The Cage (The Cage 1)

With another swell in pressure, he was gone.

Cora sprinted away from the jungle. The ocean taunted her with each crashing wave that moved too slowly, reminding her that nothing was real, not this place, not Cassian’s promise that they were all safe.

This is how it begins. She’d been a fool to think she could ever leave the others behind. They would die without her there to keep them sane, and the sand would swallow their bones.

She reached town just as the artificial sun dropped another level. She slowed to a walk. The only sound was the jukebox music and the beeping arcade games. No insects trilling, no barking dogs, no traffic or hum of electricity, but fears roared in her head.

Ahead, sitting on the porch swing, were Lucky and Nok. She ran for them, about to call out, but then slowed. Nok wore a look Cora had never seen before. She wasn’t hiding behind her pink stripe of hair. She was facing Lucky, one hand on his thigh, purring into his ear.

She stopped abruptly.

Back in the jungle, Nok’s panties had been tangled in Leon’s sheets. Now she had her hands on Lucky. Cora dropped to her knees and crawled closer, through the marigolds.

As much as Cora wanted to trust her, Nok was hiding things.

It was time to find out what.

41

Cora

CORA CROUCHED IN THE marigolds, bone clutched in her hand, as she made out Nok and Lucky’s voices.

“I can’t stop thinking about her.” Lucky’s voice was broken.

“Poor Lucky,” Nok cooed. “Left all alone.” Cora’s heart started pounding. They were talking about her. “It isn’t you. She’s delusional. She didn’t even believe us when we told her that Earth was gone. You can’t reason with someone like that. She and Leon—they’ve lost it, yeah? They weren’t meant for captivity.”

“So what am I supposed to do? It’s been twenty-one days.”

Cora clamped a hand over her mouth, silencing her breath. There was only the sound of the porch swing chains creaking. Then Nok sighed.

“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. At some point you have to look out for yourself.”

“You don’t understand, Nok. I’ve hurt her before. I owe her this.”

“You’ve done everything for her. If she cared about you in return, she’d sleep with you, to keep you from being removed.”

Cora could only make out their shadows on the wall; Nok’s hand grazed Lucky’s cheek as she leaned in to him. “Let me help you,” Nok whispered. “I don’t want you to be removed, Lucky.”

As if her offer wasn’t clear enough, her shadow reached up to ruffle his hair seductively. There was a long pause when Cora’s head filled with terrible images of Nok and Lucky making love in front of a humming black window. She wasn’t sure if she was jealous, or just shocked. It felt so out of character for Nok, like a script Nok had been taught to say.

“You might even enjoy it, yeah?” Nok teased.

Cora’s hand tightened over the bone nearly hard enough to snap it. Lucky was silent a breath too long, and Cora’s heart churned in her throat. She knew Nok wasn’t attracted to Leon or Lucky, so what did she hope to gain by sleeping with them?

It’s a man’s world, Nok had whispered to herself, in bed the first night. Controlling men is the only way to survive.

“Come on, Lucky. To save yourself.”

Before he could answer, the sun faded completely and the street lights came on, the diner sign flickered to life, and the jukebox cranked up.

A stranger in my own life, a ghost behind my smile . . .

The song floated on the air, in one ear and out the other, making Cora’s head spin. Someone in the distance called Lucky’s name, and Cora, still crouched in the marigolds, looked over her shoulder to see who it was.

Rolf was coming back from the farm with a crate load of peaches, and peach juice dripping down his chin to stain the front of his shirt. At the same time, Mali came down the drugstore steps, looking as cold and cryptic as always, and the porch swing creaked as Lucky stood. He and Nok descended the stairs, just a hair from where she was crouched.

They all greeted each other and chatted like this wasn’t a cage in an alien space station, but old friends crossing paths back home. Nok threw her arms around Rolf’s neck and kissed his cheek and laughed with the others over some joke Cora wasn’t privy to.

Cora pushed to her feet shakily. Crazy. They were all going crazy. She had to warn them what had happened to the last group. She came around the side of the house, bone held high.

Lucky’s smile faded when he saw her. He swallowed, hard.

“Cora.”

The last time she’d seen him, he’d insisted on believing that Earth was gone, even despite her evidence. He’d told her that if she wanted to keep looking for a way home, she was on her own. Now he picked lint out of the pocket of his leather jacket, pulling on a loose string, avoiding her gaze.

“Lucky, we need to talk—”

“Well, decided to join us again?” Rolf set down the crate of peaches roughly. His left eye twitched. “You wouldn’t happen to know what happened to the guitar, would you?” His words were gnashing teeth.

She squeezed the femur. Not a single one of them had even glanced at it. “Listen. I found this bone. The Caretaker—”

“Because it’s funny,” Rolf continued, in a sharp tone that was anything but entertained, “but we found some splintered wood and a guitar pick in Lucky’s room. Then outside of the house, the mulch was disturbed, like someone was burying something. When we dug it up, we found the broken guitar. Like someone intentionally destroyed it. And there’s only one person who has a history of trying to sabotage us. You.”

Sweat broke out on her brow. The guitar? God, why did they care about a toy when she was clutching a human bone? “Listen—”

“Is that true, Cora?” Lucky’s brow was knitted with concern. He flexed his hand, but the knuckles didn’t pop this time.

She knew the guitar had meant a lot to him. Music meant the world to her too, but it was nothing compared to going home.

“I just . . . I need to tell you something.”

Nok took her free hand gently, like guiding the elderly. “Right after dinner, yeah? They’ve started feeding us again, and it’s better than ever. You won’t try to steal our food anymore, right?”

Cora stumbled forward, because she didn’t know what else to do. She followed the others into the diner in a daze. The light seemed particularly hazy, and Lucky accidentally knocked into the pendant lamp, sending it swinging back and forth, back and forth, throwing too-bright light onto Rolf’s face, still dripping with peach juice, and then Nok’s grinning face stained with bright red candy, making them all look diabolical in the harsh light.