The Hunt

by Megan Shepherd

  “Nok?” he called, heading for the stairs. “When you saw her, are you sure she didn’t say anything else?” He passed the nursery, glancing into it by habit, but caught sight of a shadow and stopped.

  Cautiously, he approached the darkened room. His hand went by instinct toward the light switch, but something made him pause.

  It wasn’t a shadow.

  A figure loomed over the crib. Nearly seven feet tall, hair slicked back in a tight knot, gazing down at the empty bedding.

  Serassi.

  She must have heard him calling to Nok, but she certainly didn’t seem to care. What was she even doing here? She’d never snuck around the house before without their knowledge . . . at least not that they knew.

  His hand fell away from the light switch.

  He started to tiptoe backward, but then Serassi turned toward the window and he caught sight of something in her arms. It was wrapped in a soft blanket like a baby, but it wasn’t moving. A glimpse of a tiny plastic hand caught the light.

  A baby doll.

  “Go to sleep,” Serassi whispered flatly, in a poor imitation of singing. “Go to sleep, little sugary baby. . . .”

  Rolf practically ran back downstairs, stumbling over his own feet. When he appeared, disheveled and out of breath, in the kitchen, Nok raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Serassi’s in the nursery,” he breathed. “I don’t think it’s the research that has her fascinated anymore. I think . . . I think she wants a baby of her own.”

  The microwave dinged, and Nok jumped.

  “I told you we have to get out of here,” she whispered. “Still no message from Cora?”

  He shook his head. “A million things could have gone wrong. It might just be you and me, and in that case—”

  Clipped footsteps sounded on the stairs, and they instantly snapped into their well-rehearsed roles. Nok, smiling, setting out the dinner plates. Rolf opening a drawer for napkins. “I just remembered something my grandmother in Oslo used to say about a home remedy for how to get newborns to sleep,” he said loudly. “It involved pickled beet juice. . . .”

  Serassi darkened the kitchen doorway. Rolf turned, feigning surprise. “Oh! I didn’t know you were here. We were just sitting down to dinner—would you like to join us—”

  Serassi held up a notebook.

  Nok’s face went immediately white, though it took Rolf a second to recognize the notebook. It was Nok’s, the one she hid beneath the cushion of the rocking chair in the nursery and only brought out when the researchers were gone. It was where she wrote down all the lies they made up about baby care, meticulously documenting everything in case Serassi or the other researchers were to ask about something again, and they’d need to keep the answers straight.

  Rolf glanced at Nok. She was usually so quick with a lie, but now her face was slack, her lips slightly parted in fear.

  “Oh, you found my journal.” He stood quickly. “I’m glad. I thought I had lost it.”

  He reached for it, but Serassi jerked it away from his hand. “What is this book?”

  “Nothing,” Rolf said, though he could feel himself start to sweat. “Just where we write down things we remember about child care so we don’t forget to tell you later. Right, Nok?”

  But Nok’s face was even paler. Her fear spread to him like a disease as Serassi started to flip through the pages.

  Nok caught his eye. “It’s too late,” she whispered. “She knows.”

  But Rolf shook his head. It couldn’t be too late. They could always make up more lies. Stay one step ahead of Serassi, just until Cora gave the signal on the typewriter.

  Serassi slammed the notebook onto the table, making them both jump. She pointed to a note in the margin. “You. Read this out loud.”

  “Um.” He took a step toward the notebook, even though Nok’s eyes were flashing warnings. “Sure.” He leaned close, starting to read. “Be sure to remind Rolf that when he lies . . .” His voice faded, at the same time the blood drained out of his own face. Now he understood Nok’s fear. She’d written too honestly, never thinking Serassi might find the notebook.

  “Continue.” Serassi’s voice was cold.

  “. . . when he lies he has a tell.” His voice had gone hoarse. “He blinks hard, twice, when he lies about the baby care. S. and researchers might eventually figure it out.”

  He straightened, and adjusted glasses that were no longer on his face, and cleared his throat. “This is clearly . . . ,” he started, “a misunderstanding. . . .”

