The Hunt (8 page)

“Say yes,” he whispered. “We can change the world, you and I.”

With her eyes closed, she could almost believe he wasn't
Kindred at all. Just a young man whispering into her ear on a warm summer day. A rush of feeling found a crack in her head and flooded into her heart. Conflicting emotions pushed against each other in her chest, as her vision went blurry.

“Yes,” she whispered. It had been the plan all along—agree to work with him, only to betray him later. And yet this didn't feel like a lie.

He brushed her cheek.

That spark.

Her eyes snapped open at the same time something tugged in her mind.
No.
She looked through the curtains at the other dancers, Makayla and Roshian, Jenny and another Kindred. Cassian was no different. This was a man who'd betrayed her. A creature who had kidnapped her.

Her vision went white with anger.

Suddenly Cassian let out a hiss and jerked away. Cora jolted, blinking hard, trying to calm down the rush of fury running through her. When her vision finally cleared, she saw him clutching his left hand. Blood seeped from his palm.

She blinked, confused.

A spiky metal jack flashed in the sunlight. One of the jack's sharp points was embedded deep in his metallic skin—skin that was nearly impossible to pierce.

“Why did you stab yourself?” she blurted out, her head still throbbing.

“I didn't.” He looked at her carefully. “
You
did. You were so upset that . . . it doesn't matter why. What matters is that you moved it with your mind.”

She stared at the welling blood in his palm. She'd wanted
to hurt him, as he'd hurt her. She'd wanted him to feel pain—and he had.

She reached for a curtain to steady herself. This wasn't like when she had used her abilities before. This wasn't a pleasant sensation of power, but pain and dizziness and bile rising in her throat. “I . . . need . . . to sit down.”

Her breath started to come too fast. For weeks she'd been trying to capture this sensation again, but now it was too much, too fast, too sudden. It had felt right, before, but now it felt dangerous. She shoved the curtains away, stumbling into the lodge. Makayla stopped dancing with Roshian. Dane looked up from the bar.

Everyone's eyes went to the dark blood dripping slowly from Cassian's hand.

She looked around desperately.

The entrance was sealed. There was nowhere to go. From one of the lounge tables, the Council members and Fian watched her intently, their card game forgotten.

Oh god. Not now. Not while they're watching.

Her head ached. She concentrated on not moving anything else, not making the lights flicker, not doing anything to give herself away in front of them. More blood dripped on the floor. Bright red.

She touched her nose and her fingers came away wet.

Then she crumpled to the ground.

Leon

LEON STUDIED THE MAP
that Bonebreak had scribbled on
the torn-out page of a paperback novel. The lines were as shaky as the creature's voice behind the mask, jerking and twisting and sometimes ending randomly, supposedly showing him the way safely through the supply tunnels from Bonebreak's shop to the sector that housed the Axion delegates.

Deliver this provision pack to them,
Bonebreak had said,
handing Leon a damp wrapped package.
And don't open it.

Well, no danger there. From the faintly rotting smell emanating from the package, Leon was the opposite of curious to know what was inside. He'd heard rumors of the Axion's penchant for body parts—pretty depraved beliefs for a supposedly highly evolved species.

The air in the tunnels was so thin his lungs ached. He wheezed hard and shoved the map in his back pocket, then crawled down the tunnel, following a track that blinked with faint lights.
His left shoulder still ached from where they'd sewn on that rubbery shielding to brand him as one of them.

Bottom-feeders,
he thought. This kind of sneaking-around-in-ducts shit was meant for someone small, like Rolf. Leon was as cumbersome as a rhino and about as loud and—

He stopped.

Ahead, a thin line near the bottom of the tunnel shimmered like sparkly fishing wire. He inched closer and adjusted the headlamp Bonebreak had given him. It was attached to the upper half of a Mosca mask, and it smelled like death. The light shone on the shimmering wire. Not wire, exactly. It was clearly broken in places, more like a hologram or laser beam catching the chalky air.

It had to be one of the cleaner traps Bonebreak had warned him about. Trip it, and he'd combust in a ball of fire.

Slowly, he eased a leg over the trap, his muscles shaking. If only there were more air to breathe. As it was, he felt so light-headed.
Pull yourself together,
he ordered himself, easing one hand over the trap, then the other. A bead of sweat rolled off his forehead and fell toward the trap.

He cringed, bracing for an explosion.

But the drip landed a fraction of an inch to the left. Dizzy with relief, he eased his other leg over, and then collapsed against the tunnel wall, breathing hard.

