The Cage (The Cage 1)

Cora had reached over and covered his large old-man hand with her small one. “It’s okay, Dad. I knew what I was doing.”

She had lied to him plenty back then, but not that night on the porch. It was okay. Her father worked too hard, and was away from home too often, but he loved her. She knew him—she loved him—and she never once blamed him for going along with a decision that she had made on her own. Lucky had it all wrong, when he thought that her father had forced her to take the fall for him. She had never been a victim. Not once in her life. It had been her idea to take the fall. There on the banks of the river, waiting for the police to come, she had practically forced her father to agree. And even after the conviction, and after the divorce happened anyway, and after juvie, and after coming home and knowing that she would never belong again, she had never once regretted it.

47

Cora

“HE’S MY FATHER,” SHE whispered. “I had the ability to help him. It’s what anyone would have done.”

Cassian didn’t answer. In his eyes she saw herself reflected: tangled hair, delicate features, dark under-eye circles. Taking the fall for her father didn’t mean she was brave. It certainly didn’t make her a paragon of humanity.

But she sensed that Cassian disagreed, and it was a strange feeling. He didn’t see her as a victim, like Lucky did. He knew that the lie had been her idea. He didn’t care about the accident or her false imprisonment or the skills she’d learned in juvie or even her high-profile family.

He cared about the sacrifice she had made.

“Humans have been cruel to you,” he said. “Your father, for allowing you to accept blame for his crimes. Your fellow inmates in detention. Those in the media who unfairly judged you. And yet you bear no resentment toward them. I took you from your world because I wished to give you something better.”

Her heart pounded. She never expected this. Not from him.

“I don’t want better.” Her voice was faint. “I want home, flaws and all. And don’t try to tell me it isn’t there. I saw the comic book. I know time works differently for you. Just tell me straight that it was all a lie. Earth is still there, isn’t it?”

Her words reverberated around the small corners of his room. Echoed back at her, they sounded desperate, but she refused to back down. Not when everything she had ever loved was at stake.

She could tell by his flat expression that he was going to lie again. She could almost feel the lie forming on his lips, could almost taste its bitterness. But then he closed his mouth. “There is no short answer to that question.” The flatness in his face was gone now; he was telling the truth. “Because we ourselves do not know.”

She gripped the edge of the table. “How can you not know? It’s a huge planet. It’s either there or it isn’t.”

“Two hundred rotations ago, the stock algorithm ran a projection that predicted humans would destroy their own planet with a ninety-eight point six degree of certainty. We began taking the last groups of humans before the destruction was predicted to occur. So by all projections, the answer to your question is yes, Earth is gone.”

“But I overheard the Mosca in the market talking about going back to Earth for another supply run. And that comic book was stamped with a date in the future.”

He took the glass from her and swallowed her concerns with another pour of alcohol. “Many artifacts are counterfeit—you cannot trust the comic books are authentic. And we do not concern ourselves with the Mosca. If they believe Earth exists, perhaps they have not been back yet to verify its destruction.”

“But have you verified it? Have any Kindred seen it with their own eyes?”

“A ninety-eight point six percent rate does not require verification.”

She didn’t listen to his talk about percentages and statistics. All Cora heard was that there was a chance; the stock algorithm had made mistakes before. Margins of error.

Maybe this was a mistake, too.

“You forget that I can read what you are thinking,” he said. “You still hope to return to Earth, even knowing the high likelihood it is gone. Perhaps the Mosca would be able to help you, but they are an unscrupulous species. They would just as likely betray you. The wisest course of action would be to forget your dreams; if you will only agree to obey, I can request an extension from the Warden. He won’t like it, but I have some sway. I could make the enclosure more comfortable for you.”

On the wall, the fake stars shimmered. He had already risked so much for her—and now he was willing to sacrifice more. She picked up the glass and twirled it in her fingers.

“It isn’t about the comforts of Earth. It’s about what’s real. My life at home was as fake as my life here. I was never allowed to be myself—I always had to be a senator’s daughter. My mother couldn’t be an actress, like she wanted, and it made her bitter and resentful. I could never be a songwriter, because my dad’s handlers thought that if any of my songs got online, it would hurt might dad’s chances at reelection. We had to be these artificial versions of ourselves, always smiling when we were sad, cloaking our real emotions, just like you do.

“If I can go home, I can change that. I can truly live, even if it’s painful. I want a real relationship with my father and my mother. We can be a real family again, even with the divorce—we were making progress. I want to write songs about the things I’ve been through, and I want to fall in love with someone I choose, not who was chosen for me.” She tore her hand away from her necklace. “You probably don’t understand that.”

He was quiet for some time, and then very slowly rubbed the scar on his neck. “I understand more than you think. I could not have observed humanity for this long without being affected by it. The others of my kind are fascinated by the brightly colored parts of humanity: your clothing, your architecture, the tricks you can perform. I’m not as interested in those. I like the quieter part, like how humans wish on stars knowing they won’t be answered. And what you told me once, about how some mistakes are worth making. I have made mistakes myself.” He took the glass and took another sip, as though he could swallow whatever memories pained him. “That is why your capacity for emotional depth intrigues me. The Kindred do not have those notions. Forgiveness. Sacrifice. They are remarkable traits.”

His face had looked so otherworldly at first, like a god, or someone from her dreams. But now she knew he was just a person, and he was young too, and felt things like guilt and shame and the need for forgiveness.