The Cage

by Megan Shepherd

  Anya.

  Their owner had sold Anya’s beautiful blond hair and four of her knucklebones.

  Even if they’d only been together a few months, Anya had been the closest thing to a sister that Mali ever had. Like Mali, Anya had been taken at a young age from her home—a place called Iceland—by the Mosca traders. But unlike Mali, she had never grown submissive to their captors. She had always tried to escape her owners. First at age six. Then at seven. Always talking about proving that humans were as intelligent as the Kindred. After Cassian had rescued them from the fight ring, Serassi had told Mali that Anya had died due to complications from old wounds. And yet here was Cora, saying that Cassian had taken her to see a human child that he knew well, with blond hair and two missing fingers.

  Could Anya still be alive?

  Mali glanced over her shoulder, making sure the others weren’t watching, and ran up the steps to the drugstore. She couldn’t be certain if Serassi would be watching; Serassi rarely observed them herself, far more consumed with analyzing data the other researchers collected. Hormone levels, fertility rates, the science of couples and romantic liaisons—that was Serassi’s particular interest, but Mali pressed her hand to the black window and focused her thoughts on wishing to speak to her.

  Nothing happened for a few minutes, but then pressure came, and a caretaker appeared—not Cassian, but the female one who filled in for him when he was on emotive leave—and grabbed her. They materialized into a dark chamber that took shape into the medical room, where Serassi was leaning over the examination table. Mali paused. A human girl’s body rested on the table. Long black hair. Very tall. A constellation mark of the Big Dipper on her neck.

  It had to be Mali’s predecessor.

  “That will be all for now, Tessela.” Serassi dismissed the substitute caretaker with a wave and then returned to her work. She addressed Mali without so much as a glance. “You requested to speak with me. Why?”

  Mali circled the table slowly, her bare feet cold on the metal floor. “Is this the previous Girl Three. The one who dies.”

  Serassi did not bother to verify something they both knew was true.

  Mali kept her distance. She’d seen plenty of dead humans before, in the worst menageries, or in cages, or cut apart by the black market traders. But she’d never seen the Kindred, with their high moral standards, deigning to handle a corpse.

  “Will you dismantle her body for parts.” Mali kept her voice calm. She had learned that the Kindred were more likely to respect her, and thus answer her questions, if she acted as stoically as they did.

  Serassi’s black eyes met Mali’s. “Of course not. You know better than that. We are not like the Mosca. I am merely cataloging this girl’s DNA to add it to the stock algorithm. We are creating a new program for human reproduction. Soon we will not even need the breeding facilities; we will be able to engineer your race just as we engineer our own. It will be far more efficient.”

  “Leon tells me that he kills her.”

  Serassi removed a needle from the wall casings as long as her forearm. “Boy Three is disoriented. He is mistaken if he thinks this girl died because of him. The first day they were introduced to their enclosure, I materialized into the cage to check on their vital signs as they woke. This girl saw me as I was rematerializing. She was afraid and ran. Boy Three did not see because I was standing behind him. The ocean has a high saline level to prevent drowning, but this girl was an expert swimmer. She was able to pass beyond the breakers. It is an oversight we have corrected; the ocean is no longer a threat, if that is what worries you.” She stuck the needle into the dead girl’s abdomen, and Mali flinched. “Now, you did not summon me because of her. What do you want?”

  Mali felt Serassi’s probing mind shuffling through her own thoughts. It had taken her years to learn how their telepathy worked and, more importantly, how to block it. She focused her energy on splitting her thoughts: on the surface of her mind, she thought about the dead girl’s blue lips. But deeper, where Serassi couldn’t probe, she wondered if they were examining the dead girl not for fertility or reproductive DNA, but to see if her body had evolved. Mali knew the rumors. Anya had even been the source of some of them. Anya had claimed she could sometimes hear what the Kindred were thinking, or predict what they were going to do next. Mali had tried to tell Anya to keep such information to herself, but she’d been too young to realize the danger of talking freely.

