The Cage (The Cage 1)

Lucky turned away from the shops and habitats that had made up their artificial world, facing the ocean instead.

“Let’s go home.”

THE THREE OF THEM stood in the sand, letting the surf whisper to their toes. “You have to swim without stopping,” Cora said. “There will be a pressure lens. You have to push past.”

Lucky and Mali listened intently, then waded fearlessly past the breakers. But Cora hung back. She hadn’t been in water over her head since the accident. The rush of pure cold pouring in the car windows, up through the gearshifts. These crashing waves were mild and warm, but they still drenched her with fear. She waded deeper, crunching the sand with her toes, and didn’t panic until the moment when a wave lifted her up and her toes didn’t touch the ocean floor when she bobbed back down.

She treaded water with quick, jerky movements. Breathe. Count backward from ten.

Ten. Nine. Eight . . .

Lucky was a good swimmer. Mali’s strokes were jerkier, less practiced, but she was strong where the others weren’t: she knew the Kindred’s mind games. Even if she’d never faced a puzzle like this before, she could handle the psychological pressure.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Lucky asked.

Cora took a deep breath. Seven . . .

“I’m sure.” As soon as Cora answered, she hit a cold patch in the ocean. It chilled her certainty. She recalled Cassian’s kiss and his whispered words. “Leave them to me.” He wouldn’t lie to her, would he? Lying would mean death for them—and she’d looked into his storm-cloud eyes. She’d seen raw emotions there. The last thing he wanted was their deaths.

Six. Five . . .

That was what kept her going. She wasn’t paddling toward death. She was paddling toward life.

Four . . .

Toward home.

“On the count of three,” she said. “Count backward.” The stars overhead shone brightly. A strange nostalgia crept over her. From here, the diner lights were still flashing, the jukebox music still playing.

“Three,” Lucky said.

Cora thought about Nok, and Rolf, and Leon, and what would happen to them. Yasmine’s ghost would haunt this same water. When death had come to her, Cora hoped it had been quick.

“Two,” Lucky said.

Cora’s lungs started to close up. She wondered if she would ever see Cassian again.

“One.”

Their heads disappeared, just as Cora filled her lungs. A second before she dived below, a figure appeared on the beach. There was no mistaking his hulking shape as he came tearing into the water.

Leon. He’d changed his mind.

But Cora was already underwater. There was no going back up. Water stung her nose. Her hair floated away. She felt like a ghost herself, like Yasmine was down there, calling to her, wanting to pull Cora down too.

Cora followed her ghost. Yasmine’s death, Cora’s life. With each stroke the pressure grew. The water grew colder, unnaturally so. Salt water filled her eyes, or maybe it was tears. The others were nowhere. Her chest was imploding, insisting it was time to go back for air.

She pushed past her instincts. There was no going back. The darkness was complete, a universe with no stars. And cold. The ocean really did go on forever. She imagined she was back in her father’s car with river water rushing in. What if he’d never broken the windshield? Time confused itself, and she was back there, trapped in the car. She thrashed against the seat belt and the dashboard and the floor. She stroked, and stroked, and bubbles burst around her as her lungs squeezed out the last breath of air. She screamed into the silent water.

She couldn’t swim anymore. Her arms burned. Her lungs demanded oxygen that wasn’t there. Only water. And water. And water. No pressure lens.

Cassian wouldn’t lie to me.

Her arms threatened to give out. She had nothing left in her, no heart, no soul. She saved her last thought for her mother, and father, and brother. She remembered a hike they had taken up Blood Mountain, when Sadie had been a puppy, when her father had just been a lawyer from Roanoke and her mother an aspiring actress and it was the four of them against the world. She wanted to go back to that time. And Charlie. She wanted to be in the airplane on Charlie’s first flight as a pilot and be there on Sadie’s last day. Most of all, she wanted to tell them that she loved them.

A calmness overtook her. The ache in her arms slowly abated. The pain through her body dissipated. If this was dying, it was quieter than she would have thought. It was black curling in at the edges of her mind, and then it was nothing.

And then, strangely, she breathed.

Air.

Cold seeped through her back, water choking her lungs; wet hair streaked her face. She blinked her eyes open and saw her own hand resting on a cold metal floor the pattern of woodgrain. Light the color of the stars bled through gaps in the walls. Her middle finger twitched.

She coughed up water, and sucked in a lungful of air.

She was alive.

53

Rolf

THE TOWN SQUARE FELT too empty without the others. Rolf had watched them disappear into the night, leaving only him and Nok, who had sobbed for ten minutes before her anger bubbled up in one last surge, and she started struggling again. Weeks ago, he’d never have had the strength to keep her from running to the house to summon Serassi. But hiking up the mountain to sled had given him stamina, and throwing apples in the farm puzzle had built muscles in his thin arms. Nok tried to claw at the ground, but he pinned her wrist.

“Not yet. I’m sorry.”

“This is how you treat someone you love? Who’s going to be the mother of your child?”

Hot fury flashed behind Rolf’s eyes, pulsing in time with his aching head. She was trying to manipulate him again. It was so obvious now. As he looked around at the perfectly still trees and buildings of the cage, he felt a strangeness that unsettled him. Over the past few weeks he’d gotten used to the paths that looped them back to their starting place; he’d even stopped thinking it strange that such a beautiful girl had fallen for him. Now, anger built in him until he wanted to squeeze Nok’s wrists so hard she’d cry out.

He’d done everything for her, and it still wasn’t enough.

“You said you loved me too.” He didn’t recognize the hard edge in his voice. “You lied.”

“Hell yes, I lied! I would never love you . . . you twitchy . . . stupid . . . boy!” Tears mixed with her insults. “Did you think I’d love you because you were kind to me? Because you were patient with me? Because for the first time in my life someone looked at more than my legs? I hate you. I do. I swear. I . . . I . . .”