The Cage(94)

“You will reproduce in thirty-six weeks,” Serassi had said flatly, and given her instructions on proper prenatal health, but Nok hadn’t listened. A baby. She was going to be a mom. She’d looked around the salon at all the stupid nail polish and hair machines and seen her reflection in the black window: pink strand of hair like a silly teenager, band T-shirt pulled down over one shoulder. Mothers didn’t look like that.

She couldn’t do this alone.

“What do you think about Holly, if it’s a girl?” Rolf asked. “Or Ivy. Maybe Violet. Anything that has to do flora. If it’s a boy, it’ll be more of a challenge. Alder, after the type of tree?”

“They’re all lovely,” she murmured.

“Do you think we’ll raise our baby in this house? Or will they give us our own house in one of the other habitats?”

“I don’t know.” She sucked on the butterscotch, a hand pressed against her stomach.

As soon as she’d realized she couldn’t raise this baby on her own, she’d set about subtly establishing influence over the others. “Controlling men is the only way women like you and me will survive,” Delphine had said. All her manager’s old lessons came flooding back. Getting men to give you presents with a coy look. Bending them to your will with one smile. She already had Rolf willing to do anything for her; it wasn’t hard to win over Leon, either—he’d wanted what every boy wanted. She’d win over Lucky in time too. Mali had been harder—a coy look and a smile did nothing for her, but Nok had patiently bought her friendship with painting parties and dancing in the rain, teaching Mali all the things about humanity that she hadn’t ever experienced on Earth.

That had left Cora.

Cora, who had whispered reassurances in her ear when she’d huddled on the toy-store floor the first day. Cora, who had squeezed her hand when she couldn’t sleep, and told her she’d keep watch. Cora, who had caught her in a lie but hadn’t told the others. A girl who, in another life, could be her friend. But here, with her crazy theories about escape and desperate attacks on both Lucky and Rolf, Cora was only a threat.

Rolf was watching her expectantly. She cleared her throat.

“Maybe . . . Robin,” Nok said. “If it’s a girl. Or Wren. I’d like for my daughter to know what birds were, even if there aren’t any anymore.”

The bedroom door slammed upstairs, jolting Nok out of her thoughts. She jerked upright, swinging her feet off Rolf’s lap. Lucky appeared at the top of the stairs, hunched over. Blood covered the right side of his face.

Nok gasped. She and Rolf helped him down the stairs, and she pulled off the punk shirt over her black dress and dabbed at his face.

“It was Cora,” he choked. “She’s gone. She ran.”

“She did this to you?” Nok cried. She knew as well as anyone that Cora was growing more unstable, but this?

Rolf was suddenly by her side, and she saw a flash of jealousy in his eyes as she tended to Lucky’s wound. She pulled back a little from Lucky, aware that if she was to keep everyone loyal to her, she was going to have to tread very lightly.

“She was scared.” Lucky buried his head in his hands.

“Scared?” Rolf sputtered. “Stop making excuses for her! How many times have we given her the benefit of the doubt? We ran the puzzles because she asked us to. We collected tokens because she asked us to. We told her the truth about Earth and she refused to accept it. She even broke your guitar. And now this—trying to kill you? She’s gone totally crazy!”

Lucky pressed a hand to his bleeding face. “I don’t think she was trying to kill me.”

Nok bit her lip, looking between them anxiously.

“Of course she was!” Rolf said. “She knows all about how to kill a person. You’ve heard her talk about making weapons out of teddy bears and things . . . I mean, who does that? She must have been some kind of social deviant back on Earth, some sociopath, and now her true tendencies are coming out.”

Nok chewed on her lip. “If that was true, wouldn’t the Kindred have stopped her?”

Rolf tossed her a look like she was a traitor for even daring to speak such a thing. “Why do you think they’ve kept her behind so many times? Why do you think the Caretaker keeps paying her the most attention? It’s because the Kindred know that they made a mistake putting her here, and that she’s dangerous. Didn’t you all see in the diner—she had a bone in her hand! No explanation. Just a bone. It was probably from that first girl who died. Who’s to say Cora didn’t kill her and hide the body?”