The Cage: The Hunt Part 19

"But there would be consequences you cannot foresee," he added.

"What consequences?"

He didn't answer.

"Look," she said, "you would be humiliated, I get it. But a little bruised pride is nothing compared to what you did to me. You-" Her voice hitched. "You gave me hope and then crushed it."

The wall panel hummed softly, like a trapped insect, and for a while it drowned out all other noise. Then he curled his fingers around hers. "It was all so you, and your kind, could have a better life."

"Ros.h.i.+an nearly killed me. Is that better?"

He leaned in. "I blame myself for not foreseeing his intentions." His hands were growing warmer. He glanced at the door, as though remembering the body bleeding out into the savanna sand that, if found, would ruin them both. "Sometimes I think the Council is right when they insist humans are of a lesser intelligence, because that is the only way to explain such a senseless plan to cheat the Gauntlet. And to solicit the Mosca's help is even more foolish. Just because Leon lives among them does not make them loyal. Everything is a whim for them, whatever they feel like that day, betraying a promise or keeping it." He shook his head. "Your plan is foolhardy."

"Maybe the Mosca aren't trustworthy," she said. "But neither are you."

"You said you forgave me."

She looked down at her hands. "I lied."

His fingers curled harder around hers. "I've done everything for you. I took you from a dying planet. I gave you a world where you could be happy. I gave you a partner who was perfectly matched for you. I'm risking everything to expand your mind, so that you, and all your kind, don't have to live like animals anymore. I am risking my life and my own freedom-as are Tessela and Fian and many others-because we believe in our mission to free humanity. We are doing this for you." His hands were shaking now. Try as he might, his emotional cloak was slipping. "Even now, I am bending every rule to find out if your home planet is still in existence, though we both know it would mean that I'd never see you again. And you throw it all back at me like I have done nothing."

At last, he let her go and stood. "Fian and I will bury Ros.h.i.+an's body. But I will not let you go through with this foolish plan to cheat the Gauntlet. Either you will agree to run it honestly or we abandon all our plans right here. You can return to the Hunt and survive as long as you can behind bars, until you turn nineteen and they drag you off to an even worse place. Tell me, right now. No lies. No deceptions. What do you choose?"

Cora's pulse throbbed in her head, too loud to think. In Bay Pines, the guards had always offered the inmates two choices. It was supposed to teach them to make good decisions. Once, Queenie got into a fight in the cafeteria, and the guards said she could either spend free period cleaning the spilled food or be dragged straight off to solitary. Queenie had just smiled and stabbed a fork into her hand, and spent the next two weeks in a cushy bed in the psych hospital watching Friends reruns.

Cora had learned a lesson from Queenie that day, but not the one the guards wanted: just because someone told you there were only two choices didn't mean they were right.

Sometimes you had to make your own third option.

29.

Cora "ANSWER ME, CORA," Ca.s.sIAN said. "Agree to run the Gauntlet according to my rules. There is still time. It is for your own good."

"Is it?" Her voice was dangerously soft. "We both know this is about more than the Gauntlet. You can't stand the thought of your precious pet not obeying you." She met his eyes with a challenging stare. "You can't stop thinking about that day in the ocean surf when you kissed me. I bet you even want to do it again, don't you? Feel desire, and love, and all those emotions that are denied to you. You never wanted me to be free. You want me to be yours." She turned her hand palm up to show the markings on her skin. "Did you think I wouldn't notice my ring finger? You modified the markings to look like a diamond ring."

He went quiet. His eyes went from her hand to her face and back again.

"You've studied humanity more than any other Kindred," she continued. "You know what a diamond ring means to us. To have and to hold."

The muscles of his neck were tensing. He picked up the gloves again, tugging one on stiffly. "You understand nothing."

"Don't I?" She stood. "You might be wearing a mask, but I can still see beneath it."

He turned on her fast enough to make her breath go still. He would never hurt her, she knew, but it was impossible not to be intimidated by him.

