The Hunt

by Megan Shepherd

  She concentrated on piercing his mind’s natural shield. She had only ever intentionally read humans’ minds before, and by contrast Cassian’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 bumped 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 glasses, no announcements from the stage. She glanced at Cassian 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.

  Cassian was rapidly cloaking himself. “I have reserved this girl’s entertainment for the rest of the quarter rotation.”

  “That is inconsequential,” Fian said. “There has been a murder.”

  Cold fear crept up her body until she was nearly blinded by it. Arrowal didn’t take his eyes off Cora. “The boy Tessela arrested, Dane, revealed it during his interrogation. We scanned the environment and found high traces of carbon. A body. Roshian’s body. And according to Dane, this girl was the only one present at the time of his death.”

  Her lips parted, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say to clear her name.

  “Take her to an interrogation room,” Arrowal ordered.

  The two guards stepped forward. Fian’s eyes—looking for instruction—flashed toward Cassian, but Cassian seemed at a loss too, his face returned to a mask to hide whatever it was he was truly feeling.

  “Wait.” Fian stepped in front of one of the guards. “I will interrogate her. This matter is too important to entrust to the guards alone.”

  Relief flowed into her heart. Fian would protect her, just as he had before.

  Arrowal nodded. “I agree. Which is why I will interrogate her personally. The mind cannot hide the truth for long. We will soon know everything.”

  Everything.

  If they probed her mind, they’d learn about more than just Roshian’s murder. They’d learn about her abilities and the training sessions with Cassian and the Fifth of Five, and god, even the kiss.

  Cassian blocked the door. “No.”

  His command was sharp. The guards obeyed by instinct, taking a step back as though he was their commander, not Arrowal. Cora’s heart pounded wildly.

  What was he doing?

  Arrowal seemed to tower even a few inches higher. “You question me, Warden?”

  “You only saw a portion of the truth in Dane’s mind,” Cassian said. “You saw the events that led up to the murder, but not the crime itself. You couldn’t have, because Dane was not present when it happened.”

  There was a subtle shift in the air that left Cora baffled. Why was he saying all this?

  For a second, Cassian’s eyes shifted to Fian, and Fian gave a slight nod. Cora had no idea what silent message had just transpired between the two of them.

  “And how do you know that?” Arrowal countered.

  Cassian didn’t immediately answer.

  Cora willed herself to keep breathing steadily. Fian’s hand was flexing a few inches from his apparatus belt, almost like he was preparing for something. Was that what the look between them had meant? That Cassian was going to try to fight his way out of this? Enact the Fifth of Five’s secondary plan that he’d told her about, launching a war?

  They wouldn’t last ten minutes.

  “You are always trying to protect the lesser species,” Arrowal said, a hint of condescension in his voice. “But this girl is no longer a ward in one of your environments. You cannot protect her against her own crimes. Now tell me how you know Dane was not present, if you were not present yourself.”

  Cora tossed a look at Cassian, but his face revealed nothing. She tried to probe into his thoughts, but her own mind was too fractured, her thoughts too scattered to concentrate. All she glimpsed was a shadowy image of his quarters again. She was there, her mouth moving, a card in her hand. He was thinking of the lesson where she had taught him to cheat.

  “I know,” he said calmly, “because I was present.”

  A lie.

  Her lips parted. Fian’s hand flexed again, and it all seemed to happen so fast. She pressed deeper into Cassian’s head, and suddenly his head turned toward her, as though he could feel her there. The sensation of his thoughts changed. That brighter, more alive feeling came. Images of her flashed through his head. Her, standing on a beach. Her, looking out her bedroom window. Her, when she had first felt the electricity of their touch. A feeling of love was wrapped around each one, but there was something darker too.

  “Why exactly were you present at a murder scene?” Arrowal asked, and for a second the room was silent.

  Cassian glanced down at the queen of diamonds on the floor. As though the world had suddenly turned on its side, Cora realized what he was about to do. It didn’t have anything to do with the Fifth of Five or any secondary plans. It was why he’d shown her all the images, surrounded by love.

  He was going to sacrifice himself for her.

  Words rose up her throat, about to tell him that he was making a terrible mistake. She hadn’t taught him to lie so he could lie about this.

  At the same time, Fian took a sharp step right behind her, as though sensing what she was about to do.

  “Because it was me,” Cassian said. “I killed Roshian.”

  36

  Cora

  “NO!”