  “Do you know Cassian takes Cora to the menageries,” Mali said.

  Serassi withdrew the needle probe from the dead girl’s abdomen, checking it to get a reading. “Yes.” Her voice was dismissive—she didn’t have time for Cassian’s foolishness. “It was risky of him. If the Council found out, he would be severely reprimanded.”

  “Cora says she saw a girl there with blond hair and two missing fingers.” Mali stared at the dead girl’s blue lips. “It sounds like Anya.”

  Serassi’s hand paused. The probe lingered an inch above the dead girl’s belly button.

  “You tell me that Anya is dead,” Mali pressed.

  “Then why are you asking me something you already know? Are you suggesting that I lied to you?”

  There was a challenge in Serassi’s eyes. Something bitter cold, and Mali flinched again. On the surface, Serassi was one of the best Kindred at cloaking her emotions. But Mali had come to know her and could read some slips of emotion, just as she could with Cassian.

  “You would be wise not to question us,” Serassi said. The door slid back open, and Tessela entered. “Now return to your enclosure, Girl Three.”

  Girl Three. There had been a time when Serassi had called Mali by her name, just as Cassian did. But now the familiarity was gone. She had asked too many questions.

  Tessela grabbed her, and they dematerialized back to the drugstore, facing the green grass and warm sun, though Mali hugged the jacket tighter. She stopped on the porch and looked out over their world as Tessela disappeared behind her.

  The ocean lapped against the beach. The stream wound through the farm. In the distance, she could make out the highest dunes of the desert.

  Cora had said that this enclosure was a lie. The artificiality of it had never bothered Mali before, because she knew there was no alternative. Earth was gone. She had never questioned that.

  But now she wondered if Anya was still alive. And if the Kindred had lied to her about Anya, what else had they lied about? Could Earth still be there, and they’d only been told it wasn’t to keep them complacent?

  Her eyes traced the far reaches of the desert. She had only the one memory of her life before she had been taken. A carpet laid out over sand, and camels in the distance, and her mother pouring hot tea from a beautiful glass pot. She had clung to that memory of her home because it was all there was.

  But maybe there could be more.

  Maybe her mother was still there, and the camels, and the tea, and all of Earth. Maybe she had been wrong to have trusted the Kindred. She had thought she was different; that Serassi and Cassian were her friends, and she was more than just a human subject. But maybe they had been manipulating her the entire time, just like they had the others.

  Maybe Cora was right.

  Maybe Earth was still there—and maybe they could go back.

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  ..................................................................

  39

  Cora

  OVERHEAD, SPRAYS OF PALMS obscured the sky. Cora raced along the elevated walkway through the jungle. There were no mosquitoes, no thorns, no tropical snakes—nothing dangerous, just like all the habitats. A heavy rain began, soaking into her clothes.

  Between the dancing leaves, she glimpsed the ruins of a towering stone palace covered in vines, and a few quaint huts, though they were likely just fabricated replicas that provided a framework for the black windows. She was drenched, so she jumped off the walkway and ran for it.

/>   Mud gave way to sandy soil as she jogged toward the closest hut. Two of the huts were entirely artificial, but the other one had three walls and a thatched roof that at least provided a break from the rain. From the collection of belongings scattered about, she knew she’d found Leon’s home.

  Sickly sweet peaches from the farm filled a crate. Leaves woven together by untrained hands made a rough mat, covered with a sheet stolen from the house. There were more sheets strung up around the sides of the huts. He had painted on them in mud, and they were actually quite good. She’d never have guessed that Leon was an artist, but his strokes were certain, his shading masterful and surprisingly emotional. The Kindred took us because we’re prime specimens. She shouldn’t have assumed the only desirable trait Leon had was his strength.

  Someone grunted behind her.

  She twisted around. Leon was crouched in a corner of the hut, waiting out the rain too. Even so close to the ground, he was a colossus. Shadows hid one half of his face, so only the tattooed side stared back at her.

