The Cage (The Cage #1)(70)
Author: Megan Shepherd

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.

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.