The Cage (The Cage 1)

Lucky released Nok. “Stop fighting for one second and let’s think this through. We need to find out where he took Cora. She couldn’t have just disappeared.”

Rolf shoved his spindly fingers through his hair. “Yes, she could. We’re not on Earth anymore. They can bend space and time. We don’t even know what they want.”

“They want us to sleep together!” Nok sank to the grass, next to the prostrate Leon, their earlier fight forgotten. “They want us to have babies so they can do god knows what, probably torture them or raise little human slaves.” Her face went white. “What if they eat them?”

Rolf crouched next to her and patted her back stiffly. “I’m sure that’s not the case. Otherwise they’d just eat us.”

Nok’s face went paler. Lucky let out a silent curse—Rolf was only making it worse. He rubbed his face, hoping to jar some sense into himself. He’d been looking right at Cora when she’d vanished. She’d tossed her head back to look at him one last time. The last time someone had looked at him with such fear in her eyes had been his mother, right before she died. He’d told Cora he’d been five years old when she died, not fifteen. He’d told her he hadn’t seen it, when he’d been in the very car. His mother had yelled out his real name—“Luciano.” Then squealing brakes and twisting metal. Rain and broken glass. Waking up disoriented in a hospital, attached to an IV. His dad there, still wearing his fatigues, eyes sunken from the flight from Afghanistan, saying the worst words in the world.

“She didn’t make it.”

He’d ripped the IV out of his arm. Shouted. His dad tried to hold him down. His granddad’s face, with its gray beard, peering through the glass window in the door. Then he was out of bed, and he burned. He slammed his fist into the cement wall. Blood spurted from his left hand. He’d had the random and misplaced thought that no one would ever call him Luciano again.

Only his mom used his real name.

He’d seen the other driver. A fancy politician type who would get off on a technicality. It made his blood burn enough that, as soon as he was out of the hospital, he drove to the airfield with his dad’s pistol tucked in his waistband. He wasn’t planning to kill the senator, exactly. He just wanted to point the gun and see the look in his eyes.

“Revenge can’t bring your mother back,” the senator’s men had said when they’d stopped him. “Neither can money, but it can give you opportunities you’d never have. Your grandfather’s farm is going into foreclosure. . . .”

He’d hated himself for it, but he’d taken their money.

It had been an awful lot of zeroes.

“Nok.” He forced himself to sound calm. “It’s going to be okay. Seriously. Stop crying.”

She looked up from her hands. A collection of black dots flashed on the milky white skin of her neck, standing out as bright as stars against the night sky. It triggered a memory. His granddad showing him the stars.

Constellations.

That’s what the black dots formed on Nok’s neck, he realized. A constellation. Cassiopeia, to be exact. He grabbed Rolf, who protested weakly, and pushed back his hair to see identical black dots.

Dazed, he turned to Leon, who held up his hands.

“Keep your hands to yourself, brother.”

“I think the marks on our necks are constellations. Yours”—he craned his neck to see Leon’s neck—“looks like the Big Dipper.” He felt his own neck. “Mine is Orion. And that’s what Cora has too, if I’m remembering right.”

Nok abruptly stopped crying, feeling her neck.

“That makes no sense,” Rolf said. “Constellations aren’t fixed in the sky into certain shapes. If you looked at the same stars from any other planet, they would appear different. And we aren’t on Earth.”

“Well, I have no idea why they marked us with stars, and I have no idea why they put Leon in a suit and Rolf in a military jacket, and I have no idea where Cora is right now. I have no damn idea why any of this is happening.”

Rolf cleared his throat. “I might.”

Lucky spun on him. Rolf’s cheeks burned as he continued. “It isn’t so crazy, you know—that they could be telling the truth. Humans are destroying the planet. Maybe it will take another few thousand years, or maybe it will happen tomorrow. But maybe they did take us to preserve our species.”

“You believe them?” Lucky said.

Rolf pushed at his nose like he was used to wearing glassing. “I’m saying that we should consider all options. As far as the marks on our necks, I don’t know why they used constellations, but I can guess why we’re marked. Rule Three. Procreation. The symbols match us in pairs. Nok and me. Lucky and Cora. Leon and . . .” He blinked. “Well, the girl who died, I suppose.”

For a moment, no one spoke. Lucky’s stomach twisted. The Kindred had matched him with the girl he’d sent to juvie. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Was it some kind of retribution for what he’d done? A sick experiment?

He ran a shaky hand over his face. He’d been so close to a fresh start. Two months until graduation, until he was shipped off for some boot-camp crap and then on a plane to some far-away country where people would likely shoot at him, but he didn’t care. He’d been prepared for insurgents. He hadn’t been prepared for this.

Maybe he should just stay away from Cora. He’d already hurt her enough. But the thought of that black-eyed monster laying a hand on her made him livid. Maybe it was time to tell her the truth.

If she ever came back.

13

Cora

CORA RESTED HER FINGERS on the glass viewing panel. Lucky and Leon were hurling accusations at each other while Rolf clutched Nok, who was sobbing.

I’m here, Cora wanted to say. I’m right here.

“You are not supposed to be here,” the Caretaker said. “I must return you.”

He seized her shoulders. Electricity tore through her. She tried to twist away, but he lifted her so high her feet dangled above the ground.

“Put me down!”

Incredibly, he did. Her feet connected with the floor. She winced as her hurt elbow popped. He took notice and turned her arm palm up, then gently inspected the bruised bone of her elbow. His fingers tightened over the bones, and with a snap they realigned.

She stumbled back to the safety of the wall. “How did you do that? And how did we transport here?”