The Hunt (23 page)

Cora

THE ROOM WENT SILENT.

The only sound was Lucky mumbling in his sleep, Bonebreak's delighted cackling as he appraised the mountain of tokens, and the pounding of Kindred guards at the door. Was the Council there too, beyond the gate? She looked around frantically, wondering where Bonebreak's ship was. The echo of Cassian's scream was still in her ears. They had to get off this station
now
.

“You didn't tell me what good friends you have!” Bonebreak said to Leon, and then turned back to Cora. “I will be happy to take your money, girl.”

“This isn't just to keep those guards out.” Cora knelt next to Lucky, brushing the hair off his forehead. “I want a ride off this station. If you can't take us to Earth, take us as far away from here as possible.”

Bonebreak went still.

“Uh, Cora,” Leon started, “I wasn't supposed to tell you about that—”

She couldn't see behind Bonebreak's mask, but a growing shrill wheeze came from behind it, until he erupted and spun on Leon.

“I will break your bones!” Bonebreak roared. “I will dance on them until they pop!”

Leon backed toward the door.

“Wait!” Cora threw herself between Leon and Bonebreak. “Listen, let's focus on the money here. That's a lot of tokens. Think of everything you could do with that amount. All the, um, vodka you could buy.”

Leon clamped his hands over his head as if he knew how screwed they were. Stacked beside him were odd-shaped boards that, she realized, exactly matched the shapes of the bruises all over his body.

Maybe Cassian had been right all along, when he had said that the Mosca couldn't be trusted.

“A deal?” Bonebreak almost sounded amused. “You are offering me a deal? How cute. However, the Kindred on the other side of that door are offering a deal too. All of you, for a lifetime of trade passes. That sounds like a much better deal to me. Plus they will let me do whatever I want to
that
one.”

He jerked his finger toward Leon, who went pale.

Bonebreak raised his arms. “Get them!”

Other Mosca came skittering in from other rooms. They grabbed Nok and Rolf. One stood guard over Lucky, prodding his unconscious body with the point of his toe. Cora recoiled as one
that smelled like sulfur grabbed her.

Leon was cursing everyone in sight, but the two Mosca holding him were strong for their size, and he couldn't break free.

Bonebreak started for the door that held back the Kindred guards. It had a blue sensor, like the others, and a manual lock too—Mosca technology—so that the Kindred couldn't unlock it with their minds alone. Bonebreak placed a hand on the lock and chuckled as he started to slide it open.

“Wait!” Cora tore away from the underlings and threw herself against the door. “We can offer you a better deal than they can. I promise.”

Bonebreak snorted. Up close, he smelled gassy and rotten. The skin where his mask was sewn to his face was scarred and black around the edges, and it turned her stomach.

“You are human,” he said. “They are Kindred. They will always have more to offer than you.” He shoved her aside, but she shoved right back.

“That isn't true! They're bound by a moral code that we aren't. We can do all kinds of things for you—lie, steal, kill, cheat. Give us a chance to prove how valuable we can be.”

Beyond the door, the Kindred guards had stopped shouting, but there was an ominous thunking sound instead, as though they were using heavy machinery to break inside. Bonebreak's head cocked.

“Hmm . . . ,” he mumbled.

Cora's heart beat faster. She curled her fingers around the lock, squeezing it impatiently.

“Nah,” Bonebreak said.

He reached for the lock again. Cora's vision started to
fracture. Her fingers, slick with sweat, glided off the lock. On the other side of the door, the Kindred had started talking again, in a way that was slow and confident. Whatever tools they were using to break down the door kept thunking.

“That's it,” Leon announced. “Time for negotiations is
over
.”

He gave a bellow. It shook the room as he seemed to draw into himself and then thrust out his arms like he was ripping space itself. The two Mosca underlings holding him were thrown backward to the floor. They scrambled, but with their flat back armor and spindly legs, they only skittered around like overturned beetles.

Mali launched herself at the nearest Mosca. She moved so fast Cora couldn't follow the arc of her arms and legs, and in seconds the Mosca's neck was twisted, its masked head flopping unnaturally.

In the space of one breath, it was a battle.

Mali tore Bonebreak away from the door. She was half his size but quick. Anya still looked slightly dazed, though she managed to twist out of the Mosca underling's grasp.

“Cora!” Nok called. “Get the door!”

In a daze, Cora turned her eyes toward the massive lock. It was opening on its own, little by little. Whatever the Kindred guards on the other side were doing was working. She threw herself on the lock, shoving it back into place. It bucked against her hand.

