The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,59

bowed.

“After you. At least I’ll get a good view out of this.” His gaze dropped to her butt.

She dropped to all fours and crawled in. He clambered in after her, making a ruckus as he crawled along. From his strained breath she could tell the tunnel’s thin air bothered him, but she didn’t mind the tight passages. For a second, Mali let herself think about what would happen if they could prove Earth was there, and if they could go back after the Gauntlet. She had asked Cora once how she could go about finding her family. Cora had said that she’d need a phone number or mailbox or email address, none of which Mali had, and none of which sounded like things a Saharan nomad camp would have either. But Leon might be able to help. Leon seemed to know how to get around official requirements. And, if she was being honest, she wouldn’t mind getting to know him back on Earth.

They crawled up two levels, then turned down a maze of ducts, avoiding a cleaner trap that she saw even before he did, and finally came to a drecktube marked with chalk. Leon jerked his thumb at the crudely drawn face with x’s over the eyes. “I do that to mark which quarters belong to assholes.”

He shouldered open the narrow door, holding a finger to his lips to be quiet. But no sound came from within except the constant whir of air through the wall seams. They climbed into a set of standard crew quarters that looked identical to all the quarters she had seen for low-level officers. A single bedroom. One chair, and a table that folded out from the wall. Blue bins holding blankets and a few rationed belongings. Leon went to the viewing screen and gave it a firm jab with his elbow. It clicked open.

Mali inspected the hinges closely. “These mechanisms are very crude. It is odd that he does not protect this hidden door with perceptive ability.”

They climbed inside. Leon fumbled with something in his pocket and then a light strapped to his forehead came on. The beam cut through the darkness, showing only a circle of light. Leon moved it slowly around the room so she could see everything. One wall was covered in animal heads that had been detached from the bodies and mounted on hard backings. Not just antlers and horns, but entire heads. An antelope. A deer. Mali had seen much in her life to disturb her, but her pulse had never quite raced in this fluttering, anxious way before.

“I do not understand,” she said.

Leon barely glanced at the animal heads. “He’s a hunter. Deer antlers. People do it all the time at home.”

He spoke so casually of something so strange.

“Not the Kindred,” she said. “I have never seen this.”

Leon kept swinging the light, and it settled on a table where various animal parts were laid out, along with containers of chemicals and the thick black wire the Mosca used for their masks. She stepped closer, squinting at the fur in the darkness. A hyena pelt.

Scavenger.

Her stomach started to turn in revulsion. This was more than just cutting off a claw. He’d completely desecrated Scavenger’s entire body. Her pulse was fluttering harder now, and she glanced at Leon, afraid he could see. Something was very, very wrong.

Leon pointed to a small desk in front of a mirror that was covered by a heavy black cloth. “I leave the packages under there.”

Mali lifted the cloth, trying to calm her heartbeat, but there was only a single black canvas bag underneath. She pulled it out.

“Keep the light on it.” It was closed with intricate Kindred knots, and her fingers flew over them until she had untied the final one. She looked in the direction of Scavenger’s pelt on the table one last time.

She opened the canvas bag.

Leon leaned over her shoulder, the light attached to his head bobbing as he rubbed his chin. “What the . . . ?”

Mali pulled out a Kindred uniform. It was standard for someone of Roshian’s rank: cerulean blue, with five knots down the side. There were also paper notebooks—artifacts from Earth—filled with writing that looked like human speech. But beneath it was something odder. A small, clear box that contained two black half circles that were soft and rubbery. And a tube with a screw-top lid, with writing in a language she didn’t understand, and two heavy barbells.

Leon swiped up the box of half circles.