He leaned in until he could whisper against her ear.

"Can you? Well then, let's both drop our masks." He closed his eyes. The muscles of his face s.h.i.+fted beneath his skin. Tension drained away. Jaw softened. When he opened his eyes, they had cleared into the gray storm clouds that hovered just over his irises.

He blinked.

"This is bigger than what I want, and what you want." His voice was rounder, more insistent, and it made her blood pool in her heart. "I suspected all along that you were not being honest with me, but I did not want to believe it. And I don't blame you for wanting to cheat us, after we have mistreated you. But now, you must agree to do this the correct way. Then, once this is over, I'll take you back to your solar system myself, so we can both learn the truth. And if the algorithm is right, and there is only a hole in the sky where your home used to be, you will truly know that there is no other place for you than with me."

A s.h.i.+ver ran down her back. "Don't talk like that."

But he leaned in closer. "You accuse me of wanting to feel lesser emotions. You're right. Is it such a crime to want to feel? I do not understand why we must always be at odds. Why we cannot be partners in proving humanity's intelligence. Why that partners.h.i.+p cannot cross into what I feel in my heart whenever I think of you. Why you cannot love me, and why you feel such contempt for the fact that I love you."

His lips grazed her ear on his last words. She drew in a tight breath, electricity from his touch shooting through her nerves. He turned his head just slightly, until the side of his face pressed hers. "You do not give up," he said. "And so I will not give up either. Even when it goes against logic."

He wanted to kiss her. She could feel it in every move he made.

And she wanted him to. She wanted to put aside the anger, the betrayal, the questions over the future. She wanted to forget about the murder on her hands.

But she looked away.

"No," she said. "There's a third way. You say you respect us, so prove it. Help me do this my way."

His hands flexed against the wall indecisively, as though part of him still wanted to kiss her right there. His face was warm against hers.

"I cannot condone cheating."

"You can. Because if you truly love me, then the only way that I could come to love you back is if we're complete equals."

She let her lips graze his ear and felt his jaw tighten in response. He let out a breath and then pulled away, hands falling to his sides. He paced quickly, one hand scrubbing over his face in indecision. For a minute, she almost regretted using him like this. But then he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the other glove from the table and tugged it on, his movements tight and angry.

"Does this mean you'll help?" She couldn't keep the hope from her voice.

He gave a reluctant nod. "Yes, though you have no idea what you're asking. There are complications . . ." His voice was tense, and he dropped whatever he was going to say. "Just rest. Your mind needs it. I'll return shortly."

The door slid closed behind him.

The panel hummed, and the weight of solitude pressed in from all sides. She pressed a hand to her lips, where she could still feel a lingering spark. Her body started shaking at the thought that after everything-the murder and the argument and months of anger-they were on the same side. There would be no more secrets or lies.

She staggered into the bedroom and paced, trying to calm her heart. He had left a drawer open, and she riffled through it. Black s.h.i.+rts made of a liquid-metal material that was like impenetrable silk; they were formfitting on him, but when she changed into one, it fell below her hips like a loose tunic. She pressed the fabric to her face. It smelled like ozone and salt, and for a moment the lingering image of Ros.h.i.+an's b.l.o.o.d.y face disappeared, and she remembered standing in the ocean with Ca.s.sian, her face pressed against this same s.h.i.+rt.

Had he really meant his promise? Had she?

I could come to love you. . . .

The idea made her s.h.i.+ver with either nerves or excitement, and she balled up her dirty dress and shoved it into the back of the drawer, then slammed it closed. There was another drawer next to it. Curious, she tapped on it, trying to mimic whatever gesture he made to open them. She swirled her finger over the drawer's surface, trying circles, stars, crosses, and then paused. Slowly, she traced the symbol that he had drawn for her once on the alcove table. The symbol of the effort to prove humanity's worth, the Fifth of Five: a double helix with five marks for the five intelligent species.

The drawer opened, but inside she found only more clothes, a deck of cards, a few spare temporary removal pa.s.ses. Then her fingers brushed something hard.

