They watched as Roshian hefted the rifle. Scavenger’s head swiveled toward them. He was panting from the heat, blinking slowly at the rifle. Just as Roshian pulled the trigger, he looked away.
Crack.
The bullet tore through the air. Scavenger flinched with a yip of pain than shot through Mali’s heart, and by instinct her hand went for the door latch to run to him, but she let her hand fall. It wouldn’t do any good.
Scavenger tried to stand, only to collapse. Chemicals in the simulated bullets would be spreading through his bloodstream, inducing temporary paralysis and triggering extra blood flow and bruising around the wound.
“Jesus,” Lucky said softly. “This is even worse than what happens backstage.”
Jenny leaned on the hood of the vehicle and muttered through the open window, “Seriously. He’s one sick bastard.”
Mali looked at her, but Jenny didn’t elaborate.
Christopher signaled to Jenny, who snatched up the carcass bag and crossed the dusty plain to Scavenger’s body. Mali waited behind the wheel, her arms folded tight. Lucky was still rubbing his finger over the words carved in the dash, looking anywhere but at Scavenger.
Christopher and Jenny started to load Scavenger into the back of the vehicle, but Roshian shook his head.
“Wait.”
Roshian knelt by the carcass bag and extracted a knife from his pocket. Real metal. An artifact from Earth—highly contraband. Roshian opened the bag’s netting and took out one of Scavenger’s stiff front paws.
Mali threw open the drivers side door. “This is not protocol—”
Jenny reached out, stopping her. “Hey, let it go,” she said in a hushed warning.
“He is going to hurt Scavenger.”
“Scavenger’s already dead, don’t you get it? Roshian made Christopher replace the simulated rifle with a real one. Said he made some deal with Dane about it.”
The flames of anger inside Mali flickered wildly. She threw a look back to Lucky, who looked as shocked as she was. Dead? Scavenger was dead? He wouldn’t wake up later, rubbing his nose with his paw?
The flames of her anger dimmed lower, growing hotter, until they were tight as coals. She climbed back in the truck and slammed the door, flexing and unflexing her hands, as they watched Roshian press the knife point against one of Scavenger’s toes.
Jenny leaned close to the window. “I think it’s the kill he wants,” she whispered, “not just the hunt. And I don’t think this is the first time. Remember that whitetail deer that died? Dane said it was sick, but it didn’t look sick to me. And he claimed he had to saw the antlers off to make it fit down the drecktube, but that tube’s pretty big when it’s unlocked.”
Mali whirled in confusion. “What do you mean.”
“Think about it—none of us ever saw those antlers again. I think Roshian wanted them as a trophy. Hunters do that on Earth, sometimes. Hang them above the television set or whatever. It’s like how the Axion think certain body parts have medicinal uses.”
“It is against the moral code.”
Jenny let out a mirthless laugh. “Yeah. Well, no good reporting it to Dane. He’s in on it.”
They watched as Roshian dug the knife blade deeper. Blood seeped from the wound as he sawed at flesh and fur and tendon, then slipped the claw into his pocket. Mali flexed her own scarred fingers.
“Take me back to the lodge,” he ordered, climbing into the rear seat.
Beside her, Lucky was quiet.
Mali started the truck with shaking fingers.
She had thought the Kindred were like family. Cassian, who had rescued her. Serassi, who had healed her wounds. But now, as she threw the truck into reverse and glanced at Roshian in the rearview mirror, she realized that none of them were family. Her real family was still in that desert on Earth, with the camels and the hot tea.
Cora had been right. They didn’t belong here.
She glanced at Lucky. His attention was still on the carving in the dashboard. Numbers, it looked like. Or letters. “You seen these before?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Chicago used to drive this truck. Maybe he carved them while he waited for the guests to hunt.”
“I think I’ve seen the numbers somewhere.”
In the rearview mirror, Roshian snaked a hand up to his buzzed head, where a line of sweat ran down to his face. He dabbed at it slowly, all the while stroking the claw in his pocket.
