The Cage: The Hunt Part 23

"I'll carry her. We have the removal pa.s.s, if that guard stops us. Come on, just open her cell with your mind or whatever. This place gives me the creeps."

Cora concentrated on the lightlock set into the wall above Anya's cell. It was slightly different from the ones in their cell block, but after a few minutes she figured it out and the door swung open with her thoughts.

Anya turned back to the fire, uninterested.

Leon started to take a step inside her cell but hesitated, like he was reaching for a live cobra that was going to strike if he moved too fast. He paced to the left, then to the right, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Just grab her," Cora hissed. "She's drugged. She can't hurt you."

"Famous last words," he muttered, then took a deep breath like he was diving underwater, and threw Anya over his shoulder. Her head pitched back, lolling; her eyes were gla.s.sy.

"We'll sail to a different world," she said into Cora's head.

Leon fumbled to snap the shackles on Anya's hands, as much for show as to protect themselves from her. "Let's get out of here."

They hurried back to the entrance. Cora wondered how sane Anya really was beneath the drugs. That tear in her own mind felt suddenly more painful. She pressed a hand to her nose, trying to stave off the blood, as she focused on the blue sensor to open the door.

It slid open-and the female guard was on the other side.

She blocked the exit, as though she had been waiting for them. Her face was a mask of pa.s.sivity as she slowly c.o.c.ked her head, eyes focused on Anya.

Leon had been right-it had been too easy before.

Luckily, he didn't break character now. With his free hand, he held out the removal pa.s.s.

The guard took the pa.s.s, studying it closely, and then scanned it to log the visit. It seemed to satisfy her, and she stepped back to allow them to enter the hallway. Cora closed the door behind them, keeping her face calm, so the guard would think Leon had done it. As they walked away, she could feel success with every step. Ahead, just around that corner, they'd slip back into the walls and be safe.

Then the guard said something in Kindred.

Cora froze. Leon did too.

Cora frantically tried to probe the guard's mind. When she'd read Ca.s.sian's thoughts before, it hadn't mattered what language they'd been in. But all she came up with now was a cold, suspicious feeling. Panic started to seep into her, but Leon remained calm. He gave a noncommittal grunt like she had heard the Kindred do, and started walking again with authority.

One step.

One more.

The guard spoke again, sharper. Out of the corner of her eye, Cora glanced at Leon, wondering if they should run for it. The Kindred were so fast that it would take a miracle to get to the drecktube in time. There was the gun, but that was only a bluff.

They turned slowly. The guard was facing them, and she didn't look pleased. She wore an intercom on her wrist-she could have twenty more guards there in seconds.

The guard took a step closer, head moving in measured jerks between Leon and Cora. There was nothing they could do; there were no words to answer her. Cora glanced at Leon; sweat was trickling down his face. At the same moment, the guard noticed.

Leon broke character. "We're screwed!"

The guard reached for her wrist intercom. Time seemed to slow. Cora twisted the shackles, but it was useless. There was no stick to drive through her eye. She spun on Leon. "Run, now! Take Anya-I'll hold her off."

"Like h.e.l.l," he said.

Cora was about to throw herself at the guard when a blast of sound fractured through the hallway. She cried out, and Leon cringed. A gunshot? She twisted around to see Leon's holster-empty. Where was the gun? Another shot rang out, and the Kindred doubled over. Cora looked around frantically. Her hands were empty. So were Leon's. So were Anya's; she was still slung over his shoulder, delirious.

Who was firing the gun?

And then she saw it. Hovering in the air four feet off the ground. Still aimed in the direction of the guard, who had collapsed.

Cora jerked around to face Anya, with her drug-laced smile.

"Anya's doing this," Cora choked. "She's doing it with her mind!"

The floating gun started to aim at the crouching guard again, but Cora reached out and plucked it from the air. The smile on Anya's face fell.

"That's enough," Cora said. "Leon, move!"