  He looked desperately to Nok, but she didn’t even try to lie anymore. She looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, and every muscle in his body just wanted to hold her.

  “This is not a misunderstanding,” Serassi answered. “You have been lying to us. Making up these false practices in this notebook so we would think you were useful.”

  Rolf started to protest, but Serassi slammed the book closed.

  “This experiment is over.”

  “No!” Rolf said.

  Tears had started to fall from Nok’s eyes, as though she had already given up.

  “You will come with me,” Serassi said to Nok. “We will keep you in a holding cell in the genetics laboratory until we can take the baby.”

  Nok, crying harder, fiddled with the bow at the back of her apron and tossed Rolf looks for help. He balled his fists. He wanted to punch Serassi so badly. To kick her. To do something.

  “Leave the apron.” Serassi’s voice left no room for debate. She took out a set of shackles.

  Then a soft sound came from upstairs.

  Clink. Clink. Clink.

  Serassi didn’t seem to notice or care—just another one of the artifacts making noise, like the clock ticking or the microwave that dinged at random times. But Rolf knew that sound. Rolf had been waiting, every moment, just to hear that sound.

  The typewriter.

  Nok abruptly stopped crying and tossed him a desperate look, her fingers frozen on the bow at the back of her neck. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. This was it. Their escape, and they might not have a second chance! Whatever Cora’s message was up there, he had no way of seeing it. Now, it might say. Or The plan is off. Rolf realized that either way, it didn’t matter. Either way, the experiment was over.

  They had to run.

  “I’m not going to let you take her,” Rolf said.

  The microwave dinged again, randomly.

  Serassi cocked her head. In one step, she crossed the kitchen and grabbed Rolf by the neck, the shackles in her other hand. He sputtered, clawing at her hand, but she was too strong. Nok screamed behind him, clutching one of the plates.

  “You do not tell me what to do.” Serassi’s hand tightened against his windpipe.

  His anger pulsed harder. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see anything but his hatred. What was the use of having honed his body if he was still powerless? No matter how strong he became, or how fast, the Kindred would always be stronger. His muscles tensed and his mind whirled, like the disconnected parts of a car when the gearshift wasn’t connected to the central engine. . . .

  But wait. That was it.

  Connect his mind and his body. It had helped him solve the complicated time equation. Maybe it could help him stop Serassi too. He looked frantically around the room. There was nothing large enough to throw to distract her so they could run. But there was the silver napkin ring from dinner, on the dining room table. And Serassi was standing right in front of the microwave that always malfunctioned. If Rolf could throw the napkin ring at just the right trajectory to hit the microwave button, the door would swing open. . . .

  “Nok, duck!”

  Before Serassi could turn, Nok ducked, as Rolf snatched up the napkin ring. He only had a second to aim, but this is what he had trained for. His mind quickly worked out the right angle and force to throw it, and his arm obeyed with precision.

  It hit the button. The microwave dinged again and the door popped open, slammin
g into the back of Serassi’s head. Not hard enough to do damage, but enough to surprise her into letting go of Rolf.

  Rolf grabbed the shackles and slammed them around Serassi’s wrists. They were a material that bound on contact; no keys, no locks. Rolf noticed a small metal tag on a cord around her neck and snatched it, in case it was a key that would unlock the warehouse doors. Serassi’s face was still a perfect mask of indifference, but Rolf could practically feel simmering anger coming off her.

  “Run, Nok!” He slid the cord over his own head and grabbed Nok’s hand. They jumped out through the kitchen’s missing fourth wall, landing hard on the warehouse floor.

  “We don’t know what Cora typed!” Nok said, her legs pumping. “How do we know the plan is still on?”

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  They reached the drecktube grate that Leon had shown them. Rolf slammed his fists into it, again and again. It wouldn’t take Serassi long to get out of her shackles. She would tell the Council. They’d hunt them down, round them up, find out exactly what they were planning. He fumbled with the metal tag on the cord, but it didn’t seem to be a key at all, but rather some sort of digital file.