A small spiral-bound notebook.

It was cheap; the kind of thing you'd pick up at the dollar store to jot down grocery lists in. But the worn pages suggested it had been handled carefully for some time. She flipped open the cover, but there were only strange marks in pencil that varied in pressure, like the writer wasn't sure how hard to press.

She flipped another page. It was just shapes. A small circle, a large oval, something like an elongated triangle. She flipped again. Similar shapes, only more confidently drawn. One line was marked through, and another carefully drawn next to it. As she kept flipping, the shapes continued to evolve until her eye could st.i.tch them together into something recognizable. That triangle was meant to be a tail. That small circle, an eye. By the last pages, the shapes formed a roughly drawn picture of a dog, its ears perked up.

She stared at the drawings. Had Ca.s.sian taken this from one of the abducted children? No, there was something so odd about the drawing. The lines wavered as if the artist didn't know how to properly hold a pencil.

She flipped the page again, and started. In the final drawing, there was a loop on the dog's back strung with a chain. It wasn't just any dog-it was the charm Ca.s.sian had once given her to remind her of Sadie.

He had made these drawings. Painstakingly, secretly, teaching himself how to make human marks on human paper to depict an animal from a lost world. Why? She ran through every explanation, but there was really only one that made sense.

He wanted to draw. He wanted to make art.

She closed the notebook and stowed it back in the drawer.

She lay down. The pounding in her ears abated, and she began to hear the sounds of the station. Electricity pulsing. Machinery whirring softly. Right now, he would be destroying Ros.h.i.+an's body to erase evidence of the murder she had committed.

Her thoughts started to unjumble as she rested. She believed everything he had said. That he loved her and wanted to prove humanity's intelligence badly enough that he would even help her cheat-a practice that went against his core nature. It made her think of her parents' marriage being held together with lies. Her mother's denial about drinking and about all those late-night sessions with her personal trainer-though she didn't seem to lose a single pound. Her father's string of affairs too, the campaign aides and the widow two houses down, and all the false promises about a stable life, about retiring from politics, when he never had the slightest intention. A relations.h.i.+p twisted by betrayal was no relations.h.i.+p at all.

But then she thought of the drawing. If Ca.s.sian was going to stand by his promise, then maybe she would stand by hers. Maybe he didn't deserve giving up on. And maybe not all relations.h.i.+ps that started with lies also had to end with them.

30.

Leon LEON GRUMBLED TO HIMSELF as he stood over the broken-down parts of a baby crib. Bonebreak had agreed to the safe room idea, but only if Leon forfeited his cut of each smuggling run, which was extortion if he'd ever heard of it. But he'd begrudgingly agreed, and Bonebreak's underlings had taken him to this dusty storeroom that, as best he could tell from the smell, used to house rancid cheese.

"Why don't these b.l.o.o.d.y things come with instructions?" he muttered to himself, picking up a piece that might have been a railing. It was the same crib he'd busted out of when he'd first met the Mosca, pink penguin bedding and all. Beside it sat a stack of baby supplies he'd managed to scrounge. Some tiny cowboy pajamas. A bottle with dancing giraffes on it. A stack of old s.h.i.+rts advertising a dentist in San Diego that he figured they could use for diapers.

"Let's see, this part matches this part. . . ." He fumbled with a screw, and cursed as the entire crib fell apart again. "Well, s.h.i.+t."

He seriously needed a hammer, or whatever super-advanced alien tool would stick two pieces of wood together. He sauntered through the halls of Bonebreak's lair toward one of the back rooms. It was in a sector Bonebreak said was off-limits, but the h.e.l.l if he was going to rebuild that crib with spit and duct tape alone.

"Hey, anybody here?" He stuck his head into a few empty rooms. "h.e.l.lo?"

He riffled through a few crates but found nothing useful, and kept searching. All the doors were unlocked except the last one, at the end of the hall. He shoved it with his shoulder, but it was stuck.

