The Hunt (10 page)

Her heart beat once. Twice. Three times.

“I believe you,” she lied.

She opened the screen. The lounge was nearly full, and all the sounds made her head swirl as she wove between them to the stage, where Makayla was just finishing a dance.

“Sorry you had to cover for me,” Cora said.

Makayla put her hand over the microphone, muting it. “No worries.” Her voice dropped. “The other day it looked like Roshian decided to make you his new favorite. Glad I'm off the hook, but for your sake, I'm sorry.”

“I can handle him.”

But her thoughts were on Cassian, not Roshian, as she climbed onstage and watched him leave through the main door, speaking a few low words with Tessela. He glanced back once at her before leaving and gently pressed a hand to his heart.
It
makes me not want to give up either. Not just in my head, but also
in my heart.

Cora cleared her throat. She started to sing a song she'd written in juvie about four walls and no sky, but changed her mind. She sang an old song instead, one Charlie used to listen to as he'd sneak off to the airstrip.

It was about soaring high and never looking down.

And the lyrics made her feel as powerful as Cassian's words had. For the first time, she almost felt the thrill of being onstage that she'd always dreamed of. It didn't matter that none of the
Kindred guests were listening. Makayla was listening. Dane and Shoukry at the bar were listening.

And
she
was listening.

And for once, she believed her own words.

Mali

MALI'S DAILY SCHEDULE WAS
always the same. Oper
ate one of the safari trucks for the charade of hunting, ready the guests' artificial rifles, help the other tour guides bag the catches. The only difference today was, when she showed up for work at the garage, Lucky was waiting for her.

“You are not supposed to leave backstage,” she said, confused.

“I couldn't stand another minute cramped up in that room. I don't know who smells worse, Pika or the animals. Dane gave permission. Said it was a good idea anyway to have someone else trained to drive.”

Mali raised an eyebrow. She had asked Dane to switch her job assignment from driver to rifle handler, once. He'd only laughed and told her she was lucky she wasn't cleaning toilets. Apparently, Dane felt differently when it came to granting Lucky favors.

She jerked her head toward the truck. “You ride in the passenger's side.”

They drove in silence to the far edge of the savanna with Jenny and Christopher bouncing along on the back bumper. The guest—Roshian—sat in the backseat. She glanced at him in the rearview mirror. Even uncloaked, he was always so eerily stiff. She had spent thirteen years living with the Kindred, so she knew how to be stiff too, but today her feelings were harder to mask, ever since seeing Leon a few days before, especially when he'd said,
Friends, is that all?
As though he had wanted something more. Not long ago, she wouldn't have understood what he meant. But after having watched Cora and Lucky together, and Nok and Rolf, she understood.

It made her smile, just a little, deep inside.

She glanced at Lucky. He was gazing out at the plains, drumming his fingers on the side of the truck. Ever since she'd been around the other kids, she'd craved the ability to act like them—speaking so smoothly, laughing frequently—so
human
. She took one hand off the wheel and drummed her fingers on the side of the truck too. It felt good. Natural. But then her thoughts turned to what Leon had said about working with the Mosca. They were the ones who had taken her from Earth. She remembered being chained to a stake in a market, as the Mosca cackled and taunted her.

There were good and bad Kindred.

Good and bad humans.

But the Mosca . . . they were
all
rotten.

The vehicle jostled, and Christopher and Jenny clutched onto the back bumper, trying not to get jolted off. A low hiss came from the backseat.

“Focus on your driving,” Roshian ordered.

Mali put both hands back on the wheel. “Sorry,” she
mumbled. Beside her, Lucky gave her a sympathetic smile.

Roshian returned to scanning the savanna. “There,” he said. “The hyena.”

Ahead, the track split. One track led to the single hill, the other to a watering hole where giraffes and antelope often clustered. Today, a skinny hyena lay panting in the shade of an acacia tree. One of its ears was a little shorter than the other.

Mali's hands tightened on the wheel.

It was the hyena that slept in the cell next to hers. The one that would sometimes reach a paw through the bars to be scratched. She had nicknamed him Scavenger. She wished Roshian had picked any of the other animals, but she'd make up for it that night, and slip Scavenger an extra cake after he was revived.

“Hey, you okay?” Lucky asked.

“Yes. It is nothing. Get a carcass bag ready.” She nodded toward the glove box.

She continued driving to the end of the track, where the truck stopped automatically. Jenny and Christopher started readying the rifles. One was a compact model for close-range shots, the other a long-range scope.