  Rolf kept pounding, yelling for Leon to open the door, searching desperately for another way in.

  Nok let out a cry. The pink streak in her hair. The yellow ribbons of the apron. Beneath the costumes they were made to wear, he loved her. He couldn’t let it end like this.

  “Nok. I’m sorry.”

  She was crying. He felt his heart breaking. He wasn’t a hero—he was a weak little kødd.

  Then, abruptly, the grate swung open. A black-eyed face looked out. Rolf’s heart shot to his throat. It was a Kindred, in the tunnels! But—wait. This particular Kindred was familiar.

  “Leon?” Rolf said incredulously.

  “Don’t let the eyes fool you,” Leon said. Behind him, Cora’s familiar blond head poked out of the tunnel.

  Leon snorted. “Bloody hell, Nok, I knew you missed me, but tears?”

  Rolf threw his arms around Leon, who mumbled something about getting a room, and hugged him hard.

  38

  Cora

  “WE’VE GOT PROBLEMS,” CORA said, as soon as they were in the drecktube tunnels.

  “I thought we just escaped our problems,” Rolf said, jerking his head back in the direction of Serassi’s dollhouse experiment.

  “Bigger ones. The Council arrested Cassian. We’re on the run now. I can’t participate in the Gauntlet. Our only hope is to get off the station.”

  “What about Lucky and Mali?” Nok asked.

  Cora hesitated. Cassian had warned her not to go back for the others. But Cassian hadn’t known that Fian would turn on them. Even now, Fian could be leading more guards to the Hunt to arrest them. “I’m going back for them. The rest of you should go with Leon to the Mosca camp. We’ll meet there. With luck we can negotiate something with Bonebreak. If he can’t take us all the way back to our solar system, at least he could take us somewhere where we aren’t being hunted.”

  Leon’s face was unreadable in the dark tunnel. “I’m going with you.”

  She rested a hand on the rubber shielding over his shoulder. “You can’t. They won’t make it through the tunnels without you.”

  She turned before she could change her mind. She crawled on her hands and knees, following Leon’s chalk markings of zebra stripes, fighting the claustrophobia creeping into her lungs, until she made it back to the Hunt.

  She pressed her ear against the door, listening.

  Someone was humming on the other side but paused to giggle.

  Pika.

  Cora knew that she could trust Jenny and Christopher, and Shoukry and Makayla. But Pika’s loyalties were a mystery.

  Cora sighed and drew up her knees, leaning against the cold metal tunnel, and waited for the cover of night.

  SHE WAS NEARLY FREEZING by the time Pika left, and the sounds of chatter and cell doors closing had died down. She eased the door open and peeked into the darkness.

  The coast was clear.

  She tiptoed through the quiet rooms and scaled the stairs silently to find Mali’s cell. She started to reach for the lightlock, but a hand snaked out and grabbed her.

  Mali’s face loomed in the glowing light.

  Cora pressed a finger to her lips. Mali nodded. Cora closed her eyes and focused on unlocking the door. It swung open, and they both tiptoed back down to the lower level. Mali started for Lucky’s door, but Cora held out a hand.

  “Wait.”

  Something didn’t feel right. It went back to her argument with Lucky about what would happen after the Gauntlet. He’d said that he wouldn’t leave the animals, Gauntlet or not. If she woke him up now, would he still refuse to go?

  She chewed on her lip, knowing they were running out of time. She motioned for Mali to follow her into the medical room, where she quietly told Mali everything that had happened. “So now we run,” she added, “and hope we can bribe our way off this station, which isn’t going to be easy without any money.”

  Mali’s eyes widened for a moment. “Wait here.” She scampered off before Cora could stop her, and returned with one of the filthy safari sacks.

  “Mali, that reeks.”

  “Yes.” Mali untied the bag as though she was immune to the stench. “Keeps the others away so they do not find this.”

  Tokens. Hundreds of them.

  “They belonged to Dane,” Mali explained. “When we swapped Roshian’s collection of tails into his cookie tin, we had to empty these out. I told Lucky I would hide them.” She closed the bag again. “Will they be enough?”