“Try to clean me,” he muttered. “You can clean my ass, is what you can clean.” He dug in his pocket for a shard of chalk and marked the wall on either side of the trap with a cartoon bomb. He shone the headlight to admire his artwork.

Not bad.

After more crawling, and two more cleaner traps that
he marked with pictures, he reached a point where the tunnel changed to roughly hewn rock, though the bluelight track continued on unabated. The surface was dusty against his hands. Ahead, the tunnel led past a handful of small metal doors.

“Well, shit. This isn't right.”

He pulled out Bonebreak's map but didn't see anything that indicated little doorways in a row. The map was useless. Bonebreak was probably trying to lead him straight to his death.

A whirring sound made him look over his shoulder. A square package was coming down the tunnel, guided by the bluelight, just high enough off the ground so it wouldn't trigger any cleaner traps. He knew the Kindred had all kinds of crazy powers, but seeing a floating box hurtling toward him was still too weird to process, until he realized the tunnel was so tight that there wasn't enough room for the package
and
for him. He crawled faster, sweeping the headlight left and right to search for any of the nearly invisible traps. He finally reached the indentation for the first small doorway and threw himself into it just as the package hurtled by.

He pressed his back against the door, waiting for the package to pass. Okay,
hurtled
might have been an exaggeration. The package still hadn't even passed by yet. FedEx was faster than this.

He settled back against the doorway to wait, and sniffed the thin air. Was that . . . horse shit? And were those . . . voices? Yeah, voices. Coming from behind the door. He pressed his ear against the crack. One voice was masculine and almost familiar. Leon made out a single word.

Zebra.

Zebra?
Well, why not. By now he was used to weird shit. At least the voices were speaking English. He sniffed again, and
it smelled stronger. He pressed his ear against the door, trying to muffle the sound of his wheezing.

“I'll put the zebra back in its cell,” the voice said. “Mali needed your help anyway.”

Leon's hands started shaking. He recognized the voice now. It was Lucky. And Mali must be close too. Mali, the crazy girl with stringy braids and ninja moves who, somehow, though he'd never have imagined it in a billion years, he actually kinda liked.
Liked
liked. He'd refused to acknowledge it in the cage, but that was what happened when you had weeks with no one to talk to but Mosca: You accepted tough things about yourself, like an undeniable attraction to a weirdo.

He raised a fist to bang on the door, but stopped. The last time he'd seen Lucky and Mali was when he'd abandoned them, unconscious and sopping wet, on a control room floor. There was a strong chance they wouldn't be thrilled to see him again.

But still. It was Mali.

He raised his fist to knock.

He stopped again.

What if there were Kindred on the other side too? It didn't seem likely; Kindred didn't seem the type to hang around manure, zebra or otherwise. Lucky and Mali were probably locked in some jail or fake world behind that door; they probably needed him. He should knock.

But again, he didn't.

Sweat dripped onto the chalky rock floor. What was he thinking, anyway? Rescuing them from some zoo-themed jail was a heroic thing to do—and he only looked out for himself. Back in Auckland, when he was just a tyke, his dad had taken him aside
right before they'd locked him in prison.
There's nothing in the world more important than kin,
he'd said, and pointed to the tattoos on his face that told the history of their family's achievements.
Your brothers steal, you steal with them. They fight, you fight with
them. They go to prison, you go to prison too. Everyone else in the
world can go to hell, but not your kin.

And Leon's only kin on this station was Leon.

Slowly, heart pounding, he drew a zebra-stripe symbol next to the door with chalk, so he wouldn't mistakenly stumble upon them again. Then he crawled away. He turned one way, then the other, trying to get away from the voice in his mind urging him to go back and help them. He crawled past the next few doorways, sniffing. He swore he smelled campfire smoke, and then later, strawberries, and stopped to make marks next to each of the doorways. He continued crawling down random tunnels, just barely avoiding another cleaner trap. Screw the map. And screw Lucky and Mali and the others.
They aren't kin,
he told himself again. He just wanted to breathe some fresh air. Gulp it down, like a man dying of thirst would drink water. These tunnels were so tight. Were they getting smaller? Chalk was getting everywhere. It tasted ashy, almost like something burning. The air had taken on the smell of smoke, not the pleasant campfire smell from before, but like something roasting and rotten. He pressed a hand to his nose, his eyes bleary with the smoke, and took a corner too fast.

Something zapped his arm.

A cleaner trap!

There it was, that thin sparkly line, and his hand right smack
in the middle of it. His throat closed up, but no ball of gas came. No flames.

And then he saw why.

