by Devon Hughes
DEDICATION
For my mother, who loves foxes
CONTENTS
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Free As a Bird Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part Two: Foxes and Hounds Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Part Three: Paradise of Prey Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Acknowledgments
Back Ad
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PROLOGUE
You often end up back where you started. That’s how it is this time: back to the beginning, to darkness, when you were so brand new your eyes wouldn’t yet open.
Sight is not the most important thing, though—you learn that early.
Your voice is strong. You call out and the sound bounces off the small cube of the nest, the high walls of the space beyond it, and the creatures that move in between, looping back to you. That first echo is how you start to understand the world and your place in it.
You feel others around you, others like you. Brothers, sisters, with leathery wings and fuzzy bodies. They wriggle against you. Small wet noses nuzzle your ears, and bushy tails cradle your head.
You can hear them well enough, too. They wake up crying out, “mother” and “hungry,” and their squeaking voices sound like your own.
Mother doesn’t come, but something else does. Someone.
His feet make squeaking sounds as he approaches, but they don’t sound like your squeaks, and the rhythm tells you he has two feet instead of four. His scent is strong and unnatural. He picks you up in a paw that has five long digits, squeezing the fine bones of your wings together, and he places a hard nozzle in your mouth.
The powdery milk fills you up.
“You’re special,” he tells you, placing you back in the nest. “You’re going to change everything.”
You feel happy and heavy with the sweet milk, and you believe him.
“Hello,” you tell the world. The echo of your voice tells you that you are safe from prey, and that there are others close by to protect you, and you trust it.
You nestle down into the warmth of the nest, your heart beating in quick time with your littermates’ as you drift off to sleep.
PART ONE
FREE AS A BIRD
“Deeper Cuts in Food and Housing; Citizens Escape into Virtual Reality”
“Can Underdog Save Team Scratch from Invincible’s Wrath?”
“Matchmaker Joni Juniper Announces Surprise Resignation”
1
THE CREATURE OPENED HER EYES AND WAS NEARLY BLINDED by the bright light. Still daytime.
She hugged her gray wings tighter around her body and shrank back into their darkness, trying to hold on to the dream—if you could call it that. She was never sure if it was dream or memory or just a story she told herself. Whether she’d really even been asleep.
“I’ve gotta split,” one of the humans announced. The creature recognized the voice. It was Vince, the trainer.
The creature poked her head out. More than a hundred feet below her, the other mutant animals were back inside their cages, and the humans were packing up the lab, disinfecting the harnesses, swabs, and tools. Today’s trials were already over.
The creature breathed a sigh of relief. So she had slept for most of the day, after all.
“Keep an eye on my Kill Clan,” Vince called over his shoulder to one of the six researchers. They all dressed in crinkly yellow from head to toe and wore paper masks over their faces, so the creature couldn’t tell them apart.
“Lazy Draino,” whispered one of the Yellow Six, an older man. Thanks to her large, triangular ears, the creature had excellent hearing.
“He’s just going to the bookies to gamble on tomorrow’s big Unnaturals match,” another human in yellow, this one a woman, answered.
The creature noticed that although the researchers always grumbled about Vince after he’d gone, they didn’t say these things when he was around. She also noticed that Vince was the only one who could control the animals after they became mutants. Each group seemed to be getting more violent than the last.
“Are you going to watch it?” the man asked, coiling up the breathing tube they used to test lung capacity. “The Underdog versus the Invincible?”
“No, but my kids will warp into the match, I’m sure. They’re major Moniacs. My daughter really likes that eagle-dog.”
“Doesn’t have much of a chance, does he? Remember what happened last season? If they’re just going to let the scorpion-tiger destroy all the other mutants, what’s the point?” Only his eyes were visible above the mask, and the glasses he wore reflected the light like mirrors. To the creature, the man looked like a fat yellow fly.
“Hey, those ticket sales pay for our research.” The woman held up a glass tube and shook it. “And it’s not like we haven’t seen worse in here.”
They glanced toward the far end of the space, where a chain-link fence ran the length of the room. No longer useful, the mutants that had already failed the genetic tests mingled freely on the other side. The fence clinked and bulged as bodies pressed against it. They always got restless after Vince left.
“We should get going,” the woman in yellow said nervously. They were the last two of the Yellow Six left. The man collected his jar of samples and hurried out after her, clicking off the lights on his way out the door.
Their day of work had ended, but the creature’s was just beginning. She had a long night of hunting ahead of her.