“I can't hold it for long!”

Mali came charging across the warehouse room to help, dodging Leon, who was rolling on the ground with two of the Mosca, but one of the overturned Mosca snaked out a hand and
grabbed her ankle. As she slammed to the floor, the Mosca pulled out a knife.

“Mali, watch out!” Cora yelled. She fought the instinct to let go of the lock and dive for the knife. Even now, it took all her strength to hold the door.

Nok and Rolf were trying to drag Lucky to the safety of the hallway, but at Cora's cry, Nok's eyes latched onto the knife in the Mosca's hand, and she hurled herself at it.

“Nok, be careful!” Rolf let go of Lucky, who slumped against the wall, barely conscious. Rolf wrapped his hands around the Mosca's neck, pounding his fist against the creature's head. Nok sank her teeth into the Mosca's wrinkled gray skin. The Mosca let out a scream and dropped the knife, but another one picked it up before she could grab it. Lucky blinked awake just long enough to stretch out a leg, tripping the Mosca before it reached Nok. The Mosca fell on top of Lucky's midsection, hard. There was a crack like a bone breaking, and Cora winced.

“Keep an eye on Lucky!” she yelled, though everyone was occupied except Anya, who stood in the center of the room, watching everything with big eyes. “Anya, help!”

Anya looked at Lucky, who'd fallen unconscious again, but didn't move.

The lock cut into Cora's palm. Her muscles couldn't take much more.

“It's giving!” she yelled. As she pressed against the door, she threw a look over her shoulder to make sure Lucky was okay, but then the lock slipped, and she shoved against it harder. Behind her, Mali had knocked out at least three Mosca and was launching herself at another. Leon's right arm was covered in blood, as he swung
his left fist with a roar. Nok and Rolf were trying to hold off the rest with the knife that they'd finally managed to wrench away. And Bonebreak . . .

“Where's Bonebreak?” Cora yelled.

A half second later, a figure barreled out of the shadows. Bonebreak threw himself against her. The lock slid open two inches before Cora could shove it closed.

Bonebreak straightened—as much as he could with his hunchback—and flexed his massive fist. He raised it, and time seemed to slow. Beyond him, the fight was turning in the Mosca's favor; Mali was breathing so hard she looked faint. Leon's pace had slowed. Anya still stood wide-eyed in the center of the room. One of the Mosca got the knife from Nok and pinned her and Rolf to the ground. Leon's bloody arm hung limply by his side.

A terrible certainty gripped Cora.

We're going to lose.

She spun toward the only person left and yelled, “Anya, do something!”

Time sped back to the present, just as Bonebreak swiped up one of the planks and slammed it down. Cora hurled herself toward the floor, throwing herself over Lucky to protect him from the plank.

She braced for impact as memories assaulted her.

The cherry blossoms.

Lucky.

Home.

The impact never came.

After a few surreal seconds, she dared to look up. Bonebreak was standing perfectly still, the plank frozen in midswing; even
the expression on his face was as frozen as a wax statue's. One by one, the other Mosca turned to statues as well, as though a witch had cast an enchantment over them. The one hurling a fist toward Leon slowed in time until the fist stopped an inch from his face. Leon scrambled out from under it, shaking himself like a dog. The ones holding Nok and Rolf to the floor looked like immovable bookends. Mali took the opportunity to kick one to the ground, where it clunked heavily.

“What the . . . ?” Cora whispered. She clung to Lucky. He was mumbling aloud, though his breathing had a sort of hitch to it—he'd definitely broken a rib when that Mosca had landed on him. “Hey, stay with me. We're going to patch you up.”

The door lock suddenly jerked.

She turned with a gasp. Whatever had frozen the Mosca hadn't worked on the Kindred guards beyond the door. The lock groaned until it was nearly open. Cora lunged for it, but her feet slipped on a slick of blood—was that
Lucky's
blood? Was it worse than just a broken rib?

“No!” She scrambled toward the door on all fours, but it was too late. The door lock groaned one more time, and then—
click
. Horror filled her as it began to open. An inch. Then two. Kindred faces appeared. Black eyes and copper skin. Hands reaching toward her.

She balled up in terror, her hands over her head.

Suddenly Bonebreak dropped the plank. It cluttered to the floor harmlessly. His hand curled into a fist and in two jerky steps he shoved the door closed with explosive power. The Kindred guards pounded on the other side with renewed force, but Bonebreak braced the lock with impossible strength. His jaw still
had the wax-sculpture slackness. His movements were strange and twitchy, as though he wasn't in control of his own body.

