The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,94

a cell.

Six feet by six feet. It could have been the exact one they’d put her in after her failed escape attempt. The same toilet. The same sink. But there was an examination table in the center. A figure shifted on it, and she gasped.

Cassian.

She pressed a hand against the wall. He was unconscious, strapped to the table. Tubes snaked through his skin and ears and nose, pulsing. On a small screen next to him, a three-dimensional projection showed flashes of images. Fian and Tessela. Serassi and her equipment. Cora. The dice and cards they’d used to train with. The machines were dissecting his thoughts. First was a projection of him playing go fish with Mali on a beach. And then one of him trying to draw a dog in the privacy of his quarters.

And then, the kiss they’d shared just hours before.

Suddenly Cassian hissed, and she realized he wasn’t unconscious. They were doing something to him, probing his mind, and it was tearing him apart, just as it was tearing her apart to watch.

One of the doctors must have heard her gasp; he looked around. She jerked away from the wall crack, breathing hard.

Across from her, one more package drifted by.

“It is clear,” Mali whispered.

Cora’s heart was pounding so hard she wasn’t sure she could talk. “Go. I’ll catch up.” Mali gave her an uncertain look, but she shook her head. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Mali gave her a long, steady look but left. Cora spun and pressed her eye back against the crack. There was equipment on the wall she hadn’t noticed before. It was all the length of her arm, and it ended in sharp needles and blades. She didn’t have to know what the instruments were for to know that Cassian would likely never walk out of that room unchanged.

When he had confessed to her crimes, he must have known that this would be his fate.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered quietly.

Below, the medical officers inserted another snaking tube into his vein, and he let out a scream.

She choked back a sob and pressed her hands to her face to hold in tears. She couldn’t do this—stay here and watch him be tortured. Mali and Lucky and the others were waiting for her. Even now, Kindred guards were scouring the station for them.

And yet she couldn’t tear herself away.

She had always accused them of being the monsters, but she was the reason he was suffering now. She traced her eyes along his lips, blue now with lack of blood flow. His eyes, mostly cloudy with half-uncloaked thoughts, rolled back and forth. She had thought he was an angel once. There were no such things as angels—she knew that now. But he wasn’t a demon either.

“Cora.” It was Mali, at the far end of the tunnel. “There are more guards in the hallways. We must go now.”

She wiped the tears away and stumbled back from the wall. Her heart pounded even harder, each beat an accusation. “I’m coming.”

Tears were coming faster, but Mali didn’t ask the reason, just picked up Lucky’s legs and dragged him too, until he started to mumble incoherently as he slowly woke.

“Lucky.” Cora slapped him lightly on the cheek. “Lucky, can you hear me? Can you walk?”

But he didn’t answer.

They reached a higher tunnel where, stooped over, they could move faster. They each wrapped one of Lucky’s arms around their shoulders and dragged him, still half asleep, mumbling words that made no sense. Cora tried to put the scene of Cassian’s torture out of her head, but it was impossible. At last, they reached a gate that was marked with Leon’s signature sign for the Mosca camp: a broken bone.

Cora pounded on the door until it swung open into a dank, chalky room with poor lighting, and she drew in deep lungfuls of air. There was just light enough to make out Leon arguing with a Mosca underling. Against the far wall, Nok was handing a bottle of water to Anya, who took it gratefully, speaking a few words Cora couldn’t hear.

“Anya is awake!” Mali slipped out from under Lucky’s arm. Without Mali’s help supporting him, Cora buckled under Lucky’s weight until Leon jumped up to help lay him flat on the ground.

“Great. We just get that crazy girl awake and how he’s out cold?” Leon asked. “What happened, a guard knock him out?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.” She knelt beside him, shaking him gently. “Lucky, can you hear me?”

He mumbled groggily