The Cage (The Cage #1)(76)
Author: Megan Shepherd

Rolf and Leon started throwing insults like punches. It wouldn’t be long before they were trading real blows. Across from them, Nok was taking small steps backward, glancing over her shoulder at the house. Rolf suddenly lunged for the croquet mallet, and Cora dropped to the grass, afraid of the crossfire when he swung it at Leon’s face. Her mind flashed to that first day, the fight between the two of them in the toy store. “I’ll owe you that punch,” Rolf had said, and now he meant it. He was quick, just like his twitching fingers, and he was back on his feet before Leon could catch him.

Rolf let out a furious yell and hurled himself forward—at Nok. Not Leon. Rolf tackled her to the ground, using the mallet to pin her arms as she screamed wildly. Leon was still braced to duck the blow that was less and less likely to come.

“You said you loved me!” Rolf choked, ignoring her pleas. “I saw the way you looked at Lucky and Leon, but you told me I was just being paranoid!”

Nok screamed something in a mix of Thai and English, struggling to get away.

Cora pushed to her feet. “Rolf—”

Rolf threw Cora a look over his shoulder. “Just go! Get out of here! This is between me and Nok.”

Beneath him, Nok gave one final twist, uselessly. Suddenly all the fight rushed out of her and she started sobbing, big racking tears that didn’t seem like acting at all. Nok’s whole life had been a struggle, it seemed. Rolf’s words had been enough to put together a picture of a life in London that wasn’t the jet-setting dream, but rather dirty rooms and flashing lights and bruises hidden beneath flimsy little dresses.

Rolf blinked a few times. “I won’t hurt her,” he said. His voice had grown softer, just like his grip on Nok, anger melting away into devastation. “I would never hurt her. But leave us alone; you never belonged here. If you can get out, then go. Whatever the consequences for us . . .” He swallowed hard, looking at Nok sobbing. “We have bigger worries right now.”

Cora glanced over her shoulder toward the churning sea. “Come with us,” she said.

He shook his head. “I can’t. Chances are it’s my baby. We might not be free, but we’re safe here, and right now that’s more important for the baby than freedom. But Lucky might go. Try the boardwalk. He walks there at night when he can’t sleep.”

The light overhead shifted. Mali pinched herself anxiously, throwing glances toward the ocean. Cora knew she would never see either Nok or Rolf again, but good-byes felt wrong. Her lips wouldn’t form the words, so she turned instead, blinking hard to clear her eyes, striding toward the ocean.

“Cora, wait,” Rolf called.

She turned, brushing the moisture from beneath her eyes. Nok was still sobbing, oblivious to everything. Rolf rubbed the marks on his neck slowly. “You were right, in the medical room. I was studying their technology. Those blue cubes above the doors are amplifiers. Destroy them, and the Kindred won’t be able to open the doors with their minds. It might buy you some time. I’ll make sure Nok doesn’t sound the alarm. Now just go.”

Over her shoulder, the waves were crashing. Beckoning. Mali tugged on her arm.

“Thank you,” she whispered. He gave a curt nod, his attention already back on Nok. Cora turned to Leon. “It’s not too late.”

He cracked his knuckles anxiously, keeping a good distance from Mali, looking toward the ocean, then back toward the jungle. “I can’t. This is where Yasmine is. Her ghost won’t let me go.”

Mali grabbed Cora, and they started running for the beach. Cora didn’t look over her shoulder to see them all one last time, because she knew their faces would be burned into the space behind her eyelids.

They raced to the boardwalk, where a figure heard them coming and stood from the deck chair, in the darkness looking as vague as the night sky.

His hand drifted to the side of his skull, where Cora had hit him.

The last time she and Lucky had spoken, she had hurt him deeply. A broken head and a broken heart. She was supposed to be his partner, his match. That rainy night on the bridge would forever tie them together. He had lost his mother. Cora had spent eighteen months locked up.

But Lucky was wrong when he thought being here could be a fresh start. There were no fresh starts for caged birds. There was only as much freedom as their captors wished to give them.

His eyes found hers beneath the stars.

“Lucky.” Her breath fogged in the air. “We’re getting out of here. Come with us.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t seem surprised at all.

“I know about you and the Caretaker,” he said.

52

Cora

FEAR THREADED THROUGH CORA’S veins. “Did Leon tell you?”

“The Caretaker told me himself.” Lucky took a step forward, his face unreadable. “He came to visit me last night. He said you were asleep in his bed. He didn’t say anything outright, just that I could have whatever I wanted if I left you alone. To tell him the type of girl I wanted and he’d give her to me.” He looked toward the sea, because it must have been easier than looking at her. “I told him the girl I wanted was you.”

“Lucky, I didn’t know—”

“I didn’t believe him. I thought he was tricking me, but he wasn’t, was he?”

She swallowed. “No.”

“Jesus. Why?”

“You loved me because I was a victim. But I never was, Lucky. I was the one who came up with the idea to take the fall for my dad.” A month ago, if she’d met Lucky, she’d have fallen like a comet for him. She clasped her necklace as if she could hold on to that girl she’d been before, but then she released it. “Cassian knew that. He sees me as someone who can save herself.”

Lucky touched the place on the side of his head where she had hit him. Cora had expected he would be furious at her. Crazed. She hadn’t expected such heartbreaking hurt in his eyes.

He shook his head. “Just go. You never needed someone to protect you, I can see that now.”

He turned toward the boardwalk, but Cora grabbed his arm. “You always wanted to be a hero, Lucky, but you don’t need a victim for that. Be your own hero. Come with us.”

Mali glanced over her shoulder, and Cora felt nervous too. Had Rolf kept Nok from sounding the alarm? Did the Warden know? Not even Cassian could help them then.

“Please, Lucky. We can go back. Earth is there, I know it.”

His head tilted toward the stars that shone over a red desert, snow-covered mountains, a town where they might have been amused, but never truly happy. Would the Kindred take Nok and Rolf and Leon away? Without humans, this place would be meaningless.