The Hunt (The Cage 2)

Sadie with her floppy old-dog ears. Charlie’s bedroom that always smelled like gym clothes. The view of the woodpecker-holed maple tree outside her window.

The only way to know if home was even still there was to set the knife down and stay on this ship. The thought filled her with a new worry—had she decided to turn back because she couldn’t face the reality of what they might find? A nearly 70 percent chance wasn’t one hundred, as Rolf had said. Her heart thumped, hard. No. No. She could still feel the warmth from that sun. In her heart, she knew that Earth was still there.

She snapped her eyes open. Her reflection looked back at her with cold determination. Lucky, out of all of them, had been the one with a cause. And now it was her cause too.

She set the knife’s blade against her rope of hair, just below her left ear, and started to saw.

Someone banged at the door.

Cora cursed, the knife skimming away along with only a few strands of hair. “What? I nearly stabbed myself.”

Mali’s face looked back. In the shadows, her eyes were hooded, and the lines around her mouth seemed heavier.

“I need to talk to you,” Mali said.

Cora glanced out at the ship’s cabin, where the others were discussing logistics. She nodded for Mali to come in.

“I have come to talk about Cassian.”

And just like that, Cora’s tension returned. Only now it was met with the guilt that pounded hard, as she remembered seeing him through the crack in the tunnel. “I saw Cassian,” Cora admitted. “When we were fleeing the station in the drecktubes. They were interrogating him with some machine; it looked like torture.”

The guilt pounded harder. Cassian was Mali’s friend. She might never forgive Cora for just having left him there to suffer.

“I am not going to chastise you for leaving him,” Mali said, as though she could read her mind.

Surprise made Cora straighten. “You aren’t?”

Mali held up her scarred hands. “This is why I wish to speak to you. These scars are because I trusted a Mosca. It is a mistake to believe Bonebreak will adhere to his deal. If he gets a better offer, he will sell us the moment we set foot on his planet.”

“He doesn’t own us. We’re wards of the Kindred state.”

“Not since we left the station. We are unowned by anyone, which means Bonebreak could do whatever he wishes with us. Anya and I were once in a similar situation. We fled from our previous owner and trusted in a Mosca trader to take us to a safe preserve. He didn’t. He took possession of us himself and planned on selling us back to the same owner.”

The space was so tight that Cora could smell Mali’s scent: salt and cotton. “What did you do?”

“We sold ourselves to someone else first. Anya coordinated it with one of the Mosca trader’s underlings. He was not very clever. We were able to convince him to betray his commander. We said we’d be worth twice the price our previous owner would have paid. He fell for it, and stole a small vessel that would take us back to the Kindred’s station. But the first time we stopped to refuel, Anya and I spread a rumor that there were thousands of tokens on his ship. Dozens of other Mosca swarmed to steal from him, and in the chaos, we were able to escape again.” She lowered her hands, flexing the scarred fingers. “My point is, we must sell ourselves to someone else. Someone from an intelligent race who will not let Bonebreak betray us. Someone we trust.”

Cora hugged her arms tightly. “Cassian.”

Mali nodded. “He is the only one we can rely on.” She held up Lucky’s notebook, which Cora had left on the control panel. “Perhaps the weapons Lucky describes are not enough against an entire Kindred army, but they might be sufficient to free Cassian.”

Cora blinked in surprise at the possibility.

“But we already talked about this,” she stammered. “We can’t go back there. I’ll be arrested.”

“You cannot,” Mali said. “But the Kindred are not looking for me or Leon. We could go back, he and I, and free Cassian with the weapons cache.”

“You’ve discussed this with Leon?”

“No, but he will come. He will do what is right. I know it.” She lowered her voice. “Armstrong preserve is on a moon not far from here. We will pass close to it. Have Nok and Rolf insist that they be dropped off there. It will be a convincing argument that they would prefer to have their baby there, among other humans, rather than in the unpredictability of a Mosca planet. While we are there, Leon and I can sneak off. Kindred supply ships make frequent runs. We can find a way to board one back to the station.”

“Armstrong?” Cora squeezed the knife harder. “That’s the place Dane was talking about. He said it was a paradise, but Cassian warned me about it. Are you sure it’s safe for Nok and Rolf?”