Roshian stepped onto the parched soil, but he waved away the rifles that Christopher offered him. He strode twenty feet off, scanning the horizon, motioning for Christopher to stay close, as Jenny slid into the shade of the backseat.

Lucky unfolded a fresh canvas bag as they watched from behind the windshield.

“He's so short,” Jenny whispered. “He has to be the smallest Kindred I've seen. I think he has a Napoleon complex.” Roshian beckoned toward the truck again, and Jenny sighed and opened
the side door. “Probably wants a freaking parasol now.”

Once Mali and Lucky were alone in the truck, Mali asked, “What is a Napoleon complex.”

“When a short guy makes up for his lack of height by being a dick,” Lucky said.

Mali considered this.
Dick.
She'd have to remember that word. She tried to focus on cleaning the dust from her driving gloves, but her eyes kept creeping back to Roshian. He was arguing with Jenny, who looked displeased.

“Why do you wish to see the animals being shot,” Mali asked.

Lucky looked at her with surprise. “I didn't come along because I wanted to see them shot. Backstage, all I ever see is the stunned animals. Bleeding, bruised messes. Or else cramped up in their cages at night. I wanted to see them differently, for once. Out in the open.” He paused. “Even if none of it's real.”

Mali looked back at Scavenger. He licked a paw slowly.

“You care about the animals as much as you care for people,” she concluded.

He shrugged. “I'll always care a lot about you guys, and, hell, even Leon. Even
Dane
. I've tried to help, where I can. I even thought I could lead, once.” He paused, squinting at the giraffes in the distance. “But it's different with the animals. Who's looking out for them? We're all so focused on setting humanity free, but even if Cora beats the Gauntlet, it wouldn't change anything for the animals.
They
don't have a champion.
They
don't have a chance to prove their worth.” He let out a sigh and started picking at some marks carved in the truck's dashboard.

Mali blinked at him. “You.”

“Me what?”

“You asked who is looking out for them,” she explained. “You are.” She paused, considering if she was using the correct tense. “You can.” And then reconsidered again. “You
must
.”

Lucky leaned back, as if he'd never quite considered this. Outside, Roshian and Jenny were still arguing. They called over Christopher, who rested his hands on his hips, shaking his head. They argued more, and at last Christopher gave in to whatever Roshian wanted. He came back to the vehicle and wordlessly dug through his expedition bag before returning to Roshian with a rifle.

“Why does Roshian want a different gun?” Lucky asked.

“I do not know. I do not recognize it from the armory. I think he brought it himself.” She glanced sidelong at Lucky. She didn't need to tell him that was against the rules.

Ahead, Roshian cocked the rifle.

Jenny turned away, her face pinched.

Under the acacia tree, Scavenger had picked up their scent. Some of the animals, the newer ones especially, would run at first whiff of a predator. But Scavenger had been through this countless times before and just laid his head back down. Christopher picked up a dusty rock to rouse Scavenger into a run that would make things more sporting.

“No.” Roshian's voice cut like a knife. “Leave it.”

“But it will be too easy to shoot—”

“
Leave
it.”

Christopher let the rock fall. He paced back to the vehicle, chewing anxiously on the inside of his cheek.

Mali leaned out the driver's-side window to ask him what was happening.

“Better if you don't know,” Christopher said. “Trust me.”

Mali folded her arms tight, squinting into the sun. Last night, Scavenger had slipped a paw through the bars. She'd scratched his head, and his tail had wagged.

They watched as Roshian hefted the rifle. Scavenger's head swiveled toward them. He was panting from the heat, blinking slowly at the rifle. Just as Roshian pulled the trigger, he looked away.

Crack.

The bullet tore through the air. Scavenger flinched with a yip of pain than shot through Mali's heart, and by instinct her hand went for the door latch to run to him, but she let her hand fall. It wouldn't do any good.

Scavenger tried to stand, only to collapse. Chemicals in the simulated bullets would be spreading through his bloodstream, inducing temporary paralysis and triggering extra blood flow and bruising around the wound.

“Jesus,” Lucky said softly. “This is even worse than what happens backstage.”

Jenny leaned on the hood of the vehicle and muttered through the open window, “Seriously. He's one sick bastard.”

Mali looked at her, but Jenny didn't elaborate.

Christopher signaled to Jenny, who snatched up the carcass bag and crossed the dusty plain to Scavenger's body. Mali waited behind the wheel, her arms folded tight. Lucky was still rubbing his finger over the words carved in the dash, looking anywhere but at Scavenger.

Christopher and Jenny started to load Scavenger into the back of the vehicle, but Roshian shook his head.

“Wait.”