Just ahead in the tunnel, curled in a ball, was the charred body of some kid who had already triggered the trap—it must not have been reset yet.

Leon jerked his hand out of the trap's laser light, eyeing the charred body with a grimace. Judging by the smell, it had been there a few days, at least.

He crawled closer, shining his light on the body hesitantly. A black kid about his age, arms covering his face. Most of his clothes were too charred to be recognizable, though they were made of a khaki material with a lion emblem on the pocket. Leon nudged a pair of half-melted goggles around his neck. Part of the boy's skin oozed off, and Leon gagged and stumbled toward the closest door.

“Gross gross gross.”

He shoved the door open a crack. Blessedly, it led to an empty hallway.

Fresh air came pouring in, smelling like ozone, and he gulped it greedily, trying to get the smell of burned skin out of his nose. He should climb out, figure out where he was, deliver this reeking package, and go drown himself in vodka until he'd forgotten everything he'd just seen.

He started to open the door farther.

But then he thought of that lion emblem.

The boy wasn't far from the door where he'd drawn the zebra-striped symbol. Lions, zebras—it didn't take a genius to
guess the dead kid probably came from the same place where Lucky and Mali were being kept. What if Lucky and Mali ended up in the tunnels too? Would he be crawling over
their
charred bodies next?

He slammed the door closed. In the cage, he wouldn't have hesitated to leave them behind. But something had changed.
He
had changed. For the first time in his life he had . . . friends. Friends who he'd rather not have die in a ball of fire. And in a way, he realized, his dad had been wrong. Friends mattered too.

Grumbling, he turned around. He retraced his chalky marks through the maze of claustrophobic tunnels, back toward the door with the zebra-stripe symbol.

Maybe—just this once—he could be a damn hero.

Cora

CORA BLINKED AWAKE TO
find herself staring at the dead,
black eyes of a deer.

She sat abruptly, nearly knocking heads with the mousy-haired girl who Dane had called Pika. She was in the backstage cell block. A dead deer lay nearby on the floor, half covered by a burlap sack. Pika absently stroked its snow-white tail.

“What happened?” Cora pressed a hand to her head. The deer's blood made her remember other blood—Cassian's blood—and the gleaming sharp point of the toy jack.

Lucky swam into her vision. “You blacked out,” he said. “Your nose was gushing blood. Cassian carried you back here and Pika revived you.”

The girl held up a greasy package that smelled like lemon, before heading to the medical room. Mali took her place, forehead knit in concern.

Cora sat up, wincing, blinking so her vision would refocus,
and looked at the clock. Free Time, about halfway over. The other kids were spread out in groups around the room. Christopher was reading from a dog-eared paperback by the feed bins. Makayla was twisting her hair into tight balls, using the reflection of a metallic wall as a mirror. Shoukry and Jenny played dominoes around a makeshift table. Dane came in with a saw, ignoring Cora, and grabbed the dead deer's legs. He dragged the deer into the corner, where he began hacking at its antlers.

Lucky leaned closer. “What happened to you out there?”

Cora squeezed her temples, keeping her voice low. “I told Cassian I'd work with him, but then I got overwhelmed. There were some game pieces. A jack, the kind with the sharp points.” She remembered Cassian's touch on her cheek. “I . . . couldn't stop myself.”

“You
stabbed
him?”

Mali leaned in on all fours, sniffing around Cora like an animal. She gave a flat smile of satisfaction. “Yes. She stabbed him with her mind. This is why her nose bleeds.”

Cora tossed a look around. The last thing she needed was the whole ensemble knowing her secret.

“Is this true?” Lucky asked. For a second—just a second—fear flashed in his eyes, as if he was looking at some freakish imitation of a girl, but then he blinked, and his eyes were only filled with concern.

“Has she died yet?” Dane called from the other side of the room. He kept hacking at the deer. When Cora narrowed her eyes at him, he smirked. “Oh. Still alive. Congratulations.”

She jerked her chin toward the saw. “I thought they didn't kill the animals.”

“Not for sport.” Dane threw his weight behind the saw to break off an antler. “But this one was old. Organ failure. An exception to the moral code.”

“Why cut off the antlers?”

Dane wiped a speck of blood off his forehead. “Won't fit down the drecktube with them attached.” He unceremoniously bagged the deer in the burlap sack, unlocked the tube with his key, and shoved the deer down the same drecktube that Chicago had probably disappeared down.

Pika sighed deeply. “Poor little deer. It had such a cute tail.”

Cora pitched her head down. Memories of the gleaming jack and that
tug
in her mind shot through like streaks of pain. The sound of the backstage door opening came, but she couldn't bring herself to look up at the bright lights again.