Cora reached out a shaky hand to grab Lucky's shirt, worried by his halting breath. He winced and pressed a groggy hand to his ribs; she cupped his cheek, trying to see into his eyes.

“Lucky. Stay with me. Say something.”

“Ouch,” he mumbled.

She let out a cry of relief just to hear him speak. But then, without warning, one of the other frozen Mosca—the one with its fist an inch from Leon's face—lowered its hand and stood at attention like a toy soldier.

“Uh . . .” Leon poked the Mosca, which didn't move. “What the hell is going on?”

“It's Anya,” Cora breathed, clutching Lucky tighter. “She's doing this, isn't she? She's taken them over.”

Mali gently pressed a hand on Anya's shoulder. Lucky still hadn't opened his eyes, and Cora didn't dare leave his side.

“How's that possible?” Nok asked.

“She's psycho,” Leon said.

“I think you mean
psychic
,” Rolf said. “And highly telekinetic, apparently. This ability exceeds anything we've seen the Kindred do.”

“Call off the Kindred guards,” Mali said to Anya. “Use the other Mosca to lead them away.”

Anya's head turned robotically. The wax-sculpture Mosca underlings started to move. It was as unnatural as the way Bonebreak had moved. Foot over foot. Bodies swaying. Arms hanging uselessly. Like a puppet master, Anya conducted them over the uneven floor as they moved in jerky steps toward the exit. A sound
came from one of their mouths—something like a garbled scream that sounded really, really pissed off.

“That's it!” Nok said, clapping. “She's doing it!”

“Make them scatter throughout the nearby hallways,” Mali instructed. “They must distract the Kindred guards away from the door.”

Anya's face flickered with strain. Her small fingers shook with a bad tremor, but she managed to move them like she was working controls, as she choreographed the Mosca underlings to sashay toward the exit, where they stumbled through the door with clomping footsteps. The Kindred must have either heard them or sensed them, because the pounding at the door stopped.

Nok pressed her ear against the door. “It worked,” she said, and then made a face as she got a whiff of Bonebreak, the only Mosca remaining in the warehouse. “Now we seriously need to get out of here.”

Lucky was groaning a little. Waking, which was good. Cora started to reach for his jacket to get a better look at his wound, but footsteps sounded behind her.

Anya was pointing her trembling hands at Bonebreak, making him walk.

“Time to go,” she said aloud.

It was the first time Cora had heard her real voice, which matched the whispers in her head. Singsongy, childlike, as though all this was just a big game. Step by step, Bonebreak headed around the corner of the warehouse, to a large flight room that contained a ship. Nok and Rolf parted uneasily to let him pass and then followed behind. Anya steered him to the ship, where his hand mechanically traced a symbol on the hull.

The ship's door hissed open.

Slowly, Bonebreak took jerky steps up the ladder and disappeared into the ship. There were a few seconds of silence, and then a rumble, and then the ship's lights flickered on.

“What now?” Nok asked, looking stunned.

Cora dug her fingers into Lucky's shoulders. She had seen his eyes flicker open for a second, but they were closed again. She gently tucked a stray piece of his dark hair behind his ear.

“Now?” she said. “Now we go home while we have the chance.”

Lucky

LUCKY WOKE WITH THE
worst headache of his life.

It wasn't like a hangover. It felt more like he'd been running a marathon every day and hadn't slept in weeks—so tired even his bones felt exhausted. Waves of pain rippled from his ribs, and he tried to sit up but nearly passed out. This was worse than the time he'd been kicked in the shoulder by a horse. Worse than the time he'd crashed his motorcycle into a ditch and ended up with four broken bones and twenty-seven stitches.

He blinked his eyes open, unsure what he was looking at. A ceiling. White. Smooth. Not like the ceiling of his cell at the Hunt, which had been bars. Not like the Kindred's austere church-like hallways. He tried to blink through his swimming vision and saw Leon nearby, cradling a shoulder that bulged out like it was dislocated, and Nok climbing up through some sort of hatch. There were two chairs in the room, facing a wide screen, almost like in an aircraft. A dripping sound came from places he couldn't see.

He closed his eyes again, trying to remember what had happened. He'd been in his cell. Writing in his journal. And then something about a fight. Cora, brushing his hair off his face. Maybe they were hiding out in this aircraft. He must have been wounded at some point—that pain in his ribs was killer.

Someone—well, some
thing
—was sitting in one of the chairs. It wore a mask and a dirty red jumpsuit, and from the way it was hunched, it didn't look human.