She shook the stiffness out of her wings and the sleep out of her eyes, and then she clenched her toes on the metal slats of the vent to swing herself back upright. From her high perch, she surveyed the room below, wondering where to start. Since she rarely let herself be seen during the day, the creature had to gather everything that would sustain her under the cloak of darkness.
The other animals were still settling down, so first she crept to the corners of the room to check the traps she had set for wayward mice. Finding nothing there, she trotted over between the rows of stacked cages, her four legs making long, swift strides as she stalked her prey. Spotting the dart of a shadow, the creature pounced!
Her paws landed squarely on the
fattest, juiciest cockroach she had ever seen. Dinner was served. She let out a little screech of happiness, but the way it echoed back to her ears sounded strangely flat, and instead of chowing down on the roach, she paused, looking at the empty cage in front of her.
That was where the panda had been—the one the Yellow Six called Mai. They must’ve finally taken her for the injection today.
The creature didn’t usually get to know the new animals. They rarely stayed in the individual cages long before they were turned into mutants and moved to the other side of the fence in the group pen, dazed and bloodthirsty. And besides, she was different from them—she was nighttime, while they were daytime; she soared in the rafters, while they cowered in cages—and she preferred to keep her distance.
But the panda had lasted through eight versions of the serum without being pulled for testing. The Six seemed to like her. They were always cooing over her big, fluffy head and her perfect round ears and her curious, coal-rimmed eyes.
The creature just thought Mai’s eyes looked sad. And sometimes at night, the creature would hear Mai singing songs to herself in the darkness, and those sounded sad, too. The creature avoided the area near the cages when the caged bear sang, letting the cockroaches skitter by unchecked.
Now, the creature looked down at her front paws and realized the juicy king cockroach had gotten away, too. In her surprise about Mai, she must’ve relaxed her grip.
Maybe the serum was successful this time, she thought hopefully, as she unfolded her wings and took to the air. Maybe it did whatever Bruce and the Yellow Six hoped it would do, instead of turning sweet Mai into a snarling, red-eyed monster. But as the creature swooped down to feast on the flies that buzzed above the warm, sleeping bodies, she heard a commotion on the other side of the lab.
There was growling and frenzied movement behind the fence, and the creature heard Mai’s voice, no longer musical. It was changed by madness, or changed by pain. She would be something new, with wings or horns or scales. The creature knew that the herd in the group pen often turned on new additions and hoped that wouldn’t happen to Mai.
Sometimes, when Vince arrived in the early mornings to train his “Clan,” the creature saw him removing injured animals from the pen after he changed the water.
The creature didn’t want to see him dragging out Mai’s body. She didn’t want to see the Yellow Six coaxing other frightened animals from their cages and snapping them into the harnesses to run their trials. She didn’t want to see Bruce, and hear the click click of his pen after each injection, when he’d write down what happened.
This time, she especially didn’t want to see What Happened.
She had a while yet before she’d hear the buzz of the overhead lights on their timers announcing the humans’ coming arrival. She could still get some good hunting in.
But the creature had lost her appetite, and she already felt exhausted.
She flapped her wings and watched the space between herself and the other mutants grow, until what she had thought was a bear footprint now looked like nothing more than a shadow on the floor. The creature retreated back into her high perch, out of sight.
The creature hooked her feet into the vent in the ceiling to hang upside down. The rush of blood to her head was instantly calming, and she sighed. She clutched her tawny orange tail to her chest for its soft comfort, and wrapped her wings around herself, shutting out the world. Flexing her toes to make her body sway, the creature was beginning to rock herself back into a familiar dream.
And that’s when the room exploded.
2
PERHAPS THE ROOM HAD NOT ACTUALLY EXPLODED. BUT that was certainly how it felt. There was a terrible sound, and then the creature felt the crack vibrate up the walls and through her body.
She poked her head out of the tent of her wings to see what was going on below. She thought it must be the humans, trying out some new test, but the walkway outside the door was still silent, the lab still dark. Below her, the docile animals were milling around their cages with dazed expressions. Across the room, she could see the agitation of the more violent mutants as bits of plaster rained down around them. The explosion had come from behind the fence.
The creature followed the dust storm and discovered a fresh hole in the wall—a wall that, until this moment, had seemed as constant and indestructible as the humans. Out of the hole slithered a snake, its scales covered in the white powder.
The snake coiled herself up, her diamond-shaped head lifting to take in her surroundings. When she saw the other mutants, the snake froze.
The other animals froze, too, but an almost imperceptible shiver went through them, and even without seeing them, the creature knew that their pupils were dilating.