They raced down the hallway. The gun felt warm in Cora's hand. She'd never imagined power like that. Levitation. Even making it shoot-that was so far beyond her own abilities that she'd thought it impossible.

They raced around the corner to the drecktube. Leon climbed in and dragged Anya in like she weighed nothing.

Cora stuffed the gun in the strap of her dress.

"Someone's going to find that guard," Leon said.

"Yeah," Cora answered, still shaking, "But not until morning. We'll be long gone by then."

They started crawling. Leon seemed to know where he was going, which was good, because Cora couldn't focus on anything. That tear in the back of her head was throbbing. Ca.s.sian had said Anya had fractured her mind beyond repair. But could a fractured mind do what she had just done?

Eventually, they saw the tube that led back to the Hunt; Leon had marked it with chalk. Cora tried not to think about the wounded guard.

They had Anya.

Ca.s.sian was on her side.

Once they had Nok and Rolf safe, she would be ready for the Gauntlet. She ignored that itch in her mind that said there was more to the Gauntlet than Ca.s.sian was letting on.

35.

Cora CORA SLAMMED THE DOOR of her cell closed.

She mussed her hair to make it look as if she'd slept, and kicked around her blanket, seconds before the morning lights flickered on. The clock above the doorway clicked onto Morning Prep.

She sank against the bars, chest rising and falling hard. She had made it. They had made it. It was all she could do, once the lights flickered all the way on, not to laugh out loud in joy. She pressed a hand over her mouth and whirled toward Lucky's cell.

But the joy on her face died.

He looked awful. Dark circles around his eyes, hair tangled, like he hadn't slept at all. As soon as the lightlocks clicked off, she pushed open the door. The other kids all tumbled out of their cells, trying to beat one another to the feed room. Cora bided her time until they cleared.

"What's wrong?" she asked Lucky.

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and glanced at the fox. Their argument from the night before flooded back to her, his a.s.sertions that he'd do anything-even stay behind-to protect the animals, and that it was her responsibility to do the same for the kids.

"The others know," he said.

She jerked back in surprise. "How much?"

"Not everything, but enough. They've been protecting us." He glanced toward the medical room, tucking a few torn-out journal pages into his pocket. There was handwriting on them, but it wasn't his. "Did you get Anya?"

"Yeah. She's safe, but . . ." She remembered the gun floating in the air. "I'm not sure anyone around her is. She's delirious. She isn't going to be able to train me like that."

"It must be the drugs," Lucky said. "They'll have to leave her system before she can tell you how to control minds."

The clock clicked over to Showtime, and Cora's stomach grumbled, but she ignored it. Lucky rubbed his shoulder uneasily as he watched the backstage kids tumble out of the feed room, Shoukry and Christopher arguing over half a breakfast cake. His fingers fumbled again with the torn-out pages.

"What are those?" she asked.

He didn't answer. She was tempted to probe inside his mind and see what was bothering him. She went so far as to send her thoughts just to the edge of his, but flinched when she saw images of guns, darts, dead animals-all surrounded by an overwhelming feeling of sadness.

"Don't worry about it." When he met her eyes, he blinked and his weariness vanished. He gave her half a smile. "We're getting close. You're going to beat this thing, I know it."

His words bolstered her hope.

That morning, she raced through her songs as if she'd chugged ten cups of coffee. Her limbs felt light and jittery. Arrowal and the Council members hadn't come today. Roshian was rotting where no one would ever find him. For the first time in days, Cora let herself revel in a sense of hope, as she pulled Shoukry onstage and they belted out the refrain together.

"I haven't thought of that song in years!" Shoukry said with a laugh. "We used to listen to it at the roller-skating rink. It played at my fifth birthday party."

Cora squeezed his hand, beaming.

Shoukry leaned in close. "Whatever you're planning," he whispered, "we're with you."

Shocked, Cora couldn't form words to answer until Shoukry was already stepping off the stage, and by then, the front door was opening.

Ca.s.sian entered, and any words vanished in her mind.

