The Hunt (The Cage 2)

“That is unlikely.” Bonebreak stroked the chin part of his mask. “The debris-cleaning traps would kill you long before you’d suffocate.”

“Traps?”

“I’m surprised they didn’t kill you already. They’re stationed at random intervals, set to be triggered by anything other than an official package. They release a burst of flammable gas that incinerates anything that shouldn’t be in the tunnels.”

“Like me,” Leon added.

Bonebreak cocked his head. “Like you—if you are not careful.”

Leon scrubbed his face, grumbling to himself about all the ways he was going to die on this station. “So you want me to risk my life to steal for you, eh? Crawl around booby traps like some spy shit?” He scratched his chin. “What’s in it for me?”

Bonebreak cackled again. “Your life.” Bonebreak’s underlings, huddled around the edge of the room, cackled too.

“Yeah, well, I can do a hell of a lot more than crawl, see? I escaped the Kindred. I didn’t even know the traps were there, and still avoided them. I’m good. And I’m not risking my life for a few stale potato chips.”

Bonebreak eyed him with contempt. “What do you want?”

Leon paused. “I want you to radio those supply ships out there, the ones going to Earth. I want to know . . .” He pictured his sister, Ellie, and his nieces and nephews who used to play Godzilla with him, and his dad who he’d never visited in prison, not even once. “I want to know if my family is . . .” His throat seemed clogged all of a sudden.

But then a wave of anger swept him up, and he turned away. No. It didn’t matter if Earth was still there. Did he really want to know if his sister and his nieces and nephews were dead? “I want a place on your crew. A proper bed, not a damn crate. I’m sure you can smuggle that out of somewhere. And I want half of what I steal for you.”

Bonebreak stared at him from behind the mask. “A quarter.”

“Deal.” Leon reached for the bottle of vodka, but Bonebreak held it back.

“There is one more thing. To be a part of our crew requires a sort of . . . initiation.” He held his hand open, and one of his underlings skittered forward and placed a curved, jagged-looking sewing needle there. Leon’s stomach shrank.

Bonebreak slowly threaded the needle with the gummy black wire that held their masks to their faces. “We’ll start with a small piece of shielding on the upper arm, since you can breathe without the aid of a mask. The thread is coated in cobalt toxin; it keeps the skin from grafting to it. It’s only moderately poisonous. We’ve never actually used it on a human before, but you’re a big fellow—I think you’ll be fine.”

Leon paced, eyeing that heinous needle. Bonebreak wanted him to be exactly what he had been on Earth: filth. A criminal. A bad guy. The Kindred had thought he had potential to be something more—damned if he knew why. Cora had thought so too.

He looked out into the blackness of the shipping tunnel. Somewhere, it connected to them. Cora. Mali. Lucky. Nok and Rolf, wherever the Kindred were keeping them. Lucky would have put on his damned white knight suit of armor and gone to rescue them all.

But Leon wasn’t like Lucky.

Leon wasn’t a hero.

And anytime he had ever tried to help someone, he’d only ended up hurting them more. He grabbed the bottle of vodka and drank until he could barely remember Cora’s name, or Mali’s pretty face, and let the Mosca set a molded piece of shielding against his shoulder.

Bonebreak raised the needle.

No—he wasn’t a hero. He was a smuggler. And, apparently, now an official member of Bonebreak’s crew.

7

Cora

CORA CLAMPED A HAND over the place on her arm where she’d been pinched, and spun to find herself looking at a girl dressed in safari clothes, with long black hair tied in unkempt braids, and a permanent scowl.

“Mali!”

Dane tossed Cora a warning look from behind the bar. She dropped her voice, fighting the urge to throw her arms around her friend. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”

Mali wore the same safari uniform as the other kids, but with a driving cap over her braids, and thick leather gloves just like the boy they’d dragged away had worn. As soon as Cora saw them, uneasiness bloomed in her stomach. “Is everything okay? What happened to that boy?”

“I do not know,” Mali said. “Cassian puts me here early today. He makes me a driver. The boy they take away is also a driver. His name is Chicago. He teaches me to steer the trucks this morning. They go on a track, the same circle again and again until we find an animal to shoot. The guards come for him and he starts yelling. The other safari guides look scared, but they tell me to pretend nothing happens.”

Cora glanced toward the bar. The Kindred with the sunken eyes was still watching her with that creepy smile.

“Have you seen Lucky?” Cora asked. “What about Leon? Nok and Rolf?”

“I hear nothing about them.” Mali suddenly latched onto Cora’s wrist with clawlike fingers. “Do you remember your promise.”

Cora’s arm stung all over again. “Promise?”

“Anya.” Mali’s short nails dug deeper into her skin. “My friend. We make a deal in the cage: I help you escape and you help rescue Anya.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Cora said, biting through the pain. “But it isn’t like we can just stroll over there and get her. We’re trapped.”

Mali squeezed even tighter.

“Fine!” Cora hissed. “If there’s any way to do it, then we will. Now, stop clawing me.?

?

Mali released her and then gave her flat smile, friendly again. “Good. We will talk more. After work.”

She started to leave, but Cora jerked her chin at the Kindred with the sunken eyes. “Hang on a minute. That Kindred keeps looking at me. Do you know who he is?”

Mali scratched at a bug bite on her neck. “His name is Roshian. Makayla tells me about him this morning. Ignore him. He is harmless.”

“Makayla?”

“The one who dances.”

Before Cora could ask more, Dane beckoned her back onstage, and she didn’t dare disobey him again. The platform was smeared in fresh blood from the hyena. She looked back at the audience. Roshian had started dancing again with Makayla, stepping on her toes hard enough to make her grimace.

Their eyes met over the girl’s shoulder, and he smiled again. Ignore him? Even if she could, there were thirty more just like him. Watching her. Judging her. Maybe just waiting to drag her off too, like they had Chicago. She stepped up to the microphone again, but this time her voice was shaking.

Back home, her dream had been to become a songwriter. She’d secretly scrawled lyrics in her journal after her parents had gone to bed, about what it was like to be trapped in the life of a senator’s daughter. She’d close her eyes and imagine a stage where she could sing what she wanted to, make people understand through her lyrics, be free in the spotlight to sing the words in her heart.

Now she had a spotlight.

And all she could think of was the bruises and watery eyes of the other kids, injuries she and Mali would probably have soon too.

As she grabbed the microphone, the last thing it felt like was a dream.

“HONORED GUESTS, THE HUNT is closing.”

Cora’s throat was hoarse by the time the hostess finally announced that the Hunt was closing for the evening. The lights dimmed, and the few remaining Kindred guests departed. The dark-haired bartender cleaned the lounge in a rush, tossing her a rag to wipe the last traces of the animals’ blood off the stage.

When she finished, the other humans had gone. She looked up at an eerily empty lodge. Clipped footsteps came from the direction of the veranda, where the hostess appeared. Cora started—though she was dressed in the same costume, it wasn’t Issander. Now Tessela wore the safari dress, and as she approached Cora, she gave the hint of a smile.