The Cage (The Cage #1)(37)
Author: Megan Shepherd

“The Warden did not interfere with their food. If so, I would know. It must have been one of the wards.”

Mali gave him a hard look. He had rarely lied to her before—why was he lying now? “Is the Warden changing things because of the rumors. Because he thinks that humans are showing signs of percept—”

“No.” He cut her off hard. “And you should not speak thusly. You know what the Council did to Anya when she started saying such things.”

Mali could feel sweat running down the sides of her face. She could still remember Anya’s big round eyes, her blond hair the same color as Cora’s, only it had been stick straight. They had shared a private owner, a high-ranking Kindred official, who had cut off two of Anya’s fingers to give to a Mosca he’d lost a bet to. He had tried to cut off Mali’s too, only she’d fought back. Cassian had found them ten rotations later. She’d never forget seeing him for the first time; the door sliding open, fear making her stomach knot, expecting the official’s squash-nosed, broad face. But it wasn’t the official. It was a young enforcer, a strikingly handsome one, who had taken one look at their tiny cages and smashed the locks open with the hilt of his communicator.

“Do not fear me,” he’d said. “I am not here to hurt you.”

He looked like the dazzling hero in the stories Anya used to tell her, but Mali knew better than to believe anything the Kindred said. She’d clawed his face when he’d reached into the cage, and hissed at him. It hadn’t been until his guards had tranquilized her, and she’d woken up in a medical unit with fresh clothes that she knew she really had been saved. When the medical officer had come to repair her wounds, she’d asked for the scars on her hands to stay, as a reminder. Cassian had come to check on her, and she’d climbed off the table and wrapped her arms around him. It was only later that she learned of Anya’s death. Despite the rescue, Anya had never recovered from the abuse. In another ten rotations, she was dead.

Anya had been very perceptive too.

Cassian set a card on the pile.

Mali squinted at the ocean, trying to imagine herself back on Earth. There was so little she remembered. Camels. Hot tea. A carpet laid out over sand. If she concentrated very hard, she could picture her mother’s light brown eyes.

“Cora should not be here,” Mali said. “The Warden is right. She does not have the correct temperament. She is determined to return to her previous life.”

“Did you tell her?” Cassian asked quietly.

“Tell her what.”

His boot scuffed on the boards. At his side, his fist was clenching and unclenching. “That there is no other life for her. For any of them.”

“No.” Mali set down the deck of cards. She was tired of games.

“Do not tell them, at least for now. It is too large a concept for their limited minds to comprehend. It will take time before they are ready to hear the truth about their home.”

Mali slid the sunglasses back over her eyes. She dismissed that wrinkle of annoyance she felt whenever he gave her orders. As long as they let her stay in this paradise where she could eat as much as she wanted and play games all day, she would do whatever the Caretaker asked her to do. She had found, long ago, around the time a Kindred had tried to cut off her fingers, that it was best not to question them. Ever.

27

Cora

CORA STOOD IN THE bedroom doorway, one hand still on the knob. Nok and Rolf were tangled in the bedsheets, more naked than not. They’d been giggling when she first entered, but that had ended abruptly.

“What are you doing?” Cora yelled.

“What does it look like we’re doing?” Rolf sputtered. “Give us some privacy! Wasn’t it enough to steal our breakfast?”

“I didn’t touch your food! Just—hold on. I’ve got to get something.” Cora wavered a second, then darted into the room, holding her breath like she was under water, snatched up the clinking pillowcase—it felt heavier—and dashed out. She slammed the door behind her, and only then gasped for breath.

If that wasn’t sex, it was pretty close.

She sank onto the bottom stair, the pillowcase of tokens sagging on the floor, and took the seashell out of her dress pocket. How long had it been? Two weeks? And everything was already going to hell. Nok and Rolf had clung to each other right from the start, so maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised, but seeing them tangled in the early-morning sunlight with a black window looming next to them stirred something ugly within her.

It wasn’t the sex—they were old enough to make their own decisions. It wasn’t even that they were obeying the Kindred’s rules, because she knew they were terrified of disobeying. It was because they had looked truly, blissfully, blindly happy.

They like it here.

The pillowcase slipped from her hands. Tokens avalanched to the floor, far more than she had collected. She must have grabbed the wrong pillowcase. Had Nok and Rolf been earning tokens on their own, or siphoning off the ones she’d earned?

Now that she looked around the living room, at the candy wrappers on the side table, and a fort they must have made from sofa cushions, and even a radio—the red one she thought the Kindred had stolen—she realized she’d been blind.

Rolf and Nok never had any intention of escaping.

Footsteps sounded on the porch, and Lucky stuck his head in, still sweat soaked from the desert. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He leaned in the doorway, catching his breath. “I know that fight was stupid. Guys can be like that sometimes—I didn’t mean what I said. It’s this place. It makes my head ache so bad I can’t even think.” He squeezed a fist against his forehead and released it with an angry sigh. “It’s my fault. I let everyone drift apart.”

Cora knelt to pick up the scattered tokens. “Well, they all hate me now, thinking I stole their food. And good luck talking to Rolf and Nok. I doubt you can get them to stop making out long enough to listen.” She stuffed the tokens in the pillowcase, and then started past him onto the porch.

“Wait. I can fix this—”

“I’m fixing it myself. I’m tired of these black windows. Nothing they give us here will break them, but I know something that will.”

He followed her at a fast clip, trying to talk her out of it. She strode up the toy shop steps, shoving open the saloon doors. The croquet set sat between two dolls. She started shoving tokens through the copper slot.