The Cage(45)

“I don’t know what Mali meant by that. She’s crazy.”

But Lucky kept studying the tokens.

“You’ve been alone with him twice now.” There was a strange pitch to his voice. “On the first day when you beamed away with him, and then when he kept you behind during the medical test. Is there anything you haven’t told me? Something he said or . . . did?”

For a flash, she was back in the med room with the Caretaker’s body pressed against her, starlight radiating from the walls. She swallowed. “I told you everything. I don’t know why I get more tokens, Lucky. I swear.”

The wind picked up again, ruffling his hair. He was so handsome that it made her heart unsteady—but the look in his eyes was dangerous. Rolf had said that lab rats sense when things were unfair. Rolf had already snapped at her a few times. Even Nok had kept her distance. Why would the Kindred want them to turn on each other? Or rather, turn on her?

“Lucky . . .”

“No. Forget it.”

His knuckles popped, and just like that, the tension broke. He slid the tokens into his pocket like he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough, and cleared his throat. “How about that three-note melody? Pretty awful. The Kindred must not be musically gifted.”

She clung to the lighter tone in his voice and tried to work it into her own. “Don’t say that too loud. We should at least act like it’s good.”

He snorted. “Something tells me you’re a better actress than me. Probably inherited it from your mom.”

She gave a tired smile. At least the tension was—wait a minute. Her head whipped around. “How do you know my mom was an actress?”

The grin fell off his face. The wind grew colder, pushing between them. She’d trusted Lucky because he wanted to get home as badly as she did, and because he was missing a watch just like she was missing a necklace, and because if a super-intelligent race matched them together, maybe they knew what they were doing.

But Rolf had said there might be a mole.

Lucky gave a half shrug. “You know. That first night, when we were talking. I told you about my granddad, you told me about your family.” He swallowed like his throat had gone dry.

Cora’s suspicion started to slip away. She had told him that her dad was a politician—but she didn’t remember saying anything about her mom. Her mind started to concoct all kinds of conspiracy theories, but she shook her head. No. Paranoia was too rampant here, and it was a short leap to full-on madness.

“Right.” She rubbed her temples. “It’s because I haven’t slept much, and with these headaches on top of everything . . . it makes me forgetful.”

Lucky hesitated, then reached into his pocket and tossed her a token. “No worries. Here. Buy yourself something nice, like a Slinky you can strangle that Caretaker with. He’d never expect that from his favorite.”

She caught the token, and the uneasiness was gone. Any boy who could joke about murdering their alien overlords was someone she could trust.

She gave him a sly smile. “Just wait until you see what I can do with a toothbrush.”





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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23

Nok

AFTER THAT CRAZY GIRL with the stringy black hair so casually told them about kids kept as pets and black market traders who sold knuckle bones, Nok had nightmares for three days straight.

She refused to take a step outside of the town.

If she ignored the lack of traffic and unmoving sun and weird mash-up of cultures, she could almost delude herself into believing she lived in a quaint town, somewhere beachy and flashy, like Florida. She told herself the headaches were just allergies.

Cora and Lucky were braver than her—or more foolish. They went out every day to the far reaches of the enclosure, still trying to find the walls, while Leon did god knows what in the jungle, and Mali wandered through the habitats like she’d never seen trees or pumpkins or beach umbrellas before—which maybe she hadn’t.

Nok stayed behind, with Rolf, and earned tokens from the puzzles in town. The candy store was her favorite. She could have done without the pastel paint and the bins of every type of candy imaginable—licorice, mints, butterscotches—but the puzzle might as well have been designed just for her.

She approached the big metal cash register on the counter, an enormous silver thing that looked a hundred years old, with round buttons and a lever to open the cash drawer. The buttons had letters on them instead of numbers, and where the price should have been displayed was a card behind glass with nonsense words printed on it: