The Cage(120)

Air slipped from her lungs. All the confusion and stress she’d been through for weeks was just for his twisted experimentation. Had he planted the comic book? The Mosca traders? Had he fabricated a chance for escape just so he could snatch it from her, and leave her even more broken? She pressed a hand to her head. What about the kiss—was that the biggest lie of all?

Give her stars. Kiss her. Make her fall in love.

Then betray her.

All she could feel was hurt. Worse than that—dead. Her heart still beat, but the blood had dried in her veins. There was no warmth. He had taken every piece of her that was alive—her heart, her soul, her trust—and smashed it beneath those metallic boots of his.

She had nothing now.

No family.

No friends.

No future.

“I did not wish to hurt you,” he continued. “I tried other techniques, with the other cohorts. All of them failed—” His head jerked toward the black window. His eyes narrowed a fraction, and then he straightened instantly. He was perceiving something Cora couldn’t. Someone listening, or someone coming.

She didn’t care. She was the kind of broken there was no fixing.

And then her index finger started trembling. It pulsed strangely, like pins and needles were digging into it. Then her middle finger. Something strange happened to the lighting, almost like it got brighter, but only around the black window. Cora blinked, confused. Like on the beach, and in the bookshop, the sensation was in her head too, and her sense of balance, and her ability to sense temperature, and detect smells—all her senses, all at once. The whisper of intuition, now loud as a scream. There was someone behind that window, though they were blocked from her view. Two Kindred males, neither of them quite as tall as Cassian, one with a metal cast over one arm, the other with a deep wrinkle in the center of his forehead—Fian.

Pain exploded in her head. She clutched at her scalp as though she could keep her mind from fracturing. The strength leached out of her legs, and she slammed to the floor. Her muscles seized up, twitching and throbbing so fast she couldn’t control her limbs.

The door flew open. Cassian was by her side. “Tell me what you are experiencing. Strange sensations. Visual disturbances.”

His words found her through a fog of pain and racking tremors. He had spoken those words to her before. In the fountain room of the Temple menagerie, after she had collapsed. Had that been part of his plan too? Had he shown her the menagerie in hopes of breaking her?

“Serassi. Come at once.” He was speaking into his wrist communicator. She had never heard him sound afraid before.

A moment later, Serassi’s rough palms scraped against her head, feeling her temperature. Incomprehensible Kindred words were exchanged as her vision faded in and out. Static crackled in her ears, deafening her, except she could hear everything perfectly—inside her own head. She felt as though she wasn’t in her own body. She was almost hovering above it, in all corners at once, watching her own self as she convulsed. Cassian clutched her shoulders, holding her still, while Serassi administered some kind of drug.

“I’m sorry.” Cassian was speaking to her body, though her mind was hovering a few feet above them. “I had to betray you. It was the last part of the plan. The only thing strong enough to break you.” His hand kept flexing, flexing, flexing. Serassi left to fetch something from the next room, and Cassian bent down.

His lips so close to hers. His hands gripping her shoulders.

It wasn’t all a lie.

The words echoed in her head. Cassian’s voice, and yet his lips hadn’t moved. Unspoken words. He had only thought them. He glanced toward the door, removed his gloves, and pressed his hands against Cora’s temples.

Electricity jolted through her, grabbing her floating perceptions and pulling them all back into flesh and bone. She sputtered awake, shoving him away. “Don’t touch me!”

She stared at her shaking fingertips. What the hell had happened?

He ignored her. “Did your vision change? Were you able to read my thoughts—”

“Stop it!” She clamped her hands over her ears, trying to wrap her mind around what was happening.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” He reached an ungloved hand toward her, but she shoved him away again. “You perceived something. This will change everything, Cora. There are others like me, who believe humans are capable of intelligence, but we are a minority. Most fear what would happen if humans gain intelligence. The right to govern themselves. The right to participate in our commerce and law. If the Council learns of this, they will try to silence you, just as they did Anya.”