Cage hadn't been prepared for them to say yes.
When he'd sat down to tell the story, he thought he would tell a story showing how he was brave. At least the way he told it, it would make him seem that way. It was necessary for his leadership in the group.
He told them a story that would make it clear that they were all better off if they stuck together. They would need that if they were going to get out of here. And he told them a story that he hoped would show them that he'd been in worse situations than this and survived it. Or at least, he made sure it sounded that way.
But when he'd asked if they'd ever seen a Night Hunter, he'd been surprised when one young boy had held up his hand.
“Like big dogs?” the kid asked, his English broken and stuttered. He made motions on his shoulders and indicated the size of the haunches of the Night Hunters. He pulled his fingers out in front of his face, indicating the long snout. Then held his hands up like claws to indicate the faces.
“Teeth?” Cage had asked, but the kid hadn't understood.
Not until another had turned and translated into Spanish. Cage caught the word and, given his years of Latin in high school, he felt he should have been able to come up with it. Of course, he couldn't.
The first boy now nodded and quickly spoke back in Spanish. The second kid translated his answer as, “Too many teeth.”
Cage didn't know if that meant that it just appeared that way when they growled or bit. Because that certainly was a scary thing to see, and it did seem in the moment of terror as if they were all slashing teeth. Or maybe the kid understood that the Night Hunters did not have the same teeth as dogs.
It had been Dr. Brett who'd explained to Joule and Cage what they had found. They’d noticed that the teeth in the Night Hunter they’d autopsied hadn’t matched the veterinary book they’d bought. But it was Dr. Brett who told them that any change in the teeth—any change in dentition—was a speciation event. The Night Hunters were not dogs, but some entirely new species.
It had taken a little while, but using the second kid to translate, they’d cleared up that the boy had seen the same thing as Cage.
Cage had then returned to his story, telling the whole thing. Normally, it wasn't a bedtime tale. It was far too concerning. He watched as they curled into their corners and tucked themselves along the mattresses, each of them leaving space between them and the next one.
But how could the story of the Night Hunters be any worse than what they were already facing? He told it to his captive audience, trying to make a point.
He was surprised then as, at the last moment, Dodger moved. As the others dropped off to sleep, he stepped up close to Cage and pointed to his own chest. Then to his eye.
Cage didn't quite follow.
Dodger pointed to his mouth and made a claw hand.
Cage was still trying to put the information together. He was more than grateful that Dodger was finally trying to communicate with him. And he was even more relieved when the boy who had translated earlier spoke up, even though he didn’t move from his spot on the mattress. “He's seen them, too.”
Cage felt his head snap back again. “Where?”
This time, Dodger actually spoke. The rapid-fire Spanish, far too fast for Cage to grasp even a word or two.
The first boy had been from Honduras, and it was a surprise to Cage that he’d seen the Night Hunters there. But now, Dodger said, through his translator, “In the mountains outside of Lima.”
“Peru?” Cage hadn’t been able to hide his surprise.
Dodger nodded.
Holy shit.
Cage had thought the Night Hunters were something that evolved locally in his own neighborhood. Honduras was far enough away to be concerning, but Peru was an entirely different continent.
Now, as he sat out in the desert—with yet another set of bags planted, binoculars to his eyes, watching for the staff—he started to spot the ones coming to pick up the goods. He thought again about the Night Hunters.
Cage scanned the land, he had to stay alert. But he also wondered if he hadn't seen any big cats because they'd maybe already been picked off.
He’d gotten a return note from Aurora.
She and Sarah had found a pencil and an old chopstick. Though it wasn't as fast as her usual skills, it was good enough. She was making work of redoing the front of the sweater. Aurora was the knitter, Sarah was feeding her what to knit into it. She had started a few days ago and managed to stay awake enough that she was nearly finished.
The note in his pocket now simply read, “ready by tomorrow night.”
It wouldn't be enough. Not enough for him to open one of the bags and steal evidence. It wouldn’t be enough for them to make a run for it. But hopefully it would get a message out. If only someone could find it—someone who knew what it was.
Still, right now, it was the best they had. They wouldn't set it aside until there was something better. But as soon as the opportunity presented itself, Cage would make his move.
His main problem was that Conor didn't like to present himself.
Cage discarded the idea of opening one of the bags and stealing evidence. As soon as the collectors carried it back and opened it, it would be discovered that someone had cut into it. He could imagine they didn’t count every single piece, that a half ounce could go missing. But he had only the knife with which to open it and no way to put it back and even come close to looking like it was untouched.
Any decent accounting would see that something was missing.
Still, he’d reached in and risked leaving fingerprints and DNA and squeezed one of the bags. He didn’t have gloves, so he made a calculated risk.
The contents slid around a little bit. He'd tested them again and come to believe he was transporting patches—the kind that would be used for nicotine addiction. Or maybe, as he'd heard, for easy fentanyl delivery. Because surely, they weren't smuggling anti-smoking patches.
He watched as five approached this time. Clad in their dark clothing like usual, they looked like total badasses out in the desert, armed to the hilt. He’d not yet seen them use one of the weapons, but he couldn’t afford to assume they wouldn’t.
Maybe they were merely intended to be a deterrence. But he couldn’t bet on that. Still, Cage had begun to be less and less afraid of them, less and less concerned that they would simply open fire, and more and more curious if they even could.
Did they even carry ammo? He didn't know. Not anything he could see through the binoculars anyway. That didn't mean the weapons weren't loaded. He tried not to let his apathy make him stupid.
Hanging toward the end of the group on the walk back to the cave, he decided he was in the wrong place. So he pushed his way forward, hoping for a chance at Connor.