Roshian knelt by the carcass bag and extracted a knife from his pocket. Real metal. An artifact from Earth—highly contraband. Roshian opened the bag's netting and took out one of Scavenger's stiff front paws.

Mali threw open the drivers side door. “This is not protocol—”

Jenny reached out, stopping her. “Hey, let it go,” she said in a hushed warning.

“He is going to hurt Scavenger.”

“Scavenger's already dead, don't you get it? Roshian made Christopher replace the simulated rifle with a real one. Said he made some deal with Dane about it.”

The flames of anger inside Mali flickered wildly. She threw a look back to Lucky, who looked as shocked as she was. Dead? Scavenger was
dead
? He wouldn't wake up later, rubbing his nose with his paw?

The flames of her anger dimmed lower, growing hotter, until they were tight as coals. She climbed back in the truck and slammed the door, flexing and unflexing her hands, as they watched Roshian press the knife point against one of Scavenger's toes.

Jenny leaned close to the window. “I think it's the kill he wants,” she whispered, “not just the hunt. And I don't think this is the first time. Remember that whitetail deer that died? Dane said it was sick, but it didn't look sick to me. And he claimed he had to saw the antlers off to make it fit down the drecktube, but that tube's pretty big when it's unlocked.”

Mali whirled in confusion. “What do you mean.”

“Think about it—none of us ever saw those antlers again. I think Roshian wanted them as a trophy. Hunters do that on Earth, sometimes. Hang them above the television set or whatever. It's like how the Axion think certain body parts have medicinal uses.”

“It is against the moral code.”

Jenny let out a mirthless laugh. “Yeah. Well, no good reporting it to Dane. He's in on it.”

They watched as Roshian dug the knife blade deeper. Blood seeped from the wound as he sawed at flesh and fur and tendon, then slipped the claw into his pocket. Mali flexed her own scarred fingers.

“Take me back to the lodge,” he ordered, climbing into the rear seat.

Beside her, Lucky was quiet.

Mali started the truck with shaking fingers.

She had thought the Kindred were like family. Cassian, who had rescued her. Serassi, who had healed her wounds. But now, as she threw the truck into reverse and glanced at Roshian in the rearview mirror, she realized that none of them were family. Her real family was still in that desert on Earth, with the camels and the hot tea.

Cora had been right. They didn't belong here.

She glanced at Lucky. His attention was still on the carving in the dashboard. Numbers, it looked like. Or letters. “You seen these before?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Chicago used to drive this truck. Maybe he carved them while he waited for the guests to hunt.”

“I think I've seen the numbers somewhere.”

In the rearview mirror, Roshian snaked a hand up to his buzzed head, where a line of sweat ran down to his face. He dabbed at it slowly, all the while stroking the claw in his pocket.

Mali flexed her hand again.

Yes, he was definitely more dangerous than anyone imagined.

Cora

BACKSTAGE, THE CLOCK CLICKED
over to indicate that Free
Time had ended.

All the kids climbed into their cages. Sighs and grumbles, blankets being rolled out, Makayla kicking off her shoes and rubbing her feet. In the shadows, Cora could just make out each of their shapes as they lay down shivering on the cold metal floors.

“Good night, Roger,” Jenny whispered to the bobcat.

But Cora didn't go to sleep.

Ever since that first lesson with the dice, she had met with Cassian every few days to continue the telekinesis training secretly, and she'd been practicing on her own after lights-out. Night after night, she had concentrated on the small blue dots, willing the die to move. After three nights, she could make it slide across the floor a full foot. After five nights, she could make it flip over, turning itself from 3 to 1 to 6. After seven nights, she could make it hover a half inch off the floor.

If you can achieve levitation of a medium-sized object for thirty sustained seconds,
Cassian had said,
you will have a chance of passing whichever test the Gauntlet gives you.

It was still a ways to go, she knew, but the progress was undeniable. The Gauntlet would arrive in just under one rotation, which gave her somewhere between ten and fourteen more days.

But levitation wasn't the only skill she needed to develop.

She hid the die under her blanket, waiting for the others to fall asleep. Beside her, the fox gnawed a small wooden giraffe from the lodge that Lucky must have stolen for it. She could just barely make out Lucky's silhouette in the near darkness. He leaned against the wall, blanket balled up for a pillow, arms hugged close against the cold. She guessed he was just as awake as she was.

After a few more minutes, someone started snoring. Jenny gave a soft sigh like she had fallen asleep too. Soon, Shoukry stopped rolling over and was quiet. Cora waited longer, at least another hour, just to be sure. When she opened her eyes, they fell on the blue lightlock.

