The Cage(67)

He raked a hand through his hair, fighting against the pain in his skull. His mother’s eyes burned behind his eyelids. He was back in their car on the rainy bridge. Arguing over the radio station, country or top 100. Then the glare of headlights. The car spinning out of control. His mother calling his name. Luciano.

And he’d let her murderer go free for a pile of cash.

He followed the sound of guitar music to the farm. The others were playing the orchard puzzle. It involved picking apples, each one stamped with a different constellation, and tossing them in bins with the same mark. Nok plucked at the guitar with unskilled hands, while Rolf and Mali tossed apples back and forth, laughing, trying to hit each other more than the bins. A pile of half-eaten apples rotted in the sun.

He stared at them like they’d gone insane. “What are you doing?”

Rolf caught an apple from Mali. “There wasn’t any breakfast this morning. That makes the third day. There’s not much here, but it will keep us from going hungry. We aren’t going to play Cora’s games. She’s egging us on for a fight. All I can conclude is that she’s jealous because we’re happy.” He took a bite of the apple, then tossed it in Lucky’s direction. “Catch!”

The apple hit Lucky’s shoulder and bounced on the grass. Rolf looked at him expectantly, then pointed enthusiastically toward the apple. “Throw it back. I want to see what kind of arm you’ve got. Aren’t all you Americans good at baseball?” A grin cracked his face, like he was making a joke between two friends.

Lucky kicked the apple into the stream.

“Listen. Cora’s gone. Last night I followed her into the mountains, but she just vanished. I thought she was hiding out, but when I went back this morning, her footsteps ended in the snow. There was a second set of prints too, bigger than a human’s. The Caretaker must have taken her.”

Nok and Rolf only blinked calmly, and it made Lucky’s stomach flip. Didn’t they care?

He turned to Mali. “Where did he take her?”

When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her thin shoulders and shook her. Mali just allowed herself to get thrown around like a rag doll. “I do not know.”

“You have to! You’ve seen beyond the walls—you grew up in their world.”

“They tell me what they wish me to know. I assume they remove her.”

He let her go abruptly. “But it hasn’t been twenty-one days yet.”

Mali gave that odd head wobble that was meant to be a shrug. Lucky kicked over one of the bins in disgust; apples rolled everywhere. “They can’t just change the rules! They said we have twenty-one days to obey Rule Three. If they took her before that, then they should take me too. I haven’t obeyed yet either.”

“Perhaps he comes for you next.”

Lucky froze. His head pounded so hard he could barely think. “Coming for me? Well, good. Then he’ll take me wherever he took her, only this time I’ll be ready. Nok, give me that guitar.”

Nok looked up innocently through her long eyelashes. “You want to play?”

“No, I want to break it apart and wrap a string around the Caretaker’s neck when he comes back. Cora was right. It isn’t safe—they can take us at any moment. I should never have listened to you all.”

“Listening to us saved your life.” Rolf kicked an apple with short, sharp jabs, one eye twitching like his head stabbed with pain. His voice was suddenly bitter. “If the Kindred hadn’t—”

“Rolf, shh,” Nok hissed.

“No! I’m tired of everyone acting like idiots instead of using their brains. I thought Cora was smart, but she let her emotions get the best of her. She’s gone crazy with these stupid ideas of escape that are just going to get us all in trouble. You don’t want to end up like her, Lucky.”

Lucky dug his fingers against his temples.

“Don’t you get it?” Rolf sputtered. His face was splotched with red, but his fingers weren’t twitching. “Tell him what you told us, Mali. About Earth.”

A creeping feeling spread through Lucky’s veins. He eyed Mali warily. “What is he talking about?”

“I am not supposed to tell.” Mali shot Rolf a hard look. “The Kindred believe your minds are not yet ready to understand. I only tell you because your mind seems stronger than the others.”

Lucky braced himself. He didn’t care about whatever stupid thing Mali and Rolf had argued about. He sensed that he was about to learn something that he could never unlearn. For a moment he clung to his ignorance. If he didn’t know, he could pretend everything was okay. He could close his eyes and think of home and his granddad and that horse that kept kicking over the fence so the chickens got out.