AN ICE CUBE OF fear slid down Cora’s back.
The Caretaker’s head turned toward the female medical officer. “You as well, Serassi. Leave us.”
Had he just given an order? Cora had thought he was just the hired muscle, but Serassi’s mouth went thin, and she turned sharply and left through the opposite door obediently.
Cora pressed her back against the wall. The caged girl had fallen asleep; she mumbled in her sleep, useless. Apart from materialization, the door was the only exit—and the Caretaker would stop her before she could pry it open.
The Caretaker took another step forward. The dead girl flashed in her head. Then waking in the desert. And the Warden’s hand around her neck. Something deep within her pulsed with anger, and she sprang like an animal. Her fingernails clawed the Caretaker’s skin, splintering with sparks of pain as she dragged them across his chin and neck and uniform, ripping jagged lines that vanished almost instantly. If he felt any pain, it didn’t register.
His hand clamped over her shoulder as he shoved her against the wall, knocking the air out of her. Blood seeped from her jagged nails. Her fingers throbbed. The wall seams dug into her back, their light warm and pulsing.
“Let me go!”
The Caretaker’s hands tightened around her wrists. He wore gloves now that prevented any transfer of electricity, but she could still taste metal deep in her throat. She was glad he wore gloves, but in the next second, crazily, she wanted to feel that electrical sensation again. It was like a drug, the only thing that cut through her sleep-deprived fog, which only made her angrier.
“Do not try to fight,” he ordered.
“I’m tired of not fighting!”
Surprise flickered across his face. His chest rose and fell quickly. It made him seem so very nearly human, and she drew in a sharp breath.
He’s feeling something.
She stopped struggling. He seemed cold, acted stoic, but underneath that exterior there was a beating heart, a warm body, hot blood. Did he feel things like sympathy? What about pain? Desire?
His jaw shifted. Even without whites of his eyes, she knew he was looking straight into her eyes. He took one last deep breath, and the pace of his breathing slowed, and the heartbeat pulsing in his hands returned to a regular rate.
He released her wrists but didn’t move away.
“Yes. In answer to your question, we feel all those things. Sympathy. Pain. Desire. They are unintelligent emotions—signs of weakness. Complete eradication of emotion is impossible, so we attempt to suppress our feelings in public. Some of us are better at it than others.”
Cora dug the heel of her palm against her temple. “But . . . I didn’t say anything.” She dragged her fingers through her hair, then dropped them abruptly. “You read my mind, didn’t you?”
He didn’t bother to answer. She wished for the ability to steady her own pounding heart as easily as he had.
“That’s how you know my song too, isn’t it? You probed in my head and found my memories. That’s why you keep playing it on the jukebox.”
“The Warden thought it would calm you.”
“The last thing it does is calm me!” Her voice echoed in the chamber. The sleepy girl in the cage stirred awake and looked at them. For a second, Cora realized how they must look. Only inches apart. Her back pressed to the wall. Flushed face and rumpled clothes.
Panic filled her. Would the girl think it was a tryst? Did that even happen between humans and Kindred? But the girl just gave a long yawn and started picking at her toes. Cora’s chest sank in relief, but it didn’t last for long. The Caretaker still watched her with those eyes that could reach too far into her head. How were they supposed to escape from creatures who could read their minds?
He hadn’t blinked once, she realized.
He paced to the center of the room mechanically, returning to his stoic state, seemingly unconcerned with how much he terrified her. She reminded herself that it was the Warden who had tried to kill her, not him. It didn’t make him any less of a monster, but maybe it meant he didn’t intend to hurt her—at least not yet.
Her breath slowed a fraction. “Why keep me behind?”
“It has been three days, and you have not slept adequately. By not sleeping you are disobeying Rule Two: maintain your health.” He tilted his head. “We are not as heartless as you imagine. We recognize that you, in particular, have certain fears—enclosed spaces, deep bodies of water—that prevent you from a restful slumber. I would like to help you. Tell me what you require to sleep.”
“What I require?” Her throat felt dry. “To go home. For all of us to go home, and that girl in the cage too, while you’re at it.”
“That is not possible.”
“Why? Has something happened to Earth? Is that what you meant, about how humans always destroy their surroundings?” Her voice rose in pitch, but he didn’t answer. “We deserve to know where we are and if our families are okay!”