  She reached for a guitar string around her wrist. “Leon,” she stammered. “I came to find you.”

  He stayed where he was. His eyes traced over her body, lingering on the wet hair plastered to her face, then drifted to the paintings. Cora swallowed. “They’re really good.”

  What she didn’t say was that they were completely insane.

  Each sheet was covered in a thousand watching eyes. Not fathomless Kindred eyes, but human eyes with irises and pupils and flecks of color that he must have made from the painting kit.

  “Yeah, wow, I didn’t know you were an artist,” she added, fingering the guitar string. It would only take one flick of her finger to spring the knot, and have it ready to twist around his throat if he tried anything.

  His expression was hooded. He stood, slowly stretching to his full height. “What are you doing out here?”

  She hesitated. It was a perfectly sane thing to say, unlike the crazed ramblings she’d expected. “I . . . wanted to find you. The others aren’t thinking straight. They’ve basically turned against me. They’re convinced that Earth is gone. I don’t believe that, and I think there’s a chance we can get home, but first we have to escape this enclosure. Mali claims she doesn’t know where the fail-safe exit is, but she’s lied to us before. She won’t talk to me, but she might talk to you. The Kindred must have paired you for a reason.”

  He cocked his head, taking a step toward her. “You grew your hair out. Mom always wanted you to have long hair.”

  He was out of the shadows now, so she could see both sides of his face, and his eyes that weren’t threatening but weren’t entirely sane, either. She ran her fingers through her damp hair. “Mom?”

  “You should stop dyeing it, though,” he said. “Blond doesn’t suit you.”

  Oh—he though she was his sister.

  The level of his delusions left her jittery, a deer ready to bolt, but he loved his sister more than anything. If he thought she was Ellie, at least it meant he wouldn’t hurt her.

  She hoped.

  “Yeah . . . bro,” she said slowly, surrounded by the blue and green and purple eyes. “So will you ask Mali for help?”

  He watched the green eyes next to him, hypnotically. “It’s too late for her.”

  “Mali? Why?” He didn’t respond, and it took Cora a minute of studying the electric-green eyes in the painting to understand. Only one of their group of captives had green eyes. “You mean the dead girl.”

  He nodded. “Yasmine.”

  Uneasiness picked at Cora’s palms like flea bites. “How do you know her name?”

  Leon flashed her a wild look that made Cora grab the guitar string, ready to spring it open in case he lunged for her. But he didn’t.

  “I never told anyone,” he said. “I thought you would think I killed her on purpose. She was running away from me like I scared her. I didn’t mean to chase her. Or maybe I did.” He cocked his head at a strange angle. “I can hear her sometimes. She walks through the forest. She likes the mountains. They remind her of home.”

  He went back to staring at the painted eyes.

  She swallowed. Had he just confessed to killing the girl?

  The raised platform wasn’t far away. She could bolt—Leon was strong but slow. On the other hand, could she believe a thing he said? He was insane. As much as he was prone to violence, she couldn’t imagine him drowning a girl he’d never met before.

  “However she died, Leon, she’s not still here. She can’t be wandering around.”

  His eyes swung to her. “Of course she isn’t,” he barked. “It’s her ghost.”

  He tilted his head toward the set of painted green eyes as though they spoke to him. A cold spike drilled between Cora’s shoulder blades. She glanced at the nearest black window, and pinched her arm.

  “I need you, Leon. Brother. You’re the only other one who isn’t complacent here. Nok and Rolf like it here. Mali does too. She might as well be a Kindred. And Lucky is . . .” She swallowed, thinking of his dark eyes turning away from her. “Lucky is as blind as the rest of them. You and me, we’re the only ones who understand that we have to get out of here. This place is dangerous.”

  “Yeah. I’ll help them.” Leon slowly slunk back to the shadows at the rear of the hut.

