The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,11

was still fresh in her mind. “Then find a different girl to run.”

“There have been other candidates—Anya, for one—but none of them worked out. Even if another human displayed potential at this point, that human would not be able to sufficiently develop his or her abilities in time. It must be you.” He paused. “I want it to be you, Cora.”

At the sound of her name, spoken not in his monotone voice but like that day on the beach, standing in the surf, her skin started to tingle in that dangerous way.

She turned away sharply. “I don’t need puzzles or bureaucrats or scorecards to tell me humans are intelligent.” She slid open the alcove screen. Beyond, the hunt ceremony had ended. A girl with dark-brown skin was onstage, tap-dancing to music, a bandage around one knee, dressed in a gown like Cora’s but knee length. The girl flinched every time she had to bend her hurt knee. Cora started to step into the lodge, but Cassian slid the alcove screen shut again.

He leaned in, not stiffly anymore, the patient look gone from his eyes. “I cannot force you to run the Gauntlet, but take time to think it through before you make up your mind.” And then his expression eased, and he took her hand, weaving his fingers between hers, turning her palm upward. “It isn’t a game,” he said. “It never has been.”

With her palm toward the ceiling, the markings were an even greater reminder that she was, and would always be, a prisoner.

She pulled her hand back, trying to ignore the tingling sensation. “I’d rather take my chances with the wild animals.”

Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t entirely true.

The definition of stubborn, Charlie’s voice echoed, is to know what the right thing to do is, but not to do it anyway just to prove a point.

She snatched up the dress angrily.

Shut up, Charlie, she thought silently, glad that a memory couldn’t answer back.

5

Cora

CORA WENT INTO A different alcove to change into the gold dress, and when she came out, the dancing girl had finished onstage. The girl now slouched on a stool at the end of the bar, gulping water from a cloudy glass, shaking her head at something the Kindred guest on the next stool said. Cora recognized him as the one with the eerily sunken eyes. He produced a golden token from his pocket; it flashed in the lantern light. The dancing girl hunched further, massaging the muscles around her hurt knee, but then sighed and took the token. The Kindred patted her on the head as one would a dog.

Cora’s stomach turned. In the cage, she had been constantly observed, but there had been walls. The Kindred could watch but not touch. Here, there were no walls. Nothing to stop the Kindred from doing whatever they wanted to their human pets. And judging by the bandage on the dancer’s knee, and the scraggly haircuts on the others, the Kindred weren’t particuarly interested in their pets’ welfare.

Cassian motioned to the empty stage.

“I’m supposed to start singing now?” she asked. “Already?”

“This isn’t like your previous enclosure. There is no adjustment period. Here you sing, or you starve.” He held out his hand to help her up, but she ignored it and stepped onstage. Her bare feet crunched over sand grit and something uncomfortably sticky. She lifted the gold dress’s hem, trying not to look too hard at the stains on the stage.

“What am I supposed to sing?”

“Whatever you like,” Cassian answered. “We do not create music; to us, it all sounds alike. Pleasant but vague.”

She stared beyond the microphone at the tables that were now cast in shadows. When she shaded her eyes, she just made out the dancing girl with her arms around the Kindred guest, the two of them dancing slowly in the center of the room.

Cassian started for the door.

“Wait,” Cora whispered, covering the microphone. “You’re just going to leave me here?” He was a monster, yes, but a monster she knew.

“My responsibilities as a Warden did not end when your enclosure failed. We are in the process of introducing new wards to that facility. Younger ones this time, taken from regulated preserves where they have been raised. There is hope they will adapt better than your cohort did, as they have never known Earth. We will have to suspend Rule Three until they are older, but it is an acceptable sacrifice.”

“You mean they’re just children?” she asked.

He nodded.

Her stomach turned