Kindred were closing in. Ten feet. Five.

There wasn’t time for both Willa and Dane to board.

A panicked look crossed Dane’s face. He suddenly hurled himself against Willa. She stumbled and fell off the truck bed.

“No!” Cora yelled.

She gripped the edge of the hatch with white knuckles. She never should have trusted him. “Dane, you bastard!”

“Help me up!” he yelled, reaching a hand.

Cora stared at him, disgusted and confused. How could she save him after he had just betrayed Willa?

A streak of fast-moving brown fur leaped into the back of the truck. Just as the Kindred reached for them, the chimp leaped from the truck bed to Dane’s shoulders, then to the ship’s hatch, using Dane as a springboard. He cried out as her fingers clamped on to the hatch.

Anya and Cora each grabbed one of Willa’s hands and pulled her the rest of the way up.

“Cora!” Dane called. “Don’t leave me!”

But a laser pulse hit the truck, and he crashed to his knees.

He looked up as Kindred guards surrounded him.

Cora slammed the hatch closed, leaving him behind.

11

Cora

SPACE WAS UNSETTLINGLY QUIET.

Bonebreak’s ship rumbled amid the stars with a low hum. If it wasn’t for that slightest vibration, Cora might not even know they were in motion. Bonebreak sat in the pilot’s seat facing the controls, staring at the view screen and the stars beyond. His musk filled the cabin with a stench she tried to ignore, a hand pressed against her nose as she paced uneasily.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d been flying. Hours? A full day? As soon as it had been safe, she’d collapsed in a ball in the corner of the cabin, exhausted. She’d been too wired to rest, her mind jumping between what they’d left behind and what lay ahead. Thinking of Dane’s betrayal made her curl her toes with anger. The only way to calm her mind was to practice her training: Meditation to calm her mind. Push-ups until her arms shook.

Now, sweat slick on her temples, she hugged her knees tightly and tried to calculate how much time they had left before the Gauntlet was due to begin. Twenty-one days. Five feet in front of her, covered in a white tarp, lay Lucky’s body. It had been weeks since he’d died, but the dry, purified air on the ship had kept his body from breaking down. If she pulled back the tarp, she knew, he’d look as though he were simply asleep.

She hugged her knees harder.

“Travel time to Drogane is three more days, if I use the hyperengine,” Bonebreak said. “But that will take extra fuel. There’s an Axion-run fuel station not far away. It will be a slight detour.” He turned to face her. “It is a sandy outpost. A meteor, but there is artificial oxygen and gravity, and soil.” When she looked at him questioningly, he motioned to Lucky’s body. “A place where you can bury the boy.”

His voice held a trace of sympathy that surprised her. The last time Bonebreak had mentioned Lucky’s body, he’d wanted to dissect it and sell parts on the black market to pay for their voyage. But maybe Bonebreak had changed. Maybe he wasn’t as heartless as he’d first seemed. Still, it would be a long time before she trusted him.

“I’d like that,” she said, wiping her face.

Bonebreak returned to the controls, and the ship continued to rumble in silence. Cora eyed Lucky’s body beneath the tarp, chewing on a fingernail.

This is our place. This is our cause.

Those were among his last words.

And yet a tiny voice nagged in the back of her mind. After months trapped in the cage, and in the menagerie with Makayla and the other Hunt kids, she was finally free of the Kindred. Free of Ellis and Armstrong too. Bonebreak could be manipulated or bargained with or, as a last resort, mind controlled by Anya. There was nothing stopping them from having Bonebreak steer them in the opposite direction from Drogane—straight to Earth.

We could go home.

The possibility was there, hovering so close that she only needed to reach out and take it. She doubted Willa would object. Anya might, but Cora could reason with her. Right now, they could be on a course back to her solar system. She could find out in days, weeks at most, if Earth was still there. She could put her feet in the cool waters of a lake. Smell grass and wildflower fields. Hear the sounds of traffic, of bees, of cafeteria chatter, of music on the radio. And most of all, she could go home. Bury her face in Sadie’s fur, hug her mother and father, tackle Charlie like they used to when they were kids.

A deep sense of longing made her close her eyes and smile.

But then her toe grazed Lucky’s body, and she jolted upright.

No.

If she went home, that wonderful reconciliation wouldn’t last long. Soon she’d see for herself all the devastation humans were wreaking on the planet. She’d be reminded that all that traffic and wildflowers and her dog and her brother were living on borrowed time, on a planet that wouldn’t last forever. If she didn’t run the Gauntlet and free humanity to live among the stars, her race’s days were numbered.

The facilities door slid open and Anya came out, rubbing her temples. She had dark circles under her big eyes, and her hands were shaking worse than Cora had ever seen. It had cost her almost all her strength to take control of Fian and the deputies. As soon as they’d boarded the ship, she’d collapsed and slept for hours.

Now Anya sat cross-legged beside Willa, resting a hand on the wiry hair of the chimp’s shoulder. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” she said.

Cora sat up in surprise. “You two know each other?”

Anya touched her heart in a greeting that Willa returned. Anya gave another small flicker with her hand, some kind of sign language.

“It’s been a long time,” Anya explained. “Before the Kindred locked me in the Temple menagerie, I was in a cell for several days. Willa was in the cell next to me.”

Willa took paper out of her pocket and wrote:

Anya snored. Kept everyone awake.

But there was kindness in her dark brown eyes. Anya read the note and rolled her eyes. “Funny, as I remember it, you kept everyone awake swinging from the ceiling bars all night.”

Willa wrote something down again.

Not my fault humans need eight hours of sleep. Lazy bums.

“Listen, Willa, we really need you,” Cora said gently. “I’ve lost my coach. The Kindred Warden, Cassian. He taught me the basics of telekinesis and telepathy, and set up puzzles to simulate the ones in the Gauntlet. Bonebreak has agreed to be my Mosca sponsor, but no one knows what really goes on in those twelve puzzle chambers.” She paused. “No one but you.”

Willa grunted as if to say that she was well aware of that fact.

“Please,” Cora said.

Anya rested a hand on Willa’s shoulder until she looked up, and then they exchanged a few hand signals. Willa’s face looked deeply troubled. She wrote:

The Gauntlet . . .

She paused. Anya patted her shoulder, and Willa took a deep breath.

The Gauntlet can be won only at a heavy cost.

“What cost?” Cora asked, reading the paper.

Willa didn’t answer right away, and a sinking feeling filled Cora’s stomach. After exchanging a long look with Anya, Willa hesitantly started writing again.

Are you certain this is what you want? Are you certain it’s worth any price?

Tags: Megan Shepherd The Cage Science Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net