The Cage(82)

He cocked his head, taking a step toward her. “You grew your hair out. Mom always wanted you to have long hair.”

He was out of the shadows now, so she could see both sides of his face, and his eyes that weren’t threatening but weren’t entirely sane, either. She ran her fingers through her damp hair. “Mom?”

“You should stop dyeing it, though,” he said. “Blond doesn’t suit you.”

Oh—he though she was his sister.

The level of his delusions left her jittery, a deer ready to bolt, but he loved his sister more than anything. If he thought she was Ellie, at least it meant he wouldn’t hurt her.

She hoped.

“Yeah . . . bro,” she said slowly, surrounded by the blue and green and purple eyes. “So will you ask Mali for help?”

He watched the green eyes next to him, hypnotically. “It’s too late for her.”

“Mali? Why?” He didn’t respond, and it took Cora a minute of studying the electric-green eyes in the painting to understand. Only one of their group of captives had green eyes. “You mean the dead girl.”

He nodded. “Yasmine.”

Uneasiness picked at Cora’s palms like flea bites. “How do you know her name?”

Leon flashed her a wild look that made Cora grab the guitar string, ready to spring it open in case he lunged for her. But he didn’t.

“I never told anyone,” he said. “I thought you would think I killed her on purpose. She was running away from me like I scared her. I didn’t mean to chase her. Or maybe I did.” He cocked his head at a strange angle. “I can hear her sometimes. She walks through the forest. She likes the mountains. They remind her of home.”

He went back to staring at the painted eyes.

She swallowed. Had he just confessed to killing the girl?

The raised platform wasn’t far away. She could bolt—Leon was strong but slow. On the other hand, could she believe a thing he said? He was insane. As much as he was prone to violence, she couldn’t imagine him drowning a girl he’d never met before.

“However she died, Leon, she’s not still here. She can’t be wandering around.”

His eyes swung to her. “Of course she isn’t,” he barked. “It’s her ghost.”

He tilted his head toward the set of painted green eyes as though they spoke to him. A cold spike drilled between Cora’s shoulder blades. She glanced at the nearest black window, and pinched her arm.

“I need you, Leon. Brother. You’re the only other one who isn’t complacent here. Nok and Rolf like it here. Mali does too. She might as well be a Kindred. And Lucky is . . .” She swallowed, thinking of his dark eyes turning away from her. “Lucky is as blind as the rest of them. You and me, we’re the only ones who understand that we have to get out of here. This place is dangerous.”

“Yeah. I’ll help them.” Leon slowly slunk back to the shadows at the rear of the hut.

“Oh. Great—”

“I’m already helping them. That’s why I’m out here, Cora.”

At the sound of her name, not Ellie’s, she grabbed the guitar strings. His mind was returning to reality, and she wanted to be ready if he did anything unpredictable.

He crouched in the corner of the hut. “For a while, everything Rolf said made sense. He and Nok were happy. Yasmine was gone, and none of you knew what happened to her. I thought maybe they were on to something about this place not being so bad. Life was crap at home.” He paused. “But then I saw that girl with the scarred hands, and I knew, even without a mark, that she was the new one for me.” His eyes dropped to the guitar string stretched between her hands. “I couldn’t stand to be near her, knowing what they expected. Knowing what happened to the last girl they tried to pair me with. What if I snapped? What if I killed Mali too? That’s why I’m here. To protect them from me.”

Cora thought, in that moment, that Leon would continue to surprise her. He hadn’t abandoned the group because he didn’t care about the others, or because he was crazy. It was because of Mali.

“You can help her—all of us—more by being a part of our group than by banishing yourself. Come back, Leon. Help me figure out how to escape.”

He shook his head. “They were right, you know—the people back home. I’ll never be the good person Ellie thought I could be. I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”