to process that she’d actually done it.
“Cora.”
Another whisper, but different this time. It came from two cells down, where she could just make out Lucky’s silhouette. “You cried out,” he said softly. “What happened?”
A sleepy mumble came from one of the other cells, and they both froze. The mumble died down as whoever they’d disturbed fell back asleep.
She glanced at the extinguished lightlock. Hesitantly, she pushed it open. The door swung open soundlessly, and she stepped out quietly, tiptoeing past the fox, who stopped gnawing and looked up. She went to Lucky’s cell, fumbling out a hand in the darkness.
There.
His hand, through the bars.
She focused on the lightlock of his door. Open, she urged. The light shut off and once more she was flooded with the rush of success. She climbed in silently. His hands felt for her shoulders, and her hair, as though reassuring himself she was there.
His hand brushed her face and stopped. “Your nose is bleeding.”
She rested a finger on his lips to remind him of the sleeping kids. He was shaking. So was she. She stood on tiptoe and pressed her cheek against his. “I’m okay.” But her whispered words were stilted.
“All this training is hurting you.”
“It’s worth it,” she said. “Now, when Leon comes back, I can sneak away with him through the drecktube tunnels and find Anya.”
“He might not come back.”
“He will. Any day now, I know it. It’ll all work out before you turn nineteen.”
Excitement made her giddy. The thrill of all the progress she’d made. Anxious and frustrated, she kneaded his arms, her lips longing to form words to express her hope.
Instead, she kissed him.
She hadn’t meant to. She just wanted to celebrate this tiny accomplishment, this one thing. He pulled back, and in the dark she couldn’t see his eyes or tell what he was thinking. That was a mistake, she thought, and her fingers in his hair felt the bump from where she’d once hit him. But he wasn’t that crazed boy anymore. And she wasn’t that same wide-eyed girl anymore, either.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean—”
But his initial surprise didn’t last, and he kissed her back. Hard, like someone reaching out of the shadows toward a single point of light. And for a second she felt the way she had the first time they’d kissed. Back when he had been a farm boy with motorcycle grease staining his hands and she’d been so certain they would go home. He had kissed her softly, then. Not like Cassian had. Cassian had kissed like it was his first time—and it had been—and he wanted to experience everything in that single instant.
She broke off the kiss, breathing hard. She couldn’t do this. Kiss one boy while thinking of someone else.
She wiped the blood from her nose.
“I don’t know where that came from,” she started, but he silenced her by pulling her close, pressing another kiss to her forehead.
“You don’t need to explain.” His voice wasn’t angry. “It’s this place. It’s being far from home and only having each other.”
His voice caught on the word home. She wondered if he was thinking of his granddad back in Montana. His motorcycle, rusting and covered with dust in a barn somewhere. A world she might never see again either.
“Can I stay here tonight?” She hadn’t meant to blurt it out. But he was right—being so far from home made her feel like some limb was missing, and when she was with him, she felt just a tiny bit more whole again.
“Of course,” he said.
They curled up on the floor of his cell, blanket pulled tightly around them.
“What do you miss most?” he asked softly.
“The sky,” she answered. “And the air. How it smelled like rain sometimes, and you could see the storms rolling in from the distance.” She brushed away a tear forming in the corner of her eye. “Do you really think it’s all gone?”
He hesitated. She could feel his heart beating hard beneath his shirt.
“There’s something I’ve been trying to figure out,” he started. “Something I found when I went on a hunt with Mali a few days ago. It was carved into one of the trucks that Chicago used to drive.”
“Wait.” She pressed a finger to his lips, and he looked at her questioningly. “Do you trust me?” He gave a slow nod. “Let me try to read it from your mind.”
He hesitated.
“I need to learn how to read minds if I’m going to learn to control them.”
He looked hesitant. “Just