The Cage(8)

“It’s no good asking the two of them anything.” The hulk jerked his chin toward the others. “I’ve been trying to get answers out of them for the better part of an hour. She hasn’t stopped sobbing, and he’s close-lipped.” His accent was Australian or New Zealander; with his darker skin, he might be Maori.

“I’m Leon, by the way.” He spit a line of blood on the floor that landed an inch from the Asian girl’s foot. She rocked harder, hands pressed tightly over her head, fingers gripping her hair so hard Cora was afraid she’d pull it out.

“Easy.” Cora rubbed the girl’s skeletal shoulder, ignoring the tension and weariness in her own muscles.

“Her name is Nok,” the red-haired boy said, still rubbing the splotchy red marks on his neck. His voice was deeper than she’d expected. “I’m Rolf. From Oslo, in Norway. She and I met a few hours ago when we woke up in different shops. She’s Thai, but she speaks English well. Said she lives in London. Except for a bad headache, she was okay before we ran into this Neanderthal and he started demanding to know what was going on.”

“Do you know what’s going on?”

Rolf shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine. She doesn’t know either. Before she had the panic attack, she told me she was a model; the high-fashion type with big magazine spreads. Someone famous, I think. There must be people looking for her.” He crouched next to Nok and said softly, “He’s not going to hurt you. He’s just a stupid b?lle who picks on anyone he can.”

Nok peeked out from the pink stripe of hair and scooted closer to Rolf.

Cora stood. “I’m Cora; this is Lucky.” She glanced around the toys in the shop. “I think we should try to set off a flare, or make a sign that an airplane could read with some of this stuff.”

“This isn’t bloody Robinson Crusoe,” Leon said. “There’s an arcade and a movie theater, and you’re talking about spelling some S.O.S. shit out of rocks.”

“No . . . she’s right.” Lucky leaned against the countertop. “We need to find a way to make contact with someone, and we should keep searching the town. There could be dozens more of us.”

“Not dozens,” Rolf said. “Just one.”

Cora turned, rubbing her pounding temples. With its high collar and epaulettes, Rolf’s military jacket gave him an air of authority that didn’t fit with his neurotic blinking. His fingers found some sort of metal combination lock built into the edge of the glass countertop; it had a row of gears that he spun now absent-mindedly, spreading a deep, nearly ominous rumble throughout the room. “Another girl, I think. Three girls and three boys. Six altogether.”

“Three and three makes six, eh?” Leon grunted. “You must be some kind of genius.”

Rolf cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hardly. I just have a gift for observational reasoning. It’s what I’m studying at Oxford. Well, that and robotics. And Greek philosophy.”

Cora frowned. “Wow. How old are you?”

His cheeks flamed. “Fifteen.” He shook his head quickly, dismissing it. “But that doesn’t matter. Observational reasoning is really just deduction, at its core. Any of us can deduce. Nok and I explored each of the stores when we woke. There were six chairs in the diner. Six umbrellas on the boardwalk. Six dolls behind the counter.” He nodded toward the glass case beneath the countertop, which held the dolls, and a child’s painting kit, and a bright croquet set. “We explored the house, too. There’s a few bedrooms upstairs, a living room downstairs. There were six dressers with six sets of clothing in the bedrooms. Judging by the clothing, there’s still one girl missing. She’ll be wearing a white sundress.”

Cora’s head shot around to Lucky. His mouth was set grim. “Yeah. About that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “We found her. She’s dead. Drowned in the ocean, just over that rise.”

Rolf looked up in surprise, pushing at the bridge of his nose, a gesture like a person with glasses might do. Even Nok stopped cringing. Her eyes were still damp, but Cora saw something else, just for a flash. Nok’s mouth tightened. Her eyes narrowed a hair. And then, just as fast, she was wailing again, leaning into Rolf, crying harder.

Cora had seen plenty of girls at Bay Pines put on a show for the guards, to gain sympathy. She knew good acting when she saw it. But why would Nok put on an act?

“Dead?” Nok whispered in a trembling voice. “Like, murdered?”