The Hunt (The Cage 2)

She remembered Cassian’s final words. This is where you give up, Cora.

She squeezed her fingers together harder. She had never really noticed before that the way her fingers interlaced formed a sort of natural zigzag. Strangely, the black lines of the markings at the bases of her fingers matched up, too. They met at the same place her fingers met, forming a zigzag exactly opposite the one formed by her fingers.

She drew in a sharp breath.

It made a double helix—the symbol of the Fifth of Five.

And the circular symbols at the base of each finger, which she had dismissed as incomprehensible coding, formed a series of circles in the center of that double helix. And maybe the symbols were true coding—after all, all the other humans had something similar—except for the larger circle on her ring finger that no one else had. She’d accused Cassian of designing it like a diamond ring. But now she saw the truth.

The double helix.

Five circles in the middle.

The last one—the one on her ring finger—radiating not like a diamond, but like a star. The fifth star. Humanity.

She clenched her hands together to hide the markings and pressed her fists against her mouth. All this time she had thought the markings were some elaborate puzzle, Cassian still manipulating her, and it was a puzzle. But it wasn’t about twisted ideas of love, like she and Lucky had thought.

It was a message of hope.

A promise.

I believe in you, Cassian had said. In all humans. Your species has the capacity for such rich emotions; selfishness and greed, yes, but also truth and forgiveness and sacrifice. When you believe in a cause, nothing can stop you. If anyone deserves to be the fifth intelligent species, it is you.

She pictured that final image of him strapped to the table. A pain started somewhere beneath her ribs, and she shifted in the chair, but it didn’t go away. She gripped the edge of the control panel, searching the stars for the pinprick of light that might be Earth.

She had earned home, hadn’t she? She needed home, didn’t she? But, Lucky’s voice whispered in her head, does home need you?

She let out a shaky breath. Lucky had been delirious. It wasn’t fair of him to hold her to impossible standards. Noble missions were for people like him. Like her father.

She looked down at the secret symbol on her hands again.

Cassian, who had risked so much already, had risked this small defiance too.

Over her shoulder, she saw Nok and Rolf holding hands, in silence. Mali was still massaging Anya, who had started to mumble. Lucky’s tarp was so terribly, tellingly still.

She clenched his notebook. Did he truly believe that their purpose was back on that station?

Did she?

An overwhelming wave of panic gripped her. She ran a hand over her forehead, shaking her head back and forth. This was crazy. The only factors they had working in their favor were a cache of dart guns and a few humans who’d covered for them before. And yet, wasn’t that what it meant to be human? To take chances that weren’t always logical? To not give up, if there was even the slightest hope?

She spun around in the chair. Leon frowned at the look on her face. Mali stopped rubbing Anya’s feet. Nok and Rolf blinked with grief-stricken eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cora blurted out.

Her voice caught up to her all at once. She cleared her throat and looked back at her knit fingers that displayed the Fifth of Five symbol.

“I think we should turn around.”

THE SHIP PITCHED SHARPLY to the side without warning. Cora’s head connected with the control panel with a starburst of pain. She reached out a hand, feeling for the wall. The others were yelling, but her ears were ringing too loudly to hear them. The ship pitched again and her foot connected with something large as she tumbled to the ground.

The ship abruptly righted again.

“What are you doing?” Nok yelled at Bonebreak.

“Girl says turn us around,” he answered. “I turned us around.”

“We need to discuss this first!” Rolf said.

Cora blinked through the black dots until her vision began to clear. There was a pale shape in front of her with sweat-soaked hair. Her stomach clenched—she had tripped over Lucky’s body.

Nok spun on her. “Are you crazy? Why would we go back?”

Cora pulled herself back into the second pilot’s chair and gripped the seat tightly. “Just hear me out.” She spoke cautiously, knowing how unpopular the idea would be. “This is bigger than us. This is about proving that we’re more than the Kindred think we are.”

Bonebreak chuckled.

Cora threw him a sharp look. “Just keep steering.”

“Cora is right.” It was Anya, her eyes cracked open, though her gaze still looked hazy. “Running away solves nothing.”

“Says the girl who’s been drugged for years,” Leon muttered. “No offense, kid, but you have some catching up to do.”

“Just because I was drugged,” Anya countered, “doesn’t mean I didn’t know what was going on. I saw it all. Every corner of the station. Even yours.”

That shut Leon up.

Cora went over to where Anya sat. “You can really tell what’s going on throughout the station, just with your mind?”

“Not all the time,” Anya said, rubbing her forehead. “But when I was drugged, I could. The Kindred thought drugging me would dull my mind, but it just showed me how to unlock it in new ways.” She looked down at her trembling hands. “Even if it did leave me damaged.”

Rolf pushed up from the floor. “You’re all forgetting the most important thing: it will be impossible to beat the Gauntlet now. We’ve missed it. Today is the day it began, and besides, guards will arrest you—all of us—if we go back.”

Nok tucked a pink strand of her hair behind one ear. “Rolf’s right. There’s nothing we can do.”

Cora tapped a finger on Lucky’s notebook, taking a deep breath. “There is something we can do. Lucky had codes to access a weapons cache. He was planning on using it after the Gauntlet to rescue the animals from the Hunt. But we can use it too.”

“What, to fight?” Nok cried. “Six of us against a Kindred army? That’s crazy!”

“There are hundreds of Kindred loyal to Cassian on the station too, already in place to launch a revolution. They’re called the Fifth of Five. We just have to get to them.”

“So . . . you’re suggesting suicide,” Leon said. “For us and for them.”

Cora threw him a look. “I’m suggesting we finish

what we started.”

“And you think partnering with some rebels means we’ll be safe?” Rolf asked. “There’s a reason Cassian was doing all this secretly—he knew as well as we do that the Council doesn’t want humans on their level.”

“Stop. Just stop.” Nok sank into the second pilot’s chair that Cora had vacated. “I understand that it isn’t easy to leave all those people back there, yeah? Maybe we could help them and maybe we couldn’t . . . but we can’t go back.” She pressed her hands against her abdomen. “There’s no way I’m having my baby there.”

“She’s right,” Rolf said. “It’s one thing to ask us to risk our lives and our freedom, but you can’t ask us to risk our child’s too.”

Cora paced, rubbing her aching forehead. She kept throwing glances at Lucky’s body, unable to believe he was truly gone. She slumped against the wall.

“Ah, screw it.” Leon stood up. “I’m with you.”

43

Mali

MALI LOOKED IN SURPRISE at Leon, who was still clutching his banged-up shoulder. “You are?” she asked.

Leon jerked his chin toward Lucky’s body. “The Caretaker said we each were the best at something, right? You know, Rolf’s smart and Nok’s hot and I’m the most perfect physical specimen out of all the people in the world—”

“I’m not sure those were his exact words,” Rolf muttered.

“But then there was Lucky. He was supposed to be the moral one. And those first few weeks, I never got it. Moral? I don’t know what he did back on Earth, but it wasn’t bake sales, eh?” He rubbed his shoulder, eyeing the white tarp. “But now I get it. Giving up always sat uneasy with him. He was a fighter. He would have fought for this.”

A strange sensation was happening inside Mali’s chest. She had never quite experienced it before; it was like her heart was not beating steadily when she looked at Leon. It was both uncomfortable and strangely pleasant at the same time.

Was this how falling in love felt?

Leon waved toward Nok and Rolf. “If you don’t want to help, fine. Stay on the ship.”