The Cage(102)

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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48

Lucky

LUCKY CROUCHED BY THE side of the candy shop, working fast in the moonlight. His palms stung from swinging through the treetop ropes course all night. Without Cora to hold the ladders, it had been difficult, but he’d managed. Now he ran his hand over the plastic water gun he’d bought from the toy shop with all the tokens he’d earned. Back on his granddad’s farm, he’d learned a trick to keep the flies off horses: liquefied cayenne pepper. But if you got it in your eyes, it would blind you.

He stomped on a handful of peppers from the farm, juicing them under his heel, and squeezed them into the water gun. His head throbbed from where Cora had hit him, but he ignored it, just like he ignored the awful hollow space in his chest. He’d only felt this way twice before—once, on a bridge outside of Richmond, after his car had wrapped around a streetlight, and he’d looked over to see his mother slumped against the wheel. The second time had been when he’d met Cora’s father’s men in a drugstore parking lot and taken their check.

He finished filling the water gun and shoved the stopper back into it, then grabbed a jump rope he had modified into nunchakus. He glanced back at the house, where he could make out Rolf reading a book by the window. For a brief moment, he considered staying.

But the cherry blossoms wafted toward him, and he turned sharply and started for the jungle. He knew Cora. She wasn’t that devious. Someone must have put her up to hitting him, pouring lies into her ear for weeks. He knew it wasn’t Nok or Rolf, because he’d constantly been around them. He didn’t think it was Mali—she had no reason to. There was only one person in the enclosure who had violent tendencies too, who could have convinced her to do such a thing.

Leon.

His chest felt even more hollow at the memory of her betrayal, and he had to lean against the railing of the jungle walkway. He pictured her face, the blue eyes with the dark rings around them from not sleeping, and her lips that had tasted so real, and he gripped the jump-rope nunchakus harder.

He ran down the walkway, dizzy from his injury and the distortions. He’d known Leon would be trouble from the start. His father had warned him about Leon’s type—guys who hated authority. Guys who wanted to be soldiers not to protect the country, but because they liked blood on their hands.

He skidded to a stop as soon as he saw a collection of huts scattered around a huge stone temple. His heart pounded harder as he walked as silently as he could through the jungle. A sheet flapped in the wind, covered with odd symbols he couldn’t make out in the moonlight. They almost looked like eyes. Then he heard rustling, and took out the water gun. His plan was to blind Leon first, then use the nunchakus. Four years of martial arts had to be worth something.

He pressed his back against the hut, moving slowly toward the entrance. The jungle was so quiet he could hear his own heart beating. Another shuffle came from within the hut, and he leaped inside, gun raised.

Nok screamed.

Lucky started. What was she doing there? She was alone, wrapped in only a sheet, her pink streak of hair hiding the left side of her face.

“Lucky?” she sputtered. “Is that a gun?”

He lowered the water gun, leaning on the doorway to steady his throbbing head. Her lips fell open, but she seemed lost for words. Lucky’s thoughts caught up with him all at once: Nok wrapped in the sheet . . . how she’d come to him that day on the porch and run her finger down his cheek, and offered to spare him from the third rule.

Had she made the same offer to Leon?

“Jesus, Nok. What are you . . . Is the baby even Rolf’s?”

His words jolted her out of her stupor. She dragged the sheet around her tighter, stumbling to her feet, a fire in her eyes. “I had to, Lucky. You heard what that substitute caretaker said. They’re taking away my baby because of what Cora did to you. She’s gone crazy. Leon’s the only person who can stop her. I need him, and don’t you dare judge me for getting his help this way.”

She tossed the pink streak of hair out of her face. She had a wild look in her eye that had never been there before. This wasn’t the same skittish, pretty girl he’d found cowering in the toy store. He’d only seen glimmers of her darkness before, like the time she’d kicked Leon in the groin.

“How’s Leon going to stop her?” Lucky said. “Hurt her? Kill her?”