His eyes stayed trained on her, just as hers stayed trained on him. It was a staring contest she was determined not to lose, even against someone who never blinked.
“I want you to be happy here, Girl Two. I can bring you a different pillow. A nighttime snack, if you prefer.”
She almost laughed, though it would sound hysterical. A pillow? Dessert? She hadn’t slept well after she was released from Bay Pines, either. She’d taken those long drives at night, listening to the radio. Only one thing had helped: Sadie, her old basset hound, who curled up protectively at the foot of the bed. Sadie had creaky joints and smelled like autumn leaves and couldn’t have protected her from an angry cat, but she had loved Cora unconditionally, in the way only a dog could.
She pushed aside thoughts of Sadie. Sadie was her memory, not theirs.
“Did you really expect me to sleep well, in a deranged zoo?”
“Your species has a history of thriving in captivity. You even place your own people in captivity, a very primitive practice.”
Cora steadied an untrusting gaze at him. Was he referring to her own time in juvie? If he thought she had thrived in captivity, he was wrong. That unwanted sensation itched in her mind, and she rubbed her eyes.
The hard set to his jaw softened. “You misunderstand, Girl Two.”
“My name is Cora.”
“Just because humankind is a lesser species does not mean it has no intrinsic value. In fact, as stewards of the lesser species, we value you all the more because of your natural innocence. Your kind has not yet been corrupted by superior intellect. Your life here will be effortless. We will provide everything. All you must do is enjoy it.”
“In exchange for what?” She shook her head wearily. “Nobody goes to all the trouble of abducting us from Earth and building an entire habitat out of the good of their hearts. Is that why you took kids, instead of adults—you thought we’d be too innocent to question your motives? I have news for you. I’m not that naive.”
“We wish only for your safety and survival.”
“The Warden nearly killed me. Was that for my survival?”
Her words snapped in the air. The Caretaker was quiet, as though she had struck too deep—or too true. Even the girl in the cage stopped picking at her toes and paid attention.
“You are mistaken,” he said at last. “We have sworn a strict oath never to kill a human. This moral code cannot be broken—it would contradict our core mission. I am sorry if he unintentionally caused you pain, but he was not attempting to kill you.”
Cora took a shaky step forward.
“You might actually believe that. You might actually want what’s best for us, too—you’re a Caretaker, after all. But I refuse to believe those researchers care about my safety. When I fell at their feet, they only watched like I was some experiment. And the Warden? He would have killed me without so much as a blink.” She stopped walking when she was close enough to feel the heat from his body, and she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Tell me why you really took us, and why those researchers keep manipulating us. Is it for your own amusement? Or are we test subjects for new drugs?” She swallowed, almost losing her resolve. “Or are you studying us because you want to see how humans will react when you attack Earth?”
“Attack Earth?” For someone who suppressed his emotions in public, he sounded sincerely surprised—or else he was a good liar. “That is another endearing trait of your species. Your vivid imagination.”
“Don’t mock me,” she said.
His face grew serious once more. “We have no interest in your planet. We are not a terrestrial species but an astral one. We have made our home among the stars for the last million rotations—thirty thousand human years. An ancient race known as the Gatherers took us from our planet of origin and elevated us to the realm of the stars, where we evolved into one of the intelligent species. Now it is our turn to elevate your species to the stars, just as the Gatherers once did for us. Perhaps in time you will also display signs of evolving toward intelligence.”
“We are intelligent.”
“Not in the way we mean. For us, the difference between the intelligent species and the lesser ones is perceptive abilities: Telepathy. Telekinesis.” He paused, as though gauging her reaction. She thought back to Lucky and the others . . . had they shown any signs of telepathy? Telekinesis? No. They’d all seemed as helpless as she was.
When she didn’t react, he looked away, as if disappointed. “Your theories are not only incorrect, but they display signs of paranoia. No one intends to invade your planet. No one intends to use you as a test subject. No one is manipulating you.”
“Yes they are! If you’ve been studying Earth for so long, then you know how we really dress. You know what we really eat. You know it’s unfair that I get more tokens whenever I solve a puzzle. You know the optical illusions mess with our heads. You’ve even matched us in random pairs using constellations—why constellations?” Her angry ramble ended abruptly, as she raked her nails over the marks on her neck.