Lucky rested his head back against the floor. A crumpled teddy bear with half the stuffing poking out sat inexplicably next to him. Was he . . . hallucinating? He didn't have the strength to reach out to the bear; just that one small attempt to sit up had nearly made him vomit.

“Get us out of here,” someone was saying. He blinked until he could see Mali standing over the alien in the chair. “This ship is Axion technology,” she said, drumming on the curved interior walls with her knuckles. “Stolen, I think.”

Ship? Why would they hide out in a ship?

“Kid snatchers,” Leon grumbled, rubbing his sore shoulder and pointing to some cages that had been soldered to the walls. “Bonebreak must have retrofitted the ship for runs to Earth.”

Lucky closed his eyes again. So that creature in the chair was Bonebreak. Waves of blackness shivered over him. He winced through the pain until he saw Cora climb up through the hatch and close it behind her.

Cora.

The others.

They were all safe. All together.

Bonebreak grumbled from behind his mask, and Lucky
opened one heavy eyelid. It sounded something like
dogs
or
logs
, but then a girl he didn't know, tiny, short hair, nine or ten years old, jerked her fingers—she was missing two and her hands were shaking badly—and Bonebreak's voice turned to garbles again. That must be Anya. But when had Cora freed her? How had . . . how had he even gotten here?

Anya twitched her small fingers again, and Bonebreak jerkily removed his glove, then traced a few symbols into the control panel; other controls seemed to move on their own—either Bonebreak was moving them with his mind or Lucky was truly hallucinating now.

Leon was pacing unsteadily, cradling his shoulder like it was hurt. “How's she know how to work the controls?” he snapped, jerking his head toward Anya.

“She does not know how,” Mali answered. “
Bonebreak
knows how. His mind is still alert. She merely commands him what to do, and he is using his own knowledge to do it.”

“Can you get him to make the windshield visible, Anya?” Cora asked.

Anya concentrated on Bonebreak. His fingers stiffly worked a few more controls, and the windshield flickered.

Cora sank into the second pilot's seat, eyes wide. “My god . . .”

The others went running to the front to see. Lucky tried to stand, but just the thought of moving was painful.

“Kindred,” Leon grunted, looking at the screen. “Those bastards have made it into the flight room. Dozens of them.”

“They are well armed,” Rolf observed. A second later, as though to prove his point, the ship rocked violently. Nok let out a
cry, then smacked Bonebreak in the shoulder.

“Get us out of here already!”

Bonebreak let out another tense grumble of disapproval. It was louder this time, almost a full curse, as though he was regaining control over his body.

“Anya cannot sustain this level of mental control much longer,” Mali warned. “Her mind will give out eventually, as well as her hands. The Kindred drugs damaged them.”

“She has to keep it up.” Cora spun around in the second pilot's chair. “At least until we're out of here.”

The ship rocked again, as something hit it from the outside. Their voices began to fade into the background, like that mysterious dripping sound. Lucky's ears had started ringing. He readjusted his hold on his ribs.

Damn, but it stung.

Suddenly the ship rumbled. Nok cried out and tried to grab ahold of something, but the walls were perfectly smooth. She and Rolf stumbled over to where the cages had been retrofitted in and clutched onto the bars.

“That's a good idea,” Cora said. “Everyone hold on to the bars.”

Lucky reached out to halfheartedly grab at a cage, but his fingers didn't reach. The ship rumbled again. The teddy bear slid slowly toward the left. He felt a sudden wave of dizziness, and his head hit the wall.

“Ow.”

“Lucky, you're awake!” Cora sank to his side. Her soft hands touched his forehead. She reached gently toward his bloody jacket, which he refused to let her touch. How did she always manage to
smell like flowers? “You have to hold on to something too,” Cora whispered. “We don't know how fast this thing goes.”

Lucky pressed a hand harder against his ribs. The idea of crawling over to the cages seemed impossible. His legs were still attached—he could see that when he lifted his head, even with his blurry vision—but for some reason he couldn't feel them.

“Where are we going?” he muttered, voice sounding distant.

Cora scooted over to cradle his head in her lap—when had he slumped to the floor?—and had one leg pressed against the captain's chair to brace them steady. Her fingers brushed his hair back tenderly. Should he tell her that this was his dream? Sitting like this under the cherry tree, his head in her lap, back on his granddad's farm?

Ow.

There was pain in his cheek. Someone was slapping him. “Stay with me,” Cora was saying.