“She looks sick,” a deep Kindred voice observed.

She jerked her head up. With her hazy vision she didn't see more than a tall figure at first, and her head throbbed harder—if it was Cassian, what would she say?—but then her vision cleared. A dark-blue suit with twin knots down the side. A face with a sharp wrinkle cutting down his forehead.

“She's fine,” Lucky said quickly to Fian.

“I will be the judge of that.” Fian looked around the filthy room, as though one wrong step could get him contaminated. “Come with me, girl. I need to investigate this incident.”

She glanced at Lucky. They both knew that Fian was on their side, a secret member of the Fifth of Five initiative, but she was still wary.

Fian motioned for her to follow him into the shower room, which, with its groaning pipes, was the best place to talk in private.
He cast one look at the dirty drain and stepped carefully to the cleanest spot on the floor.

“Why are you really here?” she said, once they were alone.

“Cassian asked me to check on your condition. He wishes to see you himself, but he thought you might prefer to speak with someone else.”

“Because of the whole stabbing thing, I assume.”

Fian only blinked.

She slumped against the wall. “You can tell him I'm fine. And despite what happened, I haven't changed my mind. I'll run the Gauntlet. We can begin training as soon as he wants.”

Fian pressed a hand against each side of her head gently. She tried not to recoil as he tilted her head up to inspect the dried blood rimming her nostrils. “Your mind needs time to heal first. Four days.”

“That's too much time. Cassian said we only have thirty days to train and”—she did a quick tally—“at least five have already passed. The module must be halfway to the station by now. I can't afford to lose another four days before it docks.”

“Three days, then. But that's the soonest. You cannot run the Gauntlet if your mind ruptures.” His words had a ring of finality, but he didn't leave. Instead, he cocked his head, eyeing her up and down.

“What?”

“You still do not trust me.”

She gave him a hard look. “It's a little hard to get over the fact that you nearly killed me once.”

He looked down at his hands and then closed his eyes. For a second it seemed like he was meditating, but Cora had seen this
before. The change that passed over them when they uncloaked. Facial muscles easing. Joints loosening slightly. When he looked up again, his eyes were clearing.

“I've uncloaked so we may speak honestly,” he said. Even his voice was different. Not quite as deep, words blurred together a little more. “I'm not in the habit of apologizing to humans, but for you, I will. You need to understand how much we are all risking for this initiative. For
you
.”

Her hand drifted to the base of her throat where he'd strangled her, as she nodded for him to go on.

“Cassian has spent nearly ten human years infiltrating higher ranks, and I've spent the last five. He became a Warden so he could find an ideal human candidate. I became a delegate, so I can work from within the Intelligence Council. If we're found out, we'll be as good as dead.”

“I'm risking a lot too.”

“I know that. Cassian knows that. But the other initiative members . . .” He glanced at the doorway. “Some are less certain of your potential. They want to know specifics of which perceptive abilities you have achieved, and to what extent.”

Her headache had returned. She started pacing, blinking hard against the pain. “Ask Cassian.”

“You don't understand our ways. As a delegate, I may be his superior on paper, but not within the Fifth of Five initiative. We don't ever question our superiors. Which is why I'm asking you.” He stepped closer. “
I
don't need reassurance. I believe in you. But the others don't know you.”

“The fail-safe exit,” she said, somewhat warily. “In the cage. I sensed that the exit was hidden beneath the ocean.” She didn't
mention the time she'd sensed Kindred standing behind a panel, or the time she'd read Cassian's mind. Another thing Queenie had taught her: always keep your best cards close, even with people you think are your friends.

“That is all?”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “I am sure Cassian will be able to further develop your abilities, but in the meantime, the others will be reassured. I will inform Cassian that you will be ready to resume training once your mind has healed.” He squeezed her shoulder a little too hard. “We are on your side. Remember that.”

As soon as he left, Cora slumped back against the wall. She rubbed her head, wondering if what he'd said about her mind rupturing was true. How far would she have to push it for that to happen? Would the damage be permanent?

A knock came from the shower room drecktube.

She stared at the drecktube door in surprise. It was waist high, locked so the wards could only open it a few inches to dispose of garbage. Hesitantly, she bent down.

“Chicago?” she whispered, feeling like she might be going insane. “Is that you?”

And then the door swung open, and she shrieked and stumbled back.

Massive shoulders. Short dark hair. A faded gray T-shirt covered in white, chalky dust. Black tattoos swirled around his left eye.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Leon said.