“It is the only choice we have.”

Mali opened the door behind her and disappeared.

With a shaky hand, Cora set Lucky’s notebook on the counter. A part of her wanted to pore over every page right then, soak up every last bit of him, even from beyond the grave. But there would be time for that; time to absorb every word, remember every detail.

She squeezed the knife hard, looked in the mirror, and cut through her hair in one slice.

It came away uneven from her shaking hand. Her reflection showed a messy asymmetrical cut, starting just under her left ear and hanging nearly to her right shoulder. She returned to the main cabin and tossed the rope of hair on the control panel in front of Bonebreak. The others paused in their conversations.

“Here. It’s done. But I want to stop at Armstrong first.” From the corner of her eye she saw Mali whispering the plan in Rolf’s ear. “For Nok and Rolf’s sake, and also to bury Lucky’s body.”

She squeezed the notebook harder. This was one last thing she could do for him, make sure his body rested in peace.

Bonebreak shrugged. “We need supplies anyway. To Armstrong we go, then, childrens.”

He shifted the controls and the ship veered sharply upward. Cora braced against the back of his chair as he hummed a strangely melodic little tune to himself in his crackling voice. For a while, the ship rumbled on through space. An hour passed, maybe two, and Cora clutched Lucky’s notebook the whole time.

“Hold on tight,” Bonebreak said at last. “Entry into Armstrong’s atmosphere can be bumpy.”

“We should sit in a circle,” Rolf said. “If we hold hands, it will provide stability.”

Leon snorted. “I’m not doing that ‘Kumbaya’ shit.”

“A circle is the most stable shape,” Rolf said, and sat next to him. He held out his hand to Nok, who scooted over between him and Anya and held out her hands. Mali scooted in too, and everyone linked hands. Cora looked over her shoulder at the white tarp, and a sharp pain stabbed through her.

“Come on, Leon.” She reached out.

He grumbled again as he scooted over, taking her hand

in his right and Rolf’s in his left. The ship suddenly pitched to the left, and they all held hands tighter, swaying with the movements.

“So what’s this Armstrong place like?” Nok asked cautiously.

“It’s where they send humans who turn nineteen and have been obedient,” Cora said, trying to sound optimistic in case Bonebreak was listening. “Like a reward. It’s a sort of nature preserve where they can govern themselves and live how they want.”

Bonebreak glanced over his shoulder; she couldn’t read his expression.

“Another fucking zoo,” Leon grumbled.

“No,” Cora added. “There aren’t any bars, and the people there aren’t being watched. It’s the size of a small moon, and it’s habitable.”

“But if it’s habitable,” Nok said, “why don’t any Kindred inhabit it? Why leave it for us?”

Cora could feel the uneasiness in Nok’s words, and she felt uneasy too. She lowered her voice. “We won’t leave you there if it isn’t safe, Nok. I promise.” And then she raised her voice for Bonebreak to hear. “The Kindred are an astral species, not terrestrial.”

But that uneasy feeling reached the tear in the back of Cora’s head, throbbing. She hoped she wasn’t leading Nok and Rolf—and all of them—into a situation even worse than the one they’d just come from.

The ship dipped sharply. Nok shrieked, and they gripped hands harder. Bonebreak leaned forward, scratching his head, and then shoved a control upward. The ship pitched again. Cora had the feeling of free-falling. That awful rise of her stomach that made her just want to push everything down, to ball up tight, but she didn’t let go of either hand. Then the free fall ended abruptly, and there was a rumbling that made her legs and arms jiggle.

“Ever flown before?” Leon barked to Bonebreak.

“I did kill the best pilot,” Bonebreak muttered at the controls.

The ship keeled sharply to the right. Cora couldn’t see the viewing panel from her place on the floor, but the colors had changed. No longer the dim shine of distant stars, but bright flashing colors, as if they were flying straight into a sunrise. Pressure built in her ears. It was the same pressure as when Cassian had materialized her out of the cage, making her body feel like it was breaking up into thousands of tiny particles, until it was all she could do to squeeze her eyes shut.