The Cage (The Cage #1)(79)
Author: Megan Shepherd

Mali jerked awake and coughed up water. Her body was hunched, as though she’d bruised every muscle when she fell. Cora’s own body ached in every joint. The pain made her feel wonderfully alive.

Lucky rolled onto his side, breathing hard, coughing. Their eyes met beneath the shimmering ocean dome. Despite everything, he smiled.

“Jesus,” he said. “I thought that ocean would never end.”

The thrill of victory was in their smiles, in the lightness of Cora’s heart. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but they were past the hardest part.

“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Cora said.

Mali wrung the water from her hair. “The traders are located in the lowest level. We must be cautious.”

Cora nodded. They had just done the impossible, so she felt ready for anything.

“Someone came with us,” Lucky said in surprise.

Cora followed his gaze to a wet patch a few yards away from them, with big wet footsteps leading to the open doorway.

“It was Leon,” Cora said. “I saw him running toward us at the last minute.”

Mali sniffed the puddle. “The water mostly evaporates already. He must wake long before us.”

“He left us,” Lucky said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Cora studied Leon’s evaporating footsteps, knowing it was true, but the fact that he had left the cage was strong evidence that he had regained his sanity. “He’s still rebelling against the Kindred, which means he’s on our side, whether he left us or not.”

They wrung the water out of their clothes so the Kindred wouldn’t be able to follow the seawater trail. Every drip made Cora feel stronger. The door was propped open—Cassian had been true to his word. The only shadow in her heart was the certainty that she would never see him again. After that one glimpse of his real self, uncloaked, she wanted more. She wanted to see him smile, and laugh, and sleep at night. She rubbed her neck where the Warden had strangled her. She prayed Cassian hadn’t been caught. What would the Warden do to someone on his own team who had betrayed him?

Lucky peered out the doorway. “It’s clear.”

Cora joined Lucky and Mali, looking up and down the impossibly long arched hallway. “Leon’s tracks lead to the left.”

Mali snorted. “He does not know where he goes.” She pointed the opposite direction. “We must go down.”

Cora frowned. “That’s downhill? It looks perfectly flat.”

Mali wobbled her head. Water dripped from her hair and ran in the direction she’d been pointing, though the floor appeared even. “You do not know anything about aggregate stations.”

She had a good point, and Cora was happy to let her take the lead. As they jogged silently down the austere hallway, Lucky kept stopping to marvel at the light coming from the wall seams. He’d never seen those intricate archways, the metallic walls, the eerie silence like ancient monasteries.

Mali paused, listening. “I hear something.”

Cora’s skin started to tingle with the urge to run. What if Nok had gotten away from Rolf and sounded the alarm? The Warden would send soldiers to stop them, and Cassian would be powerless to help.

She squeezed her charm necklace. She could still feel the lingering touch of his fingers brushing her skin. Had she made a mistake in letting him take such a risk?

They waited several impossibly long seconds before continuing. The hallway abruptly branched to their left, and Mali froze. Cora heard it too.

Footsteps. Boots.

“Go the other way,” Mali whispered urgently.

They followed her down the opposite direction, but the hallways only looped back. The sensation of being turned around made Cora’s head throb, and Lucky kept rubbing his forehead too, but it didn’t seem to affect Mali. She was faster than they were, not slowed by the strange perception. She disappeared around a bend, and when they stumbled after her, she was gone. The hallway stretched as far as Cora could see. Mali simply wasn’t there.

Instead, five Kindred dressed in black turned the corner.

Cora skidded to a stop, choked by the sight.

“Run!” she yelled.

Lucky and Cora raced in the opposite direction, turning at each branching hallway, desperately looking for a door, but Cora had the awful feeling they were just running in circles.

She focused her thoughts and projected that she needed Cassian’s help, but he must have been too far away to perceive her call, because minutes passed and he still didn’t come.

Lucky slipped. Cora pulled him to his feet as they stumbled around another corner. There, at the far end, was another soldier. Black clothes, short hair, but it wasn’t Cassian.

“Hurry!” Cora said, and they raced down the corridor, but the soldier was impossibly fast. He was on them in a second. His hands dug into Lucky’s shoulder, and Cora knew—she knew—that he would never get away.

“He can’t catch both of us,” Lucky yelled. “Keep going!”

Cora was crying now, that they had Lucky, and Mali and Leon were both gone, and she was on her own. The only way she could keep going was to tell herself that she’d come back for him. She’d head to the lowest level, and find the Mosca traders, and come back to rescue him.

She turned another corner as sweat poured down the back of her neck. A door stood at the end—a chance to hide. She threw herself against it.

Her beating heart was all she could hear as she dug her fingernails into the seam, screaming at the stupid door to open. She heard footsteps behind her and worked faster. The door didn’t budge. There were no tools around, only a blue cube above the doorway. An amplifier.

Rolf had said if she could damage it, the Kindred wouldn’t be able to open the doors with their telekinesis. Maybe the opposite was also true—if she broke it, maybe she could override the door and open it by hand.

She wedged her foot in the doorway and used it as leverage to push herself up until she could grab hold of the cube. She’d been expecting something hard like plastic, but it was cold and pulsing and wet, more like ice. Shock made her let go, and she had to climb up again, her heart pounding harder.

She gripped the cube again and dropped her weight. The sudden force made the cube splinter with a jolt of electricity. She cried out as she crashed to the ground, then scrambled to the door and shoved her fingers into the seam. It opened an inch, enough to wedge her toe in. Thank you, Rolf. She pushed harder, and it glided open.

She stumbled through the doorway, then pushed it closed behind her. She was in a room the size of the medical chamber, only not nearly as sparse. It was packed with a chaos of belongings, stacked on the floor, propped on a circular desk ringing nearly the entire room. Most of the clutter was unfamiliar—blue cubes of all sizes, boxes stuffed with a variety of apparatuses—but a few things seemed vaguely recognizable. Stacks of the Kindred’s cerulean clothing. A communicator like Cassian wore on his wrist. Metal boxes with lids piled against the wall. It all looked haphazard, but Cora got the sense it was actually highly organized, in the same way the market had been.