The Cage (The Cage 1)

Cora’s heart clenched. She liked this side of him, the one that cared about his little sister. She almost told him she’d been locked up too, but stopped. Her father’s voice was too fresh. “We’ll never speak of what happened,” he had said. “Not to the media, not even to each other. You’re not an ex-con, you’re our daughter.”

But she was an ex-con. That’s what they never understood.

She stood and tugged on Leon’s massive arm. “Come on.”

When they returned to the others, Nok was twisting the pink strand of her hair nervously. “You really think we can go back?” she asked.

“Of course we can’t!” Rolf sputtered, pushing at the place where his glasses should reside. “That could be the reason they killed the other girl—for all we know, she was trying to escape. They gave us three rules. That’s all. We should at least try to obey. There might not even be any walls or exits, anyway.”

“There is an exit,” Cora said. “The Caretaker called it a fail-safe.”

Rolf shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. They’d just see us through those panels and stop us.”

“Why do you want to stay here so badly?” Cora snapped.

He blinked like she had slapped him. “It isn’t about staying here,” he said. “It’s about staying alive.”

Staying alive. Cora had experience with staying alive. At Bay Pines, girls made makeshift knives out of toothbrushes. Pummeled each other with pillowcases full of loose change. She’d tried to banish such memories, like her father had said, but some things were harder to forget.

Maybe she shouldn’t try so hard to forget.

“I might have an idea,” she said hesitantly. “The Kindred are stronger than us, but not invincible. The Caretaker breathes oxygen, which means he could choke. He had a bump on his nose like it had been broken. He’s not flawless.”

“What are we going to hurt them with?” Rolf asked. “Meat loaf? Every inch of this place has been designed like a padded cell.”

“There are weapons.” She leaned in and dropped her voice. “Remember those toys we saw in the shops? The Caretaker said they were authentic artifacts from Earth. That means they’re real, not soft like everything else. Those croquet mallets could inflict serious damage. We could use the guitar strings as a garrote.”

“What’s a garrote, eh?” Leon asked.

“A weapon you can use to strangle a person silently,” she explained calmly.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered. “How’s a girl like you know a thing like that?”

Cora bit the inside of her cheek. “I watch a lot of TV,” she lied.

Thankfully, Lucky saved her from having to explain further. “It’s a good plan—and the only one we’ve got. We have twenty-one days before they remove us. Until then, we’ll solve their puzzles—it will look like we’re cooperating. But really, we’ll map the different habitats to find the fail-safe exit and win prizes we can secretly turn into weapons we can defend ourselves with.”

Rolf shook his head. “We can’t even solve the jukebox puzzle, and you expect to escape from super-intelligent extraterrestrials? Impossible.”

Cora glanced at the black window. Was the Caretaker watching? Her skin still tingled at the memory of the spark of electricity. Did all humans feel it, or was it only her?

Lucky shot Leon a sharp look. “And don’t even think about acting on Rule Three.”

Leon held up his hands. “Why are you telling me? My girl’s dead.”

Nok let out a quiet sound of disgust.

Cora rubbed the constellation marks on her neck. It wasn’t just her eyes that felt tired. It was her whole body; her face, her limbs, her mind. They had more to worry about than the Kindred. Captivity did strange things to people. In Bay Pines, pretty girls had lusted after balding old male guards because that’s all there was, and human nature was too strong—even stronger when family and routine were taken away.

“Tomorrow,” Lucky said. “We’ll divide into teams, and start our escape.”

16

Nok

NOK HAD BEEN STANDING ankle-deep in slime for the last two hours.

The day before, when Lucky had suggested they search the habitats, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. Lucky and Cora had gone to the forest. Leon had set out on his own for the mountains. Why she and Rolf had been given the swamp environment to explore, she’d never know. Next time she’d request someplace dry and warm, like the farm.

She looked at the sky between the breaks in the trees. Perfect and blue, but no birds. Around them, set into mossy banks, black panels watched. She shivered, thinking of the beast with the gleaming skin who had called himself the Caretaker. He looked like a man, but his shimmering bronze face reminded her of the iridescence of lizard scales. When she’d been a little girl, the monk in her village would read stories from a leather-bound copy of the Ramakien. There was an illustration of the god Phra Phai, with blue skin and a celestial beauty that masked his treacherous nature. That painting had always both terrified and enchanted Nok. That’s how she thought of the Caretaker, as Phra Phai. God of wind, giver of life—and of death.

Ahead, Rolf was nearly invisible among the trees.

“Hey, wait!” she called.

Rolf came tromping back through the slime. “Sorry.” He held out a twitchy hand to help her across a knot of roots, and her mood softened. How easy it was to manipulate boys like him. Shed a few tears, and they’d do anything.

Nok rubbed her arm, looking at the slime swallowing her feet. She’d gone along with Delphine’s lessons because she’d had no choice: Delphine controlled every aspect of their lives. The flophouse was supposed to keep them “safe” and the pathetically sparse food was supposed to keep them “thin.” Instead it kept them starved and enslaved as they were driven around to shoots in an ancient black van with sticky seats.

And Nok had been good. She could look into the camera and give the man on the other side exactly what he wanted. A smile full of promise, an alluring tilt of her chin. But each time, resentment had grown in her, bit by bit, like a cancer.

She blinked. Delphine isn’t here. For once, she didn’t need coy smiles. She could just be herself.

“No . . . I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s this headache.”

“We’ll turn back soon.” Rolf helped her trod though the sticky mud. “Wouldn’t want to stay out here after dark.”