He coughed violently. If only this damn bullet wasn't in his side. He couldn't even remember which guest had hunted him—was it Roshian? Cassian? No, that wasn't right, Cassian never hunted. Wait, they were still in the Hunt, right?

“. . . going home,” Cora said.

The words sank into him like a punch, and his heart began to thump with panic. Home.
Home?
He tried to sit up. No, no, there was something wrong about home. Some reason they weren't supposed to go back, but he couldn't quite remember.

“Wait. I think . . .” He fumbled until he found Cora's shoulder, and traced it up to her face. “I think we were . . .”

“Shh.” Around them, the world rocked and bucked, but not here beneath the cherry tree. In the distance, Rolf lost his footing
and smacked against the wall. His head connected with a crunch, and Nok shrieked.

Anya's face twisted harder in concentration. Bonebreak's hands snapped back into position, moving faster. The world jolted as the ship lifted, and Lucky's fingers fumbled against Cora's face.

“You'll be okay,” she was saying. “Bonebreak says . . . emergency medical kit . . . once we're away from the station . . .”

The teddy bear slid back the other way and stopped by his face. He felt a sudden welling of panic.
Wait.
It wasn't a teddy bear. It was that little fox that liked to chew on wooden statues he stole from the lodge, only someone had torn out all its stuffing, and there was so much blood that he felt he couldn't bear such pain.

Then he remembered why they couldn't go home.

“This is wrong. The animals—”

“We're flying!” someone yelled.

Cora twisted around to look, and fear shot through him that she was going to pull away. He dug his fingers into her shoulder and forced words up his throat. “I tried to tell you. We shouldn't leave, don't you see? Earth doesn't need us. They need us here. The animals. The kids. Where's Pika? And Shoukry? We can't just leave—”

Cora was saying something he couldn't make out. Something placating and reassuring about having no choice but to leave, about Cassian being arrested, about the Kindred finding out she had killed Roshian.

She didn't understand!

“No!” he spit out. “No, there's another way.” He reached a bloody hand into his pocket for Dane's torn-out journal pages. “We'll regret it if we leave them. You think we'll go home and just
forget everyone we left behind?”

She stared at the blood-stained journal with wide eyes.

Other voices crackled nearby.

“. . . don't see any exit or bay . . .”

“How are we . . . ? Oh . . .
shit
.”

The voice morphed into a scream. Lucky's stomach shot to his throat as his head swam. They were falling. Plunging into nothing, rapidly. He'd been on a roller coaster before—the free-falling kind. This was a hundred times worse. The teddy bear tumbled away. So did the journal. Cora was clutching him, or maybe he was clutching her. Falling, falling . . .

And then they stopped abruptly.

The screaming stopped, but the ringing in his ears didn't. The ship didn't seem to be falling anymore, though it vibrated in a rumbling sort of way, like a train over tracks.

“Space!” someone yelled. “Look! We're . . . stars!”

A
thunk
sounded.

And then—

“Anya!”

Lucky's vision was blackening around the edges, and the angles all seemed wrong and he couldn't tell who was talking. Was Anya walking on the wall? No . . . she had collapsed. She was unconscious on the floor.

“Oh god, is she dead?” someone else shrieked.

For a second, a horrifying second, Cora was gone. The cherry tree smell turned to smoke; the petals landing on his ribs singed him with little jolts of pain. He reached out a hand for the fox. Or for Cora. Or for one of the many faces that came to him, the animals and the kids all mixed together.

“Look out for Bonebreak!” someone screamed. “He's getting control again!”

There was a swirl of commotion, but it mostly stuck to the black edges of his vision. He saw a knife in Nok's hand. Rolf and Leon hurling themselves toward Bonebreak, who was out of his chair now and had stopped moving in that robotic way.

Mali leaning over Anya's limp body, shaking her.

Lucky tried to speak.
Let him take us back, they need us
there! We can fight!
—but a ricochet of pain silenced him. No one was paying attention to him anyway. Another searing wave of pain hit his ribs. For the first time, Lucky peeled back the jacket and looked at his side. The safari uniform had split down a seam; there was dark, gooey blood. When he moved, more blood came. He picked at one of the shirt's knots until it came loose, and pain shot through him, as something else seemed to tumble out of his side. Was that
bone
?

“I . . . I think I'm dying.”

His voice sounded surprised even to his own ears.

Cora twisted to him, her beautiful blond hair whipping around like wheat on his granddad's farm. The color of sunlight. The color of warmth.

She looked down at his jacket and screamed.

Then the black around the edges of his vision poured into the center, and there was only darkness.