“Every species with a home planet has created symbols out of the placement of stars. We use these symbols because they are soothing to you. And as to the pairings, they are not random. Our society is run by a program called the stock algorithm. It creates our law and determines our positions within the hierarchy. It selected your cohort because you all carry a high level of genetic diversity in your genes, and you also exhibit traits we find of particular value. You are all exemplary.”
“Leon is the best humanity has to offer?”
“Boy Three—Leon—is a paragon of physical stamina, in addition to being from an ethnic group with rare genetic traits.”
Cora closed her eyes. The foggy cloud of insomnia settled back over her, so frustratingly heavy. They had been selected and paired together by some alien supercomputer. She and Lucky, out of all the kids in the world, had the best genetic compatibility. It wasn’t a particularly romantic notion. Did she only like that dimple in his left cheek because of a computer? Had he made her blush because the Kindred had designed it that way?
“I don’t believe you. And I don’t understand why you’re covering for them. You’re supposed to take care of us. Why are you defending kidnappers?”
The room was too quiet. As it was, Cora’s own breath was deafening.
“I will try to bring you a dog,” the Caretaker said at last. “To help you sleep.”
Sadie. He had read her thoughts about Sadie. He might as well have stripped her naked and stared into her soul.
As if he sensed her anger, he folded his hands. “We are not the monsters you believe us to be, Cora.”
She pointed a shaking finger at the girl in the cage. “Then prove it. Let that girl out of that cage. It’s cruel to keep her cooped up like that. If you won’t take her back to Earth, then let her stay in the environment with us.”
The Caretaker’s mouth quirked in something like amusement. He exchanged a glance with the stringy-haired girl. “Have you seen enough?” he asked. “Are you ready to join them?”
Cora’s head jerked around. Had the girl understood English this whole time? The girl gripped the cage bars with an impossibly thin hand, glaring at Cora with brown eyes shockingly lighter in shade than her skin.
“I am ready,” the girl said.
To Cora’s shock, she pushed the cage gate open. It hadn’t been locked.
“She was not imprisoned,” the Caretaker said, reading Cora’s thoughts. “She requested the enclosure as protection from your group’s unpredictable emotional outbursts. She wanted to be certain she was safe among you.”
Cora gaped as the girl climbed out of the cage, all long legs and long hair and eyes that seemed to slice through skin. Serassi had said she was there for observation, but it wasn’t her the Kindred were observing. The girl had been observing them. The dark scrap of fabric she wore was actually a leotard with thin straps and silk panels, beautiful and delicate, like a ballerina might wear. She picked at it like she was used to wearing something looser, or nothing at all.
This had been the Kindred’s plan all along. Whoever the girl was, with her feral looks and her ballerina costume and her strange alliance with the Kindred, she had always been intended to join them.
This was the girl with the heart-shaped scar’s replacement.
This was the new Girl Three.
The Caretaker dragged Cora over to the girl and grabbed ahold of her as well. The pressure began to build. The ballerina girl yawned, like she’d dematerialized a thousand times. Cora gritted her teeth as the pressure grew, and then they were back in the cage, standing on the boardwalk. Waves crashed gently behind them. The scent of roasting meats laced the air. The Caretaker let go. The new Girl Three slunk off toward the diner, sniffing the air. Had Cora made a mistake by assuming the girl was a victim like the rest of them? Rolf had said the Kindred would need a mole. Someone on the inside . . .
Alone with the Caretaker, she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Just stay away from us, Caretaker.” She took a shaky step toward the diner, but he grabbed her arm.
“I have a name too,” he said. “It isn’t Caretaker.”
She paused, squinting in the bright sunlight. Such a figure didn’t belong on a sunny boardwalk among toy shops and candy stores. He belonged in dreams. He belonged in nightmares.
Why is he telling me this? she wondered. And more important, why do I care?
But she did. Either from curiosity or some sick fascination, she cared.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“I am called Cassian. And I am not your enemy.” He stepped back. “Now return to your cohort and try to sleep.”
He flickered and was gone.
Cora took a few shaky steps toward the diner, hand clutched over the patch of arm where he had touched her. Ahead, the new Girl Three waited by the cherry tree.
Cora’s muscles ached, but sleep was the last thing that would come to her now.