  Cora paused—it was the first time she’d heard Mali state a question like a question. She smiled. “I hope so.”

  Cora turned around and started rooting through the medical room cabinets. Mali slung the bag over her shoulder and frowned. “What are you looking for?”

  “I heard Pika say something once about reverse revival pods. To put agitated animals to sleep. It’s for Lucky. There’s a chance he’ll insist on staying behind. And now isn’t the time for him to be noble.”

  Mali hesitated but then reached into the cabinet and took out a greasy package. “It is this one.”

  Back in the cell room, they knelt by Lucky’s cell. He was asleep with one arm through the bars, the fox curled against his palm. For a second, a part of Cora hated what she was doing. But she pushed past that feeling and set the pod near his face. In a moment the tense set to his expression eased, as he slipped into a deeper sleep.

  Cora opened his door, and they dragged him over the dirty floor.

  “He will be mad when he wakes,” Mali warned.

  “Yeah,” Cora muttered as she heaved his sleeping form down the tunnel. “But he’ll also be alive.”

  CORA’S ARMS ACHED BY the time they’d crawled halfway through the tunnel, but she didn’t dare stop. Lucky’s body was too heavy to lift over the cleaner trap triggers, so they’d had to double back and take different tunnels until her vision blurred from the thin air.

  She paused to catch her breath. From the nearest grate came the sounds of heavy boots and flat Kindred language.

  “Do you understand what they’re saying?” Cora asked.

  Mali wobbled her head. “A little. They are looking for us.”

  Cora’s heart started thumping harder. She prayed the tokens would be enough to convince Bonebreak to let them on that ship. She dragged Lucky down turn after turn, following Leon’s chalked marks on the walls.

  “Move to the side!” Mali yelled. “Now.”

  Cora tossed a look at a package that was floating behind them. Not fast, but faster than they were crawling with an unconscious body. Mali pressed herself into one of the tunnel alcoves, clutching the sack of tokens tight against her chest. Cora glanced at Lucky, then at the nearest alcove. Not enough room for the both of them. She shoved him as far back into the alcove as she could and, just as the package nipped at her heels, d
ived into the empty one across from him.

  Every moment felt like eternity as Cora waited for the package to float past. There was a crack in the alcove and she pressed her ear against it, listening for the sounds of more Kindred guards hunting for them.

  There were Kindred voices, but quieter. She almost thought she heard a few words of English, and pressed her eye against the crack.

  Beyond was a cell.

  Six feet by six feet. It could have been the exact one they’d put her in after her failed escape attempt. The same toilet. The same sink. But there was an examination table in the center. A figure shifted on it, and she gasped.

  Cassian.

  She pressed a hand against the wall. He was unconscious, strapped to the table. Tubes snaked through his skin and ears and nose, pulsing. On a small screen next to him, a three-dimensional projection showed flashes of images. Fian and Tessela. Serassi and her equipment. Cora. The dice and cards they’d used to train with. The machines were dissecting his thoughts. First was a projection of him playing go fish with Mali on a beach. And then one of him trying to draw a dog in the privacy of his quarters.

  And then, the kiss they’d shared just hours before.

  Suddenly Cassian hissed, and she realized he wasn’t unconscious. They were doing something to him, probing his mind, and it was tearing him apart, just as it was tearing her apart to watch.

  One of the doctors must have heard her gasp; he looked around. She jerked away from the wall crack, breathing hard.

  Across from her, one more package drifted by.

  “It is clear,” Mali whispered.

  Cora’s heart was pounding so hard she wasn’t sure she could talk. “Go. I’ll catch up.” Mali gave her an uncertain look, but she shook her head. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Mali gave her a long, steady look but left. Cora spun and pressed her eye back against the crack. There was equipment on the wall she hadn’t noticed before. It was all the length of her arm, and it ended in sharp needles and blades. She didn’t have to know what the instruments were for to know that Cassian would likely never walk out of that room unchanged.

  When he had confessed to her crimes, he must have known that this would be his fate.