He backed up, aiming his shoulder with the artificial s.h.i.+elding, and raced toward the door. He felt the force of the impact all the way to his teeth, but the door buckled open. He rubbed his shoulder, then pushed the door all the way open.

He stopped.

What the h.e.l.l?

Bonebreak and his men stood in a circle beneath a s.h.i.+p. A real G.o.dd.a.m.n s.h.i.+p. It was a clunker to be sure, painted a pukey shade of green, but there it was. All docked, everything official. Mosca writing on the side. Spare parts and tools lined the walls. A G.o.dd.a.m.n s.h.i.+p in a G.o.dd.a.m.n flight room Bonebreak had told him was off-limits.

"You liar!" Leon barked. "What happened to forty years before the next s.h.i.+p returns?"

Bonebreak turned, and Leon caught sight of what they were all gathered around. A dead body lay in their midst. Upon closer inspection, Leon noticed the red-soled boots of the Mosca crew's former second in command. He also noticed the knife jutting out of the second's back.

"Uhh . . . on second thought, I'll come back later." Leon whirled.

"Stay." Bonebreak's voice crackled with static. He stepped around the second's sprawled arm. "This is just a little housekeeping. So. You got curious and came exploring, hmm?"

Leon held up his hands, stuttering to think, which was hard while staring at a dead body. "Just, uh, my mistake."

"Well, now you know. There is a s.h.i.+p. Yes. If I had told you as much, I would never hear the end of it. Take me home, Bonebreak. I miss my family. I miss taco night. I miss my kitty-cat." Bonebreak made a disgusted sound from behind his mask. "Do you really think you're the first human we've worked with? I've heard it all, boy."

Bonebreak's disdain was starting to wear on Leon. He narrowed his eyes, darting his gaze between the dead crew member and the s.h.i.+p. "You should have told me anyway."

"You work for me, not the other way around. My second in command had a problem understanding that." He stepped right on the Mosca's dead body, whose bones snapped beneath his feet. "Do you have a problem too?"

"Me?" Leon winced as more bones popped. "Nope."

"Good. You never saw this s.h.i.+p, understand? If I let you return to Earth, then who is going to crawl around the tunnels for me, hmm? As you said yourself, n.o.body steals quite like you do." Bonebreak poked Leon's stomach with a spindly finger. "Unless you get too fat to fit in the tunnels. Then no home for you, no nothing for you, just a knife in your back."

Leon clutched at his stomach. "It's mostly muscle!"

"Silence. Do you have the payment for the last trade?"

A sinking feeling overcame him. He touched his pocket, hoping for a miracle, but it was still empty. "About that. There's a problem. The other half of your business partners.h.i.+p died before I could collect the payment."

Bonebreak straightened. "Ros.h.i.+an is dead?"

"Yeah, but not before I peeked into that black bag of his. You know what you've been supplying him with, right? The makeup and stuff? That creep was human."

Bonebreak took another step over the body of his former second in command, giving a flick of his fingers. "It is not my job to care which species my clients are. And I do not appreciate not getting paid for my s.h.i.+pments."

"He was dead. What was I supposed to do?"

"That's your problem," Bonebreak said, and then crunched the second in command's foot. "We're just full of problems today, aren't we, crew?"

The other Mosca, in the shadow of the s.h.i.+p, did not answer. Bonebreak stooped down and pulled out the knife from the second in command's back. He slowly wiped the blood on his jumpsuit.

Leon held up his hands. "I can get the payment. I swear."

Bonebreak c.o.c.ked his head. "You already owe me for that safe room. Your credit is running thin. Too thin, I think." Leon couldn't tell what expression Bonebreak was making behind the mask, but he didn't like the way the knife was aimed toward him. But then Bonebreak holstered it and signaled to his underlings. "Roadag. Silverquake. Show the boy what he gets for sneaking around."

Before Leon could turn, a plank of something hard smashed into his face.

He staggered backward.