CORA CLAMPED A HAND over the place on her arm where she’d been pinched, and spun to find herself looking at a girl dressed in safari clothes, with long black hair tied in unkempt braids, and a permanent scowl.
“Mali!”
Dane tossed Cora a warning look from behind the bar. She dropped her voice, fighting the urge to throw her arms around her friend. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
Mali wore the same safari uniform as the other kids, but with a driving cap over her braids, and thick leather gloves just like the boy they’d dragged away had worn. As soon as Cora saw them, uneasiness bloomed in her stomach. “Is everything okay? What happened to that boy?”
“I do not know,” Mali said. “Cassian puts me here early today. He makes me a driver. The boy they take away is also a driver. His name is Chicago. He teaches me to steer the trucks this morning. They go on a track, the same circle again and again until we find an animal to shoot. The guards come for him and he starts yelling. The other safari guides look scared, but they tell me to pretend nothing happens.”
Cora glanced toward the bar. The Kindred with the sunken eyes was still watching her with that creepy smile.
“Have you seen Lucky?” Cora asked. “What about Leon? Nok and Rolf?”
“I hear nothing about them.” Mali suddenly latched onto Cora’s wrist with clawlike fingers. “Do you remember your promise.”
Cora’s arm stung all over again. “Promise?”
“Anya.” Mali’s short nails dug deeper into her skin. “My friend. We make a deal in the cage: I help you escape and you help rescue Anya.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Cora said, biting through the pain. “But it isn’t like we can just stroll over there and get her. We’re trapped.”
Mali squeezed even tighter.
“Fine!” Cora hissed. “If there’s any way to do it, then we will. Now, stop clawing me.”
Mali released her and then gave her flat smile, friendly again. “Good. We will talk more. After work.”
She started to leave, but Cora jerked her chin at the Kindred with the sunken eyes. “Hang on a minute. That Kindred keeps looking at me. Do you know who he is?”
Mali scratched at a bug bite on her neck. “His name is Roshian. Makayla tells me about him this morning. Ignore him. He is harmless.”
“Makayla?”
“The one who dances.”
Before Cora could ask more, Dane beckoned her back onstage, and she didn’t dare disobey him again. The platform was smeared in fresh blood from the hyena. She looked back at the audience. Roshian had started dancing again with Makayla, stepping on her toes hard enough to make her grimace.
Their eyes met over the girl’s shoulder, and he smiled again. Ignore him? Even if she could, there were thirty more just like him. Watching her. Judging her. Maybe just waiting to drag her off too, like they had Chicago. She stepped up to the microphone again, but this time her voice was shaking.
Back home, her dream had been to become a songwriter. She’d secretly scrawled lyrics in her journal after her parents had gone to bed, about what it was like to be trapped in the life of a senator’s daughter. She’d close her eyes and imagine a stage where she could sing what she wanted to, make people understand through her lyrics, be free in the spotlight to sing the words in her heart.
Now she had a spotlight.
And all she could think of was the bruises and watery eyes of the other kids, injuries she and Mali would probably have soon too.
As she grabbed the microphone, the last thing it felt like was a dream.
“HONORED GUESTS, THE HUNT is closing.”
Cora’s throat was hoarse by the time the hostess finally announced that the Hunt was closing for the evening. The lights dimmed, and the few remaining Kindred guests departed. The dark-haired bartender cleaned the lounge in a rush, tossing her a rag to wipe the last traces of the animals’ blood off the stage.
When she finished, the other humans had gone. She looked up at an eerily empty lodge. Clipped footsteps came from the direction of the veranda, where the hostess appeared. Cora started—though she was dressed in the same costume, it wasn’t Issander. Now Tessela wore the safari dress, and as she approached Cora, she gave the hint of a smile.
“Tessela,” Cora whispered. “What happened to Issander?”
“You must have more faith in Cassian,” Tessela said. “There was a chance Issander was a spy, so he had her replaced. I will try to protect you, but only so far. The Council cannot suspect anything. Now, come.” She signaled for Cora to follow. Cora trailed her through the backstage door, which led to a corridor that smelled of both astringent and straw, like a stable. Tessela handed Cora a block of dry cake-like bread and then showed her into a two-story room lined with cells.
Cora stopped abruptly. There were wild animals in half the cages, and human kids in the other half. The dancing girl, Makayla, was on the second story. The dark-haired bartender was near the bottom corner.
“Here!” a voice yelled. “There’s an empty cage here.”
That was Lucky’s voice! Cora whirled toward the sound. Behind his cell bars, his dark hair was just as rumpled as his safari clothes, but a little longer than she remembered. Weeks must have passed since she had seen him.
“Bring her over here,” he said, gripping the bars tighter. He nodded toward an empty cage two down from his own, directly below Mali. In the cell between them, a small white fox curled at the bottom.
Cora stepped into the cell, and Tessela closed and latched the gate. It was a simple metal latch that Cora could have easily reached through the bars and unlocked, but Lucky made a signal for her to wait. She looked away, self-conscious. She hadn’t looked in a mirror in weeks, but besides tangled hair, what did he see when he looked at her? The girl who’d assaulted him in the cage? The senator’s daughter he’d sent to prison?
Or someone who’d once been a friend?
She dared a glance up. With his hair shaggy like that, he looked more like the boy she’d first seen on an artificial beach, looking as utterly lost as she was. She had liked that boy. She just hadn’t liked what the cage had later twisted him into—someone complacent.
But as soon as Tessela left, his hands squeezed the bars tightly. There was a determination written on his face that told her that boy on the beach had never truly vanished, and it lifted her spirits.
“We can’t get out,” he said, and nodded toward the cell doors. The overhead lights clicked off, and a blue light clicked on above each of their doors. “Lightlocks. The other kids told me about them earlier today. They’re run by perceptive technology. They don’t unlock until the morning.” He paused. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too,” she said quietly.
From the cell above her, Mali stuck down a hand and waved.
In the faint blue glow, Cora couldn’t quite read Lucky’s face. His hand went to his temple absently, the spot where she had once slammed a ceramic dog into his head to escape him. But then he reached out for her. She did the same, but five inches of space kept them apart. She was just about tell him that she was sorry for everything that had happened, when a deep voice interrupted her.