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 the paintings 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 he must have stolen 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 two 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 thought 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. Right?
“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.” 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 he did care.
“You can help Mali—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 into 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 drastically 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—for all she knew, the Kindred could 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 long, hard object the length of her thigh, 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.