Mali flexed her hand again.
Yes, he was definitely more dangerous than anyone imagined.
16
Cora
BACKSTAGE, THE CLOCK CLICKED over to indicate that Free Time had ended.
All the kids climbed into their cages. Sighs and grumbles, blankets being rolled out, Makayla kicking off her shoes and rubbing her feet. In the shadows, Cora could just make out each of their shapes as they lay down shivering on the cold metal floors.
“Good night, Roger,” Jenny whispered to the bobcat.
But Cora didn’t go to sleep.
Ever since that first lesson with the dice, she had met with Cassian every few days to continue the telekinesis training secretly, and she’d been practicing on her own after lights-out. Night after night, she had concentrated on the small blue dots, willing the die to move. After three nights, she could make it slide across the floor a full foot. After five nights, she could make it flip over, turning itself from 3 to 1 to 6. After seven nights, she could make it hover a half inch off the floor.
If you can achieve levitation of a medium-sized object for thirty sustained seconds, Cassian had said, you will have a chance of passing whichever test the Gauntlet gives you.
It was still a ways to go, she knew, but the progress was undeniable. The Gauntlet would arrive in just under one rotation, which gave her somewhere between ten and fourteen more days.
But levitation wasn’t the only skill she needed to develop.
She hid the die under her blanket, waiting for the others to fall asleep. Beside her, the fox gnawed a small wooden giraffe from the lodge that Lucky must have stolen for it. She could just barely make out Lucky’s silhouette in the near darkness. He leaned against the wall, blanket balled up for a pillow, arms hugged close against the cold. She guessed he was just as awake as she was.
After a few more minutes, someone started snoring. Jenny gave a soft sigh like she had fallen asleep too. Soon, Shoukry stopped rolling over and was quiet. Cora waited longer, at least another hour, just to be sure. When she opened her eyes, they fell on the blue lightlock.
It was time for a bigger challenge than dice—getting out of her cell.
She examined every detail of the lightlock. The raised circular ring in the center. The slight dent in the bars where it was attached.
Move, she willed.
She was getting light-headed. She licked her dry lips and tried again.
Move.
Something was missing; that click. The amplifier attached to the lightlock was weaker than the one on the training die. Her vision slid around in the darkness, making her feel as if the entire room was rocking like a ship. She gripped the bars on either side of the lock, steadying herself. She visualized cutting through the pain that was building around the edges of her mind. Focusing on the lock, only on the lock, until everything else vanished.
Move!
Her mind pulsed all at once, like two hands had suddenly squeezed it, and for a second, she thought, Yes, that’s it! But the lock still didn’t move. She hissed in frustration.
She concentrated harder, until her mind was screaming so loud that she was shocked the others hadn’t woken. The pressure grew and grew. She felt wetness under her nose and tasted the bite of blood, but she didn’t wipe it away. She was so close. She could feel the catch on the lock. There was a force holding it together. If she could just shut off that pressure . . .
Blood dripped on the floor.
Move, she willed. Move.
And then . . .
“Magnetic.”
Her eyes flew open. Someone had spoken right in her ear. Who? Who had whispered? The fox in the neighboring cell gnawed calmly on its giraffe statue, oblivious. Across the passageway, someone snored softly. The room was just as quiet as it had been.
A coldness crept up her legs.
It had to have been Dane. He was the only one able to leave his cell. And yet his cell door was closed.
She waited, still, for several minutes. At last, the pain in her mind ebbed. She took a deep breath and gripped the bars again. It hadn’t sounded like Dane. It hadn’t sounded like anything really, not a boy nor a girl nor a Kindred, and certainly not Cassian.
But wherever it came from, it made sense. Magnetics. She’d been wrong to try to move a piece of the lock, because there were no moving parts.
Instead, she needed to open it.
She rested her forehead against the bars and felt out the shape of the lock with her mind.
She ignored the taste of blood.
The pain.
Her sense of balance—swaying like on a ship.
Open, she urged, and something in her head clicked.