The creature thought of the reaction as the “kill drive,” and she had seen it activated many times. It usually happened during research trials with the Yellow Six, or else in one-on-one fights Vince set up in the smaller pen when he needed to make room for new mutants. They were probably still hyped up from attacking Mai.
The creature couldn’t remember how she’d escaped from Bruce and the Yellow Six, but she knew she didn’t have the kill drive, or the indifference to pain that went with it. That’s why she lived most of her life alone, high up in these rafters, keeping far away from everyone.
She would not want to be in the snake’s position right now.
Sensing the danger she was in, the snake shot away from the other animals. She was quick and skilled at slithering between their feet, but there were many, many mutants, and soon she was backed into a corner against the fence, her tongue flicking and her tail rattling as they advanced on her with herky-jerky movements.
At least it would be over quickly.
But just as her attackers started to hurl themselves at her, two hidden slits opened on the snake’s back, and a pair of wings snapped out between the scales. In the next instant, the snake took flight.
Other than herself, the creature had never seen another mutant fly. Many of them had wings, but they were too dazed, or too restricted, or too sick to use them. The creature’s wings were made of thin, gray skin stretched out over tiny bones. They were flexible and scalloped on the bottom, allowing her to maneuver easily through the air. The snake’s wings were different—rounded and delicate, with swirling patterns—like some of the insects the creature caught at night.
And like those moths she hunted, the flying snake seemed to be attracted to the overhead lights, even though they were dimmed. The snake floated up and up, and the creature was too mesmerized to realize it was headed right for her!
“Hey! How do I get out?” the snake demanded, suddenly face-to-face.
“What?” gasped the creature, still upside down, peering out fearfully over her wrapped wings.
Despite being in a room with hundreds of other mutants, no one ever talked to her—she wasn’t sure most of them could talk—and she spent most of her waking hours in darkness, alone. Now, this new animal was not only speaking to her, but it was asking her something that didn’t make any sense. And it was not asking very nicely.
“Out!” the snake repeated. “I know you can’t be deaf with those big ears. Where’s-s-s the way outside?”
The creature had no idea what this strange snake was hissing about, but it was pressing closer and closer to her, and the creature felt too frightened to take flight.
“I don’t want to hurt you. But I will.” The snake’s eyes were a light milky gray, like hard glass. “All I want is to get home.”
Home?
It was a human word. That was where the Yellow Six talked about going at night. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want go where they were. But the snake was baring her fangs and rattling her tail now, and the creature knew if she didn’t answer soon, something very bad was going to happen—if not with the snake, then with the humans. The lights would be clicking on any minute now, and when Vince arrived and saw the snake, the creature would be discovered, too.
&
nbsp; “The humans go through those two doors,” the creature answered finally, gathering her courage. “There.” She pointed one of her white-tipped paws down toward the EXIT sign. “And there.” She gestured across the room, to the door marked H.
The snake’s diamond-shaped head was already zigzagging in dissent. “I don’t care where the humans go. Everyone knows humans don’t go into the s-s-sun,” she hissed. “I mean the way outside. A tunnel through the walls. To the desert. Or the Greenplains-s-s.”
Greenwhat? The creature’s world was white walls and steel cages. The brightest color she’d encountered was the yellow of the scientists’ suits.
“The only tunnel I’ve seen is the one you made. I, um, don’t think that there is a way out.”
“WHAT?” the snake shouted the word so loudly that her jaws unhinged. “There has-s-s to be. Moss’s stories-s-s about escaped Unnaturals, Castor’s babble about freedom . . . it can’t all end here in another lab.”
The overhead lights switched on, one by one, casting a pale, greenish glow over the room.
“They’re coming,” the creature warned. “You should go back to where you came from—wherever that is.”
“Back to NuFormz?” the snake scoffed, glancing at the hole she’d slithered out of. “Back to prison, to fighting for human enjoyment, to a dumb eagle-dog talking nonsense about teamwork, when my team never cared a lick about me? Never.”
Teamwork. The unfamiliar idea echoed in the creature’s ears. “It must be better than here,” she murmured.
Turning away, the snake careened around the ceiling, her moth wings fluttering erratically as she flung herself into the far corners of the room and veered too close to the fans. The creature was grateful that the snake would be preoccupied far away from her when the humans came.
Of course, now the snake was zooming back toward her. The creature saw the flick of forked tongue and the flash of fang and winced, preparing for the snake’s venomous strike. Instead, the snake looked past her with narrowed eyes.