It was time for a bigger challenge than dice—getting out of her cell.

She examined every detail of the lightlock. The raised circular ring in the center. The slight dent in the bars where it was attached.

Move,
she willed.

She was getting light-headed. She licked her dry lips and tried again.

Move.

Something was missing; that click. The amplifier attached to the lightlock was weaker than the one on the training die. Her
vision slid around in the darkness, making her feel as if the entire room was rocking like a ship. She gripped the bars on either side of the lock, steadying herself. She visualized cutting through the pain that was building around the edges of her mind. Focusing on the lock, only on the lock, until everything else vanished.

Move!

Her mind pulsed all at once, like two hands had suddenly squeezed it, and for a second, she thought,
Yes, that's it!
But the lock still didn't move. She hissed in frustration.

She concentrated harder, until her mind was screaming so loud that she was shocked the others hadn't woken. The pressure grew and grew. She felt wetness under her nose and tasted the bite of blood, but she didn't wipe it away. She was so close. She could feel the catch on the lock. There was a force holding it together. If she could just shut off that pressure . . .

Blood dripped on the floor.

Move,
she willed.
Move.

And then . . .

“Magnetic.”

Her eyes flew open. Someone had spoken right in her ear. Who? Who had whispered? The fox in the neighboring cell gnawed calmly on its giraffe statue, oblivious. Across the passageway, someone snored softly. The room was just as quiet as it had been.

A coldness crept up her legs.

It had to have been Dane. He was the only one able to leave his cell. And yet his cell door was closed.

She waited, still, for several minutes. At last, the pain in her mind ebbed. She took a deep breath and gripped the bars again. It
hadn't sounded like Dane. It hadn't sounded like anything really, not a boy nor a girl nor a Kindred, and certainly not Cassian.

But wherever it came from, it made sense. Magnetics. She'd been wrong to try to
move
a piece of the lock, because there were no moving parts.

Instead, she needed to
open
it.

She rested her forehead against the bars and felt out the shape of the lock with her mind.

She ignored the taste of blood.

The pain.

Her sense of balance—swaying like on a ship.

Open,
she urged, and something in her head clicked.

The blue light turned off.
Off!
Her breath caught as she tried to process that she'd actually done it.

“Cora.”

Another whisper, but different this time. It came from two cells down, where she could just make out Lucky's silhouette. “You cried out,” he said softly. “What happened?”

A sleepy mumble came from one of the other cells, and they both froze. The mumble died down as whoever they'd disturbed fell back asleep.

She glanced at the extinguished lightlock. Hesitantly, she pushed it open. The door swung open soundlessly, and she stepped out quietly, tiptoeing past the fox, who stopped gnawing and looked up. She went to Lucky's cell, fumbling out a hand in the darkness.

There.

His hand, through the bars.

She focused on the lightlock of his door.
Open,
she urged. The light shut off and once more she was flooded with the rush of
success. She climbed in silently. His hands felt for her shoulders, and her hair, as though reassuring himself she was there.

His hand brushed her face and stopped. “Your nose is bleeding.”

She rested a finger on his lips to remind him of the sleeping kids. He was shaking. So was she. She stood on tiptoe and pressed her cheek against his. “I'm okay.” But her whispered words were stilted.

“All this training is hurting you.”

“It's worth it,” she said. “Now, when Leon comes back, I can sneak away with him through the drecktube tunnels and find Anya.”

“He might not come back.”

“He will. Any day now, I know it. It'll all work out before you turn nineteen.”

Excitement made her giddy. The thrill of all the progress she'd made. Anxious and frustrated, she kneaded his arms, her lips longing to form words to express her hope.

Instead, she kissed him.

She hadn't meant to. She just wanted to celebrate this tiny accomplishment, this one thing. He pulled back, and in the dark she couldn't see his eyes or tell what he was thinking.
That was a mistake,
she thought, and her fingers in his hair felt the bump from where she'd once hit him. But he wasn't that crazed boy anymore. And she wasn't that same wide-eyed girl anymore, either.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I didn't mean—”

But his initial surprise didn't last, and he kissed her back. Hard, like someone reaching out of the shadows toward a single point of light. And for a second she felt the way she had the first time they'd kissed. Back when he had been a farm boy with motorcycle
grease staining his hands and she'd been so certain they would go home. He had kissed her softly, then. Not like Cassian had. Cassian had kissed like it was his first time—and it had been—and he wanted to experience everything in that single instant.

She broke off the kiss, breathing hard. She couldn't do this. Kiss one boy while thinking of someone else.

She wiped the blood from her nose.