  “Oh. Great—”

  “I’m already helping them. That’s why I’m out here, Cora.”

  At the sound of her name, not Ellie’s, she grabbed the guitar strings. His mind was returning to reality, and she wanted to be ready if he did anything unpredictable.

  He crouched in the corner of the hut. “For a while, everything Rolf said made sense. He and Nok were happy. Yasmine was gone, and none of you knew what happened to her. I thought maybe they were on to something about this place not being so bad. Life was crap at home.” He paused. “But then I saw that girl with the scarred hands, and I knew, even without a mark, that she was the new one for me.” His eyes dropped to the guitar string stretched between her hands. “I couldn’t stand to be near her, knowing what they expected. Knowing what happened to the last girl they tried to pair me with. What if I snapped? What if I killed Mali too? That’s why I’m here. To protect them from me.”

  Cora thought, in that moment, that Leon would continue to surprise her. He hadn’t abandoned the group because he didn’t care about the others, or because he was crazy. It was because of Mali.

  “You can help her—all of us—more by being a part of our group than by banishing yourself. Come back, Leon. Help me figure out how to escape.”

  He shook his head. “They were right, you know—the people back home. I’ll never be the good person Ellie thought I could be. I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

  His eyes shifted to a pile of sheets and clothes in the corner of his hut. Curiosity flickered in Cora’s mind. Bedding streaked with paint was kicked in the corner. Something red glinted: Nok’s radio. That was strange—Nok took it with her everywhere. Next to it was a crumpled pair of panties.

  “Has Nok been here?” Cora asked uneasily.

  Leon ran a hand over his face. “Ah, hell. What an idiot.”

  “Nok?”

  “Me. I’m a bloody idiot. Few weeks ago, if a girl like that came to me, offering what she did, I’d have thought I’d hit the bloody lottery. But now—” He gazed off, eyes a little unsteady. “Now I know better. Or I should. But you don’t understand what it’s like out here. So quiet. It makes my thoughts scream in my ears. And the headaches . . .” He cursed. “She found me at a weak moment. Rolf’s not a bad kid. He didn’t deserve it. Not from me. Definitely not from her.”

  The small crumple of underwear stood out like a stain among the sheets. Had Nok come, one of those days when she claimed she was in the salon, and slept with Leon? Nok had always acted so in love with Rolf. It didn’t make any sense; the first day, while they whispered together in bed, Nok had said that she didn’t like hulking guys like Leon. So why would she do something so dras
tically out of character?

  Cora remembered something else about that conversation. Nok had slipped up on basic London geography. She’d been lying, but Cora had thought it was harmless.

  What else was Nok lying about?

  Leon glanced at the pair of painted green eyes. “Get out of here, sweetheart. Don’t come back.”

  He stomped off into the leaves. She stood alone in the clearing, heart pounding. The sun shifted a degree to signal late afternoon, as an eeriness settled between the trees. It was too quiet. The sounds were all wrong, like the wind was moving backward.

  A crash came from the woods. Maybe Leon. Maybe the dead girl’s ghost—could the Kindred also bring back the dead?

  Cora bolted. She tore back toward the walkway, back to the safety of town, but her legs were so fatigued that her foot caught and she slammed to the mud.

  She sat up, wincing, looking for the root she had tripped on. But it wasn’t a root. It was a hard object bleached white, a shape she’d studied in school but had never seen in real life. Her stinging palms throbbed harder.

  A bone.

  A human one.

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  40

  Cora

  WITH SHAKING HANDS, CORA dug the bone free of the mud. She tried to convince herself it was from a dog or a horse, only there were no animals in the cage.

  Just people.

  If Cassian had taken Yasmine’s body, whose bone was this?

  Her stomach clenched with a swell of vomit. The bone was old and sun-bleached; it must have been there for months, maybe even years, though it was hard to tell in a place where time moved differently. She pushed herself to her feet, struggling with the mud threatening to swallow her back down.