The Cage (The Cage 1)

“Chickens?”

He nodded solemnly. “My granddad bought a chicken farm after the war. Preferred their company to humans. They’re not so different from people. You’d be surprised.”

“You’re serious?”

He smiled in a self-conscious way that formed the hint of a dimple in his left cheek. “When laying hens get flustered by a dog or a hawk, you have to reassure them or they won’t produce. You put gentle pressure on their wings. Makes them feel safe. Not many people know this, but chickens are smart. They respond to a hierarchy. That’s where the whole idea of pecking order comes from.” His smile faded. “Whenever my granddad introduces new chickens to the flock, he plays them music. The same song over and over. It lulls them into complacency.”

Cora pulled his leather jacket tighter around her shoulders uneasily. “You think whoever put us here is doing the same thing, with that jukebox?”

He paused. “Maybe. Nothing really makes sense. I mean, why the five of us? Six, if you count that dead girl. Were we just in the wrong place at the wrong time? I don’t know why they’d want me. I’m just a part-time mechanic who’s failed more classes than he’s passed.”

He leaned his head back, so his hair fell away and showed that dimple. Her first night in Bay Pines, she’d been so scared and alone. She’d cried into her pillow so her roommate wouldn’t hear. Now, the same sting pushed behind her eyes. She wiped away the start of tears.

He was quiet for a moment, then reached out an arm. “Come here.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to chicken you.”

Cora’s surprise melted as he pulled her into a hug, like he would a frightened bird. She started laughing and crying, either or both or somewhere in between, but she felt less alone. Friendships were important; that was something she’d learned at Bay Pines. The dimple didn’t hurt, either.

CORA WAS GROGGY WITH half sleep when hazy morning light spilled through the open doorway. If she’d slept at all, it had only been fits and starts. No dreams of angels. Only nightmares.

She rubbed her eyes and found Lucky snoring against the doorframe.

They were very smart, their captors. Very clever. They hadn’t gotten all the details right, but at first glance through the doorway, she could almost be fooled. The light was soft and pink, like a sunrise. The gentle sound of ocean waves echoed from the beach. The town would be convincing, if they hadn’t thrown such disparate types of architecture together in an attempt to condense the world’s thousands of cultures into a single town square.

The sound of jukebox music drifted toward her, and Lucky jerked awake, muscles tense until he saw they were safe.

Leon came down the stairs, disheveled, and stared through the front door. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “I’d hoped it was a bad dream.”

Nok came down behind him. She’d transformed her drab black dress into an outfit worthy of the runway. She’d ripped the hem to shorten it, cinched it with one of Leon’s ties—he certainly wasn’t using them—and thrown on a band T-shirt identical to the one Cora wore.

Nok rested a hand on her hip, striking a pose without even meaning to. “You don’t mind me wearing one of your shirts, do you? There are duplicates of everything in the dressers upstairs. As if anyone would need ten of this awful dress. And if we’re going to be rescued today, I might as well look good.”

Cora forced a smile. Smile, even when you aren’t sure a rescue is going to come.

Rolf came tripping down the stairs, looking like a sleepy porcupine with his hair sticking up at random angles. Lucky stood, stretching his back. “I had some ideas last night about how we can figure out where we are and who put us here.”

Leon patted him heavily on the shoulder. “Sure thing, Bright Eyes. Just not before breakfast.” He sauntered toward the diner.

Lucky cursed and started after Leon.

Rolf rubbed the back of his neck like it ached, watching the two boys argue outside. “Leon took my pillow in the middle of the night. Said he was twice my size so he should get twice the pillows.”

He chewed on his lip and blinked. Though Cora was usually good at reading people, Rolf was an enigma. His red hair swept down to nearly hide his eyes, two blue-green mysteries in an otherwise expressionless face.

“You can’t let him bully you,” she said.

His face remained impassive, except for a slight twitch in one eye. “Guys like him have been beating up on me my entire life. We call them bøller—bullies. I tried standing up for myself once. I went to a private school in Oslo where a team of boys twice my size waited for me each day after school by the bus stop. Karl Crenshaw was their leader. He was a big Scottish kid, ugly, always made fun of my twitches. One day he beat me with a cricket bat. I was in a coma for two weeks.”

Nok made a sympathetic pout but frowned suddenly and dropped her arms. “Do you all feel that?”

Cora did. Her skin was tingling. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose like static electricity. She exchanged a worried glance with Nok. “We’ve got to get the others.” They ran toward the square as a crackling sound started, but Cora couldn’t trace it. It seemed to come from everywhere. It built like pressure, a constrictive feeling like taking off in an airplane, and got stronger and stronger until Cora thought her body might burst.

As she rounded the corner, she saw Lucky ahead. He turned and met her eyes. She never thought she’d see someone so brave look so afraid.

A scream came from behind her, and she whirled to find Nok with a hand over her mouth, letting out frightened little gasps. A creeping feeling crawled up her neck—the same feeling she got around the black windows, only a thousand times stronger. Lucky crashed into her, holding her tight, preventing her from turning around.

“What is it?”

“Don’t, Cora. Don’t look.”

Whatever was standing right behind her was terrifying even to someone as brave as him. But he couldn’t stop her from looking. She had to.

She looked over her shoulder.

They weren’t alone.

11

Cora

A NEW FIGURE—A MAN—STOOD next to the cherry tree. He had to be close to seven feet tall. Something about his black uniform suggested a soldier, though Cora had never seen clothes like his before. They fit closely to the muscles of his arms and chest and moved with him so seamlessly that they were almost liquid cloth—except for the row of knots down one side. He wore a utility band slung across his chest, which glistened with equipment that looked far more advanced than the prototypes her father invested in. He carried himself as stiffly as a soldier in an army recruiting ad, with buzzed hair and the straight back of a warrior—except for a few key differences. His impressive height. His skin, which was somewhere in between the color of copper and bronze and reflected the sunlight like metal. And his eyes.