“I don't know where that came from,” she started, but he silenced her by pulling her close, pressing another kiss to her forehead.

“You don't need to explain.” His voice wasn't angry. “It's this place. It's being far from home and only having each other.”

His voice caught on the word
home
. She wondered if he was thinking of his granddad back in Montana. His motorcycle, rusting and covered with dust in a barn somewhere. A world she might never see again either.

“Can I stay here tonight?” She hadn't meant to blurt it out. But he was right—being so far from home made her feel like some limb was missing, and when she was with him, she felt just a tiny bit more whole again.

“Of course,” he said.

They curled up on the floor of his cell, blanket pulled tightly around them.

“What do you miss most?” he asked softly.

“The sky,” she answered. “And the air. How it smelled like rain sometimes, and you could see the storms rolling in from the distance.” She brushed away a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “Do you really think it's all gone?”

He hesitated. She could feel his heart beating hard beneath his shirt.

“There's something I've been trying to figure out,” he started. “Something I found when I went on a hunt with Mali a few days ago. It was carved into one of the trucks that Chicago used to drive.”

“Wait.” She pressed a finger to his lips, and he looked at her questioningly. “Do you trust me?” He gave a slow nod. “Let me try to read it from your mind.”

He hesitated.

“I need to learn how to read minds if I'm going to learn to control them.”

He looked hesitant. “Just promise you won't root around in there too deep.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her cheeks warmed as she thought of the last time she'd gone digging in his mind, and found memories of her. But this time, he was focused, too. On a word. No, a number. She could almost picture it, rough lines carved into a dashboard.

“Is it 30 . . . 1?” she asked.

His body went rigid in surprise. “Yeah. Well, close. It was 30.1, and it had the letters POD in front of it. I've been trying to figure out where I've seen numbers like that before.”

Her eyes went wide.

“I know where.” She couldn't keep the excitement from her voice. “POD. It stands for Probability of Destruction. But Cassian says the POD for Earth is 98.6, not 30.1. If it was just thirty point one percent, then that would mean there'd be a nearly seventy
percent chance that Earth
is
still there, which would be . . .”

“Incredible,” Lucky whispered.

Cora felt her heart thumping hard. “When they took Chicago away, he said the Kindred had been lying to us. Maybe, if he was the one who carved that into the dashboard, this is what he meant. Maybe he figured out the algorithm was wrong.”

“If it's true, and if we could get out of here, we could go back home, tell everyone to come back with intergalactic weapons—”

She shook her head. “No one would believe us. They'd lock us up in a mental ward. Even if we could get someone to believe us, our rockets are nothing against the Kindred.” She shook her head. “No, we're on our own. If we ever get free, we can't tell anyone back home what happened.”

“So how do we find out if the probability is wrong?”

She paused. Cassian had insisted that the percentage was too small to even investigate, but what if Chicago was right? And what if Cassian didn't
know
that the algorithm was wrong?

“Cassian didn't want to look into it before, but this might change things.”

“Cora, he's the enemy.”

The word caught her off guard.
Enemy?
It was a word she'd used herself to describe him, when they'd first learned that he was their captor, and again after he had betrayed her. And yet for some reason, it didn't seem to fit anymore. “He wants to help us. And he's as convinced as everyone else there isn't an Earth to return to. But if there
is
, and if we beat the Gauntlet . . . maybe we can go home.”

She smiled into Lucky's shirt. She thought of a big, rolling sky filled with clouds, a sky that maybe Charlie was flying across
this very moment in a small but sleek airplane.

At least for this one night, she didn't feel hopeless.

VERY EARLY, CORA SLIPPED
back into her cell. When morn
ing came and the lights flickered on, she went about her usual task of checking the floor by the drecktube, expecting nothing.

She froze.

Today was different. Chalky words and a drawing of a hand with only three fingers had been drawn on the floor.

FOUND HER.

She heard footsteps behind her and hurried to wipe away the chalk marks just as Dane walked down the aisle for inspection, tossing the yo-yo. “Going to behave today, songbird?”

She smudged the last of Leon's message. “Of course.”

“Just remember what I told you.” His eyes were on her, but his head was turned slightly toward Lucky.

She smiled tightly. “Right. Keep my hands to myself. I wouldn't dream of anything else.”

It was all she could do not to look in Lucky's direction.

Dane threw the yo-yo again. Cassian had said that if she did beat the Gauntlet, change wouldn't happen overnight. It would take months to establish a system to bring humans equality, with some suffering longer than others. Maybe, in Dane's case, she would make sure he was handed his freedom last.