her three years ago, it had been twice that number. He had never told her what happened that led to such a demotion, but she could guess: he’d always let his fondness for humans get in the way of his duties.

She slid the sunglasses back over her eyes. “I am like you now.” She tapped the dark lenses. “Black eyes.”

He leaned forward, picking up a few cards that had fallen off her lounge chair. He handed her the cards, and she swirled the pile on the table. She folded her lips in a smile.

“Go fish,” she said.

Though, like all cloaked Kindred, his face betrayed almost no emotion, Mali had learned to read subtle shifts in his features; that flinch meant he was almost smiling. Out of all of them, Cassian had the hardest time suppressing his emotions, but she liked him all the more for it. Go Fish was a human game, but the Kindred had a soft spot for anything human, and she had convinced Cassian to play before. Their world—the public one—was so harsh. Sharp angles, sterile rooms, everything a drab shade of cerulean. It was only in their private lives that they revealed their true personalities. It was there, in the pleasure gardens and menageries, that the Kindred uncloaked their emotions. Their society had evolved to be so sterile that they had lost the ability to create music and entertainment for themselves, so they borrowed culture from humans instead. The quirks of humanity were all the rage in the menageries; the Kindred dressed like humans, listened to their music, played card games like this one.

Cassian patiently drew a card. “I will play, if you tell me how you are adjusting to the dynamic of this cohort.”

Mali scowled beneath her sunglasses. Sometimes she wanted cards to just be cards. Sometimes she wanted Cassian to just be Cassian, and not her Caretaker, and not ask so many questions. “There is no dynamic. There is no cohesion. Leon does not even sleep in the house. Nok and Rolf do not leave town. They fear the habitats.”

“It is a difficult adjustment.” Cassian studied his cards methodically. “It is never easy for any of the human wards. In time, they will learn that we are not to be feared.”

“I want to know why this enclosure is different. Why you dress them in human clothes and give them strange food to eat.”

“It is the Warden, trying something new.” He added a card to the pile. “We will not harm them, of course.”

A darkness wormed its way into the pit of Mali’s stomach. Like most of the Kindred, Cassian often talked about his kind in the plural form. She did trust him; he had saved her life, even at risk to his own. But she didn’t trust them. Not the Kindred. Not as a whole. Certainly not any of her previous owners, and not the Warden, either. Mali had heard rumors about the Warden, but had never known his name—Fian—or met him until Cassian had taken her from the menagerie where she lived and told her she had the chance of a lifetime, to join the grand new enclosure. Fian had insisted on inspecting her first; examining her teeth and ears and hands, then asking Cassian if he was confident that any human males would find such a damaged ward appealing.

There was one thing she had learned, living caught between the human and the Kindred world. It didn’t matter what race you came from: there were good and bad among every species.

“Go fish.” She put a card in the pile.

“The stock algorithm has predicted that Boy Two will be the group’s leader. He will welcome you into the group, but these things take time.”

She set down a card. “Lucky is more interested in escape than in being a leader. He is more interested in Cora.”

It was Cassian’s turn to go fish, but the cards stayed in his hand, untouched. “There is a history between them.”

There was a strange tone in his voice Mali had only heard a few times before. She slid the sunglasses on top of her head and reached into the pocket of Rolf’s military jacket. She held out the lock of Cora’s hair.

“I acquire this for you. A present. For bringing me here.”

Cassian stared at the lock but made no move to take it. “You know I do not share the same primitive beliefs as the Gatherers and the Mosca. A lock of hair means nothing to me.”

Mali gave him a hard look. “It does if it is hers.”

Mali had been transferred to enough private owners and menageries to know that as disciplined as the Kindred considered themselves, they weren’t perfect. Among themselves, relationships between males and females were noncommittal; sex was for physical release, not for procreation or love. But sometimes deeper emotions did surface. Fondness, the Kindred called it. Sometimes for another Kindred, but sometimes—though very rarely and always forbidden—for a human.

Mali offered him the hair again. She did not care what Cassian’s predilections were; she just wanted to repay the kindness he had shown her. In fact, she liked the glimpse of weakness. It made him seem almost human.

He folded her fingers around the hair, pushing it away from him a little hard. He picked up the cards and shuffled them roughly. The waves crashed on the beach as the light changed one degree lower. Mali wished, not for the first time, that Cassian could show her his true eyes as easily as she could slide up the sunglasses.

“The others notice that you treat her different.” Mali slowly replaced the lock of hair in her pocket. “They do not like it. There is an altercation this morning over breakfast. Everyone’s food is missing except for hers. It is dangerous. Food is a basic need. I do not understand why the Warden manipulates them—”