The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,76

get in touch with Leon. Tell him we need him to retrieve all the tails of the dead animals from Roshian’s room.”

Mali’s mouth wrinkled in confusion. “I do not understand.”

Cora smiled. “We’re taking down Dane. Tonight, before he can cause any more trouble.”

Mali glanced at the note on the napkin, reading it quickly, and then smiled flatly.

ALL AFTERNOON, CORA SANG as though the men she was going to cheat weren’t sitting right in front of her. Dane was the first step. Arrowal would get his in due time as well.

“You can run, baby,” she sang, glancing at Dane, “but you can’t hide. If you do me wrong, I’ll get you before long. . . .”

He gave her a smirk from the bar, and she smirked right back. A second later, the backstage door slammed open.

Pika’s cheeks were splotched with red. Her braid hung forgotten over one shoulder. Cora intentionally faltered in singing so that Dane would look around. The Council members turned as well, as a ripple of unease passed through the lounge.

Dane stomped around the bar. “I told you to stay backstage.”

“You creep!” Pika launched herself at him. “I saw them in your cell! The whole cookie tin was full of them!”

He recoiled as her thin arms flailed around him. “What are you talking about? Get back inside!” He cast nervous looks between her and the Council members, who were now all watching keenly, except for Fian, whose head swiveled toward Cora instead.

The main door opened, as Tessela heard the commotion. She made a line straight for Dane and Pika.

“Listen, I don’t know what she’s—” Dane started, but Tessela dragged them both backstage as though they weighed no more than children. Arrowal started to stand, but Fian placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Petty arguments,” he said. “You know how humans are.” Fian poured Arrowal another drink, glancing at Cora from the corner of his eye.

She gave him a hesitant nod of thanks.

“He’s a monster!” Pika screamed from down the hall, and Cora just had time to slip in behind them. “It’s disgusting and horrible and those poor, poor little animals!” She let out a high-pitched wail.

Cora inched closer down the hall, until she could peek into the cell room. The door to Dane’s cell was open. He was pacing, red-faced, arguing with Tessela. Lucky had one arm wrapped around Pika’s back as she sobbed into his shirt. Over her shoulder, he met Cora’s eyes. If she’d looked away for half a second, she might not have seen his quick smile.

“I swear they aren’t mine,” Dane sputtered. “Why would I want a bunch of tails? There were tokens in there! Someone replaced them!”

Pika made a gagging noise. “I can’t believe he’s been keeping tails in that cookie tin this whole time!”

Tessela picked up the whitetail deer’s tail and eyed it closely. Dane started to protest again, but she took an apparatus, which looked like a pair of binoculars, out of her safari uniform. She jabbed it at Dane and he crashed to the floor, unconscious. “This boy is no longer Head Ward,” Tessela informed them calmly. “Makayla will now assume that responsibility. Guards will come shortly to take him away for interrogation. No one is to touch him or the evidence in question.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Lucky asked.

“It is a crime to traffic in black-market objects,” Tessela said. “As we do not believe in punishment, he will be reassigned.”

Reassigned? Where were they going to reassign him to, the same drecktube they’d shoved Chicago down?

Pika still sobbed into Lucky’s shirt, clutching Dane’s yo-yo, the string hanging down limply. “I didn’t mean to find it,” she choked. “He left his yo-yo on his bed. Just sitting out in the open. He never does that. I just wanted to play with it a little, but the end of the string was caught in that cookie tin, and that’s when I found . . . ewww!”

Lucky patted Pika on the back, as though he wasn’t the one who had planted the yo-yo. Then he detached himself from Pika and came over to stand beside Cora.

“Listen, Leon’s at the drecktube door,” he said quietly. “He wants to talk to you. He said it’s urgent.”

Cora looked at Dane’s unconscious body.

She was tempted to shove him down the drecktube herself, let him get charred in the cleaner traps just like Chicago.

But no.

Whatever the Kindred had planned for him would be much more unpleasant.

32

Cora

“YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO come until after lights-out,” Cora whispered