The Cage (The Cage #1)(64)
Author: Megan Shepherd

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 expected 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.”

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.