  The words rushed up Cora’s throat, but Fian’s hand crushed against her mouth. She screamed into his palm but he didn’t let go, and her words became muffled protests. It made sense now. This was the secret look he and Cassian had exchanged. At some point they must have made plans for a worst-case eventuality like
this. Cassian would confess, and Fian would prevent her from telling the truth.

  “Guards,” Fian commanded. “Take the Warden into custody.”

  Cora bucked against his hand, but it was like fighting a riptide. She met Cassian’s eyes. They had gone black now.

  Cloaked.

  Which meant he could read her thoughts.

  “Don’t do this,” she urged with her mind. “You did nothing wrong.”

  His face was a mask, but she could see in the flicker of his eyes that he understood.

  “Take the two of them to separate holding rooms.” Arrowal seemed coldly pleased by her anguish. “And watch him closely,” he added. “Summon me once the interrogations are ready to begin.”

  Arrowal left, but Cora hardly noticed. The room kept spinning around a common point: Cassian. The heat of his gaze was nearly scalding. It was like standing too close to a bonfire, eyelashes getting singed, cheeks burning.

  If anything ever happens to me, he had said, go to Fian or Tessela. They are ready at all times to enact the secondary plan, should it come to that. But the secondary plan was the last resort. Destroying enclosures, breaking humans out of menageries, launching an all-out war where a few hundred were pitted against an entire station.

  It was madness.

  “Let me confess,” she urged in her head. “Please.”

  His head jerked, just the slightest movement. No.

  The guards twisted his hands behind his back to bind his wrists with cuffs. He closed his eyes.

  Suddenly her mind was flooded with an image of home. Her house with the oak tree, and the iron fence around it, feeling so real she could almost smell the fresh-cut grass. Cassian had to be projecting it there. This wasn’t a training exercise anymore. This was real, and she had to read the words in his head.

  “Home.”

  It came to her as clearly as it had the first time she’d heard him in her head.

  “Home,” his thoughts urged again. “The POD30.1 was right—I found the original algorithm predictions. Fian will try to get you back to where you belong. To Earth.”

  Her mind ached with the strange sensation of speaking in thoughts. “But the Gauntlet—”

  “Forget the Gauntlet,” he thought. “You can’t run the Gauntlet if you’ve been arrested for murder. They would use it to take away even more rights. Say you are too violent. Say you are unpredictable.” Across the room, their eyes met. “This is where you give up.”

  Suddenly Charlie’s voice was in her memory again, telling her that there was a time for giving up and a time for persevering.

  “No!” But Fian clamped his hand harder against her mouth. Tears were rolling down her cheeks now.

  Give up? She pushed the tears out of her eyes, attempting to shake her head. Not giving up was the one thing Cassian valued most about humanity.

  “Take him away,” Fian ordered.

  She sobbed harder, fighting against Fian, even though she knew he was only playing the role he had to.

  They started to lead Cassian away, but he tossed one last look over his shoulder. For a second, it felt like it was only the two of them in the room, and she remembered the first time she’d seen him. Even then—as terrified as she had been—she’d been entranced.

  “I meant everything I said,” his voice said in her mind. “We could have changed the world together, you and I.”

  And then he was gone.

  She stared at the empty alcove doorway. The lights stung her eyes, but she didn’t want to look away. This might be the last time she would ever see him. Never again to feel that spark. Never to stay up late, talking about the stars. The Kindred claimed they didn’t incarcerate their own kind, but the shackles spoke otherwise. He’d be locked away forever.

  For her crime.

  She was alone now with Fian, who leaned close to speak quietly in her ear. “I will release you, but you must not run.”

  She gave the ghost of a nod.

  Fian’s face was the same indifferent mask as always. “Cassian’s lies will only hold up for a few days. They will probe his mind in an interrogation and soon discover the truth. When they do, they’ll come for you.”

  She stared at him. “So that’s it? We just give up on the Gauntlet? You put me on a ship back home and then go to war? It’s madness. You’ll all be killed.”

  He gave her a long look she couldn’t read. That wrinkle between his eyes deepened, and for a chilling second, she remembered how he had tried to strangle her. She pressed a hand against her neck, reminding herself that hadn’t been real.

  “There will be no war,” he said. “There will be no ship back to Earth either.”

  Her throat threatened to close up further. “But Cassian said the secondary plan was—”

  “Yes, that was his secondary plan. It doesn’t mean it was my plan.”

  The chill spread up her arms as her breath came faster. She blinked at him, all her fears becoming real. “It was you,” she whispered. “You were the watcher. You told the Council about my escape attempt.” Anger flooded her. “Cassian trusted you!”

