The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,32

Mali might give Leon a hug, but she just punched at a piece of armor sewn to his shoulder. “What happened to you.”

Leon rubbed his arm where her fist had made impact. “Nice to see you again too, kid.” He gave Lucky a nod. “All of you. I’ve been shacking up with a Mosca operation. Not bad guys, actually, if you can make out what they’re saying behind those masks. Bonebreak, he’s their leader. Reminds me a bit of my uncle. Likes vodka. Snores too.” He motioned to a wrapped package on the floor that was letting off a smell even worse than the shower room drain. “They’re black-market dealers. They use the drecktube tunnels to smuggle their stuff around the station, and humans are the only ones flexible enough to crawl around in there.”

“Have you been looking for us this entire time?” Cora asked.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh . . . yeah. Sure have.”

“How did you come up through the drecktube?” Lucky asked. “It’s locked.”

“Not from the inside,” Leon said, but then scratched the back of his head as if avoiding something. “Actually, I, uh, found something in there. Someone. Sort of like a, well, dead guy. Don’t know if he was a friend of yours.”

Cora and Lucky exchanged a look. “Was he wearing driving gloves?” she asked. “And goggles?”

Leon nodded. “Charred up bad. He shouldn’t have been down there, eh? Those tunnels are death traps if you can’t navigate them.”

“He didn’t go down there intentionally,” Lucky explained. “His name was Chicago. The Kindred threw him down there. They do that to humans when we turn nineteen.”

“If we have misbehaved,” Mali clarified.

Leon eyed Mali warily, as if he was worried she might attack him again, but then his hand itched at the spot on his neck where the markings that paired with hers used to be.

“Listen,” Cora said in a rush. “If you can pass through the drecktubes safely, then we need you to do something important.” She told him about the Gauntlet and their plan to cheat it, which elicited a rare nod of approval from him. “But we need a girl for it all to work,” she continued. “Her name is Anya. She’s being kept in the Temple menagerie. Short blond hair, about ten years old, missing some fingers. We’re going to have to get her out of there somehow. See if you can break into their backstage area. If you find her, leave a mark with that chalk on the floor here, so we’ll know. Be careful. Don’t let anyone see you.”

“Tell her that you are friends with me,” Mali added. “She will trust you more.”

Leon raised an eyebrow. “Friends, is that all?”

Mali only blinked stiffly, and Leon seemed disappointed.

“Have you seen Nok and Rolf?” Cora asked, but he shook his head. “Try to find them too. We need to make sure they’re okay.”

Leon rolled his eyes. “Anything else? Chocolate milk? Gumdrops?”

Someone drummed on the shower room door sharply. “Cora.” It was Dane. “Get out here. Break’s over. Who’s in there with you?”

Cora shoved Leon back toward the drecktube. “Go. Quick.” He grumbled as he climbed in. She paused, holding the door open for a second. “It’s good to see you, Leon.”

He gave a reluctant half smile. “Yeah, sweetheart. You too.”

She closed the drecktube just as Dane opened the door. He froze when he saw her and Lucky standing so close, and Mali off to the side. His eyes slid over Lucky, tracing the shape of his body as though looking for imperfections. “What’s going on in here?”

“Nothing,” Cora answered quickly. “Sorry. I’m going.”

She started down the corridor and opened the backstage door, letting in the sounds of birds and clinking glasses, but a hand stopped her.

Dane had followed her. “Hang on, songbird. A word.”

Her heart thudded with fears—had he heard Leon?

“Look, I’m not blind,” he said, and then nodded back toward the shower room. “I can guess what that was. You wanted to sneak off to be with Lucky, and have Mali stand guard. Well, I can’t blame you—we don’t get many guys looking like him around here. But we’re here to work, and that’s it. Any privileges you had before—to date, to eat when you want, to take long baths—are over now. You gave that up when you failed out of your last enclosure.”

Making out? That’s what Dane thought this was about? She clenched her jaw against the ripple of anger that surged up her throat. “Got it,” she said tightly,