The Cage(88)

She started to deny it, but they’d found the guitar. They knew. She hadn’t taken any food, but they’d never believe her now.

Cora let go of Rolf’s shirt abruptly and paced, sweat rolling down her face. “Rolf’s been manipulating you all this entire time, in conjunction with the Kindred. I suspected it from the first time he tried to convince us we shouldn’t fight back. He always had such a convenient explanation for everything strange that was happening, so we wouldn’t question the bigger motivation of what the Kindred wanted with us. He even has a convenient story about his life back home. How he was bullied, so we’d feel sympathy for him. How he was so caught up in his studies that he never had time for the books and TV shows we all might have watched. He even has twitches and strange mannerisms like Mali does. Probably because he’s never even been to Earth and doesn’t know how real people act!”

Rolf looked like he had been slapped. Red splotched his pale face. His fingers, which hadn’t twitched in days, slowly started their neurotic tapping against the table.

“Let him go!” Nok said. “It isn’t true, any of it!”

Cora whirled on her. “Why do you keep defending him?”

“Because you haven’t heard him talk about home like I have. We both lived in London. We went to some of the same restaurants. He’s seen Star Trek and he’s ridden the London Eye and there’s nothing wrong with the way he acts. Anyway, I wouldn’t care if he had grown up among the Kindred, because he’s a good person, and he loves me, and because we’re going to have a baby together!”

She pressed a hand against her mouth. Silence echoed in the diner. Cora stared at her, stunned. Nok was still thin, but she had certainly put on a few pounds over the last few weeks. Cora had assumed it was all the candy. Was this why she’d been acting so strangely? Why she’d needed Lucky and the other boys wrapped around her finger?

Nok tossed Rolf a look that wavered between nervous and excited. Slowly she removed her hand from her mouth. “So, um, now would probably be a good time to tell you that I’m pregnant.”





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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42

Cora

CORA LET ROLF SLIP out of her hands as fatigue caught up with her all at once, and she slumped into a chair. He pulled away like a frightened animal, then turned to Nok, blinking hard, fingers twisting in his wild red hair.

“Is it true?” he asked.

For a moment, no one dared to move. Lucky massaged his temple, wincing, like another headache had struck. Nok was breathing hard, cheeks flushed, as the light kept swinging back and forth.

Mali reached for another dinner roll.

“Yes,” Nok said. “By almost two weeks. They can detect these things early. I wasn’t supposed to say anything until I was further along. That medical officer, Serassi, has been testing me in private ever since you and I started sleeping together, with a needle so big it would give you nightmares. She teleported into the salon yesterday and told me I was pregnant.” Nok pressed her hand against her stomach. A slight smile came to her lips. “She said she oversees centers where human children are raised communally, like nurseries, but I asked if we could raise it here, on our own, and she asked the Warden; she said it would be good for her research to observe human child raising in their natural habitat. He agreed.”

Cora glanced at Rolf out of the corner of her eye. Did he know about Nok visiting Leon in the jungle? Seducing Lucky? Did he know there was a chance the baby wasn’t his?

She pushed out of the chair and took a shaky step backward, like Rolf was a powder keg and this information was a lit match.

But he blinked, and his fingers twitched, and then threw his arms around Nok. “That’s wonderful!”

He didn’t know.

He swung Nok in his arms, kissing her cheeks, making her giggle. Cora stumbled backward against the black window. Oblivious to her shock, Lucky pushed past her to congratulate Nok. The tension from earlier had shifted to laughter—Cora was forgotten, and the mole was forgotten, and so was the bone.

Pain throbbed between her temples.

Maybe Rolf wasn’t the mole. Maybe Mali wasn’t either. Maybe there never had been a mole. Maybe the Kindred had been setting her up to be ostracized all along: giving her unfair amounts of tokens, making it seem like she’d stolen the food, letting her out of the cage, as though they were intentionally trying to make the others jealous.