His eyes met hers and he stopped. Suddenly she was back in his quarters, and it made goose b.u.mps erupt on her arms. They were in this together now. No more secrets. No more lies.

He nodded toward the alcove.

Once they were in the solitude behind the wooden screen, she thought her racing heart would slow, but it only beat faster.

"We freed Anya," she said.

"Where is she?"

"With the Mosca." Cora picked up one of the cards on the table, the queen of diamonds, turning it anxiously between her fingers.

"It will take a while for the drugs to clear her system," Ca.s.sian said. "A full day, perhaps longer. The Gauntlet arrives tomorrow, and the tests begin the day after that. That does not leave us much time. How much progress have you made teaching yourself to read minds?"

A thump sounded from beyond the alcove. The music outside stopped halfway through a song. Cora glanced at the slats, but dismissed it. Makayla must be taking her break early.

"I can see images sometimes in people's heads, sense the feelings that go with them."

"I don't know how Anya goes about controlling minds, but my guess is you'll need more than that. You'll need to extract specific words, as a starting point. It isn't like levitating dice, because there are no amplifiers built into the mind. You must probe beneath consciousness, like reaching into a murky pond and finding a stone at the bottom." He took her hands, and she flinched at the sudden contact. He placed her palms on either side of his head, just above his ears. "Tell me what I am thinking."

He closed his eyes.

She scanned his face, looking for any tells or clues that might give away his thoughts. The scar Mali had given him. The b.u.mp in his nose.

She concentrated on piercing his mind's natural shield. She had only ever intentionally read humans' minds before, and by contrast Ca.s.sian's felt surprisingly chaotic. Thoughts were stacked in haphazard piles that must make sense only to him.

Out of the chaos, she sensed an image of his quarters, bare. The book he liked to read, Peter Pan and Wendy. Then a memory of the cage, of watching her from behind a panel as she found the bone he had planted in the desert. That memory seemed stronger than the others.

"The bone," she whispered, and felt his head nod in her hands.

"Good. And what am I thinking now?"

She concentrated again, and pictured a black sky. A snow-covered hill that would have made her shiver, but in his memory, he didn't feel the cold. One by one, lights appeared in the dark.

"Stars."

"Yes. And now?"

He had tipped his head down, so their foreheads were pressed together. She pictured an image of her own face. She was driving in her dad's car down country roads, singing softly to the radio. Her cheeks started to warm. His memories felt different when they were about her. They crackled at the edges, more alive. The image changed to waves lapping in the ocean, the two of them standing in the surf. In the memory, they were arguing. He was confused, frustrated, desperate. She had started to speak, but then he'd kissed her.

Her lips parted in surprise. "You're thinking . . . of that day-"

And then, he was kissing her again. Not in a memory-in real life.

They were so close already that it had taken just a tilt of his head for their lips to meet. A current spread to her toes, and her hands instinctively slipped from the sides of his head to his shoulders. He kissed her deeper and she slid her arms around his neck. It was wrong, she knew. She'd sworn not to do this again. And yet ever since that day they'd pretended to dance together, she'd been unable to forget it.

Her hip b.u.mped the table, and the cards fluttered to the floor. She broke the kiss and twisted to pick them up, but he held her tightly.

"Cora. Please. Do not push me away again."

But it was too much-the kiss, what it meant, everything. She crouched down, hair falling over her face, thankful for the excuse to catch her breath. Her fingers curled around the fallen cards. She'd stand up. She'd face him. She'd tell him it couldn't happen again. . . .

And then she realized that the Hunt had gone completely silent on the other side of the screen. No clinking gla.s.ses, no announcements from the stage. She glanced at Ca.s.sian and saw the same realization reflected in his own face.

The wooden screen jerked open.

Arrowal stood on the other side. "You. Girl. Come with us."

The blood drained from her face. Surely he hadn't seen the kiss. Behind him, Fian stood with two Kindred guards. When his eyes met hers, they flamed with warning.