  “That is his major fault—he trusts the wrong people. He was a fool to trust me. To trust you as well. You never would have beaten the Gauntlet, cheating or otherwise.” He straightened. “But that is over now. There will be no signal to go to war. Tessela and the others within the Fifth of Five will be investigated and, in time, arrested. I shall take you to Arrowal. If you think you are safe because of the moral code, you are wrong. Arrowal has ways around it.”

  He pressed a hand against her mouth before she could scream. He dragged her from the alcove, kicking and tearing at his hand. The Hunt lodge had been cleared of guests. The lights were low, and the savanna’s artificial sun was extinguished for the night.

  Give up, Cassian had said. But he hadn’t counted on this.

  Cora spotted one of the baskets of jacks on the nearest table. She concentrated on moving the basket, inch by inch, until it spilled onto the floor. She threw her weight so that Fian tripped over the jacks and they both fell downward. Pain ripped through her, but she scrambled to her feet. Right behind the bar there was an entrance to the drecktube tunnels that they used for dirty napkins and empty bottles. It was small—too small for a Kindred to squeeze into, but she might be able to. She raced for it, just as Fian sprang to his feet.

  Please have left it propped open, Leon, Cora begged. Her fingers connected with it just as Fian rounded the corner of the bar. She ripped at the door with her nails until it pulled open; the latch had been kept from closing by a crumpled bag of potato chips, and she gasped at this good luck. She wriggled through the gap, twisting until her hips were through. She tumbled into the darkness of the tunnel just as Fian reached for her foot, but his fingers glided off her heel.

  She scrambled back. Out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed the glittering line of a cleaner trap, and froze just two seconds before she would have sprung it.

  Fian pressed his face against the gap. “Those tunnels are filled with safeguards. If the shipping crates don’t crush you, a cleaner trap will burn you alive.”

  Heart racing, she glanced again at the cleaner trap two inches from her toe. Beside it on the wall was one of Leon’s chalk drawings to indicate danger.

  She’d never been so thankful for Leon’s artistic nature.

  She crawled without looking back, stumbling as fast as she could, scanning the walls for more of Leon’s markings. The air was so thin she could hardly breathe. Part of her wanted to go back to an hour ago, so that she could take back what had just happened, confess before Cassian could, tell him sooner of her suspicions that Fian couldn’t be trusted.

  She leaned against the side of the tunnel. She couldn’t shake that last look at Cassian’s face—still trying to protect her, after everything.

  Somewhere on the station, it would be Free Time. Lucky would be anxiously waiting for her. Mali too. Did she dare risk seeking them to tell them what had happened? It would be nearly impossibl
e to find the Hunt again without Leon to guide her, and besides, Fian would probably be with them already, anticipating that it might be her plan to return.

  The last remnant of strength dissipated from her legs. She collapsed on the tunnel floor. Fear and regret twisted her stomach. Images of Cassian’s beaten and bloody face crept into view, but no—that wasn’t how the Kindred operated. Whatever plan they had for him would involve less blood, but more pain.

  What about everything she had learned?

  What about proving their worth?

  “Little rabbits are no use if they’re dead,” a familiar voice said.

  Anya.

  Cora dried her face on her arm and told herself to breathe. To count to ten. Leon and Anya were ahead, somewhere. By now, Leon would be halfway to that deranged dollhouse to rescue Nok and Rolf. But once word got out that Cassian had been arrested, the Council would surely suspect Serassi too. Leon might be walking straight into a trap.

  “Follow the trail of bread crumbs,” Anya’s voice said. “You’ll find us.”

  Bread crumbs?

  And then Cora noticed another mark at the corner of the tunnel. A dollhouse, with an arrow.

  Anya was telling her to follow Leon’s markings.

  Cora started to crawl faster.

  Cassian had told her now was the time to give up, but there were some people she could never give up on. She crawled onward and hoped she wasn’t too late.

  37

  Rolf

  ROLF CHECKED THE DOLLHOUSE’S typewriter for the hundredth time. Nothing.

  He paced the upstairs hallway, past the photographs Serassi had hung on the walls of herself with the baby. The smell of meat loaf wafted up from the kitchen, where Nok was microwaving their dinner.

  He started down the hall, glancing out through the missing wall at the seating area. Empty, for now. He and Nok had developed a routine. The moment Serassi and the other observers were gone, they would take turns racing upstairs to see if Cora had left them a note on the typewriter.

  It had been seven days since he’d last seen her, and no word.