The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,49

With a tentative finger, he pointed to the corner of the room. Cora could just make out an old-fashioned typewriter; she rolled her eyes. Rolf was really pushing her abilities. She concentrated on trying to remember which keys were which from afar, and tapped her message out in the air with her fingers, pushing her mind as hard as she could to make the corresponding keys move. Without amplifiers, depressing each key felt like rolling a boulder uphill.

I NEED YOUR HELP.

She sagged with the effort. Rolf hesitated. His hand went up to push at his hair a bit like he had when Cora had first seen him in the cage. He paced a little, throwing glances her way like there was something else he had to tell her. He snatched up the radio and pried the bulb out with his fingernails, and then twisted some wires around. When he pushed a button, it blinked.

T-E-L-L-M-E

She took a deep breath and focused on the typewriter again.

HAVE TO BREAK SOMEONE OUT OF CELL SURROUNDED BY KINDRED. ADVICE?

Rolf stared at the paper in the typewriter. He picked up the radio and pressed the buttons to send Morse code.

D-O-N-T-G-E-T-C-A-U-G-H-T

“What’d he say?” Leon breathed.

“He’s being a smartass,” Cora muttered.

“Yeah?” Leon seemed almost impressed. “Didn’t think he had it in him.”

Then Rolf signaled again.

W-E-N-E-E-D-H-E-L-P-2

And he added:

O-N-L-Y-H-A-V-E-F-E-W-D-A-Y-S-L-E-F-T

“A few days left?” Cora whispered to Leon. “What does he mean? A few days before what?”

“Oh yeah, he wouldn’t shut up about that before,” Leon said. “He worked out some equation of how long we’ve been here and how soon the Kindred could take the baby away.”

“He can convert Kindred time to days? Are you sure?”

“He had a whole notebook filled with numbers.”

She turned back, focusing on the typewriter, but he started flashing a message first.

C-A-N-Y-O-U-G-E-T-U-S-O-U-T?

Cora paused. “They want our help getting out of there. We could get them into the drecktube when Serassi and the researchers aren’t there, but then where would they go? Unless . . .”

Leon gave a suspicious grunt.

“You already agreed to keep Anya with you. And you said Bonebreak’s lair takes up a whole sublevel. There must be all sorts of spare nooks they could set up for Nok and Rolf as a safe room. There’s even smuggled baby stuff, right? Cribs and diapers and things?”

“Oh, for the love of . . .” Leon rubbed his face hard. “You want the Mosca to help raise a baby? Have you listened to a single thing I’ve said about them?”

“I don’t expect them to read bedtime stories,” she shot back. “Just to give them a safe place to live until after I’ve run the Gauntlet, when Serassi won’t have any claim on their baby anymore.”

“Bonebreak gets pissed enough just having me around. For him to put up with a crying baby would take serious cash.”

“How much?”

He sighed. “I’ll ask.”

Cora turned back to the house, concentrating on the typewriter.

AM WORKING ON A SAFE ROOM. HOLD ON. WILL COME BACK FOR YOU WHEN READY.

And then she added:

YOU CAN CONVERT TIME?

Rolf read her message and nodded, not bothering with the radio.

LUCKY’S BIRTHDAY IS OCT 21. HOW SOON UNTIL HE TURNS 19?

Rolf bent down to his notebook and started writing furiously, working out the equation, pushing at glasses that he no longer needed. He set down the pencil and picked up the radio. The lights flashed and flashed.

Cora let out a small sound of shock.

“What?” Leon said. “What’s his spy code say?”

Rolf, maybe worried they hadn’t seen his signal, flashed the lights again. A dark premonition washed over her. She willed the light to blink more, but it never did.

Three blinks.

“Only three days,” she said.

21

Lucky

THE NEXT MORNING, LUCKY crouched on the backstage floor next to the zebra.

He’d meant to stay awake all night, but he must have fallen asleep at some point, because suddenly Cora had been in his cell, shaking him awake with a hand pressed to his mouth to keep him quiet. She had whispered about her trip with Leon. About Anya’s voice in her head and how it was going to be harder than they thought to break Anya out. And then the worst: how Rolf had figured out Lucky only had three days until he turned nineteen.

If he was being honest, he had just been glad to see Cora again. A tiny part of him had wondered, when she’d disappeared with Leon, if maybe she’d run. But she hadn’t, and she’d returned with some crazy idea to smuggle him out through the drecktube before his birthday and have