The Hunt - Megan Shepherd Page 0,98

walk.

“Time to go,” she said aloud.

It was the first time Cora had heard her real voice, which matched the whispers in her head. Singsongy, childlike, as though all this was just a big game. Step by step, Bonebreak headed around the corner of the warehouse, to a large flight room that contained a ship. Nok and Rolf parted uneasily to let him pass and then followed behind. Anya steered him to the ship, where his hand mechanically traced a symbol on the hull.

The ship’s door hissed open.

Slowly, Bonebreak took jerky steps up the ladder and disappeared into the ship. There were a few seconds of silence, and then a rumble, and then the ship’s lights flickered on.

“What now?” Nok asked, looking stunned.

Cora dug her fingers into Lucky’s shoulders. She had seen his eyes flicker open for a second, but they were closed again. She gently tucked a stray piece of his dark hair behind his ear.

“Now?” she said. “Now we go home while we have the chance.”

40

Lucky

LUCKY WOKE WITH THE worst headache of his life.

It wasn’t like a hangover. It felt more like he’d been running a marathon every day and hadn’t slept in weeks—so tired even his bones felt exhausted. Waves of pain rippled from his ribs, and he tried to sit up but nearly passed out. This was worse than the time he’d been kicked in the shoulder by a horse. Worse than the time he’d crashed his motorcycle into a ditch and ended up with four broken bones and twenty-seven stitches.

He blinked his eyes open, unsure what he was looking at. A ceiling. White. Smooth. Not like the ceiling of his cell at the Hunt, which had been bars. Not like the Kindred’s austere church-like hallways. He tried to blink through his swimming vision and saw Leon nearby, cradling a shoulder that bulged out like it was dislocated, and Nok climbing up through some sort of hatch. There were two chairs in the room, facing a wide screen, almost like in an aircraft. A dripping sound came from places he couldn’t see.

He closed his eyes again, trying to remember what had happened. He’d been in his cell. Writing in his journal. And then something about a fight. Cora, brushing his hair off his face. Maybe they were hiding out in this aircraft. He must have been wounded at some point—that pain in his ribs was killer.

Someone—well, something—was sitting in one of the chairs. It wore a mask and a dirty red jumpsuit, and from the way it was hunched, it didn’t look human.

Lucky rested his head back against the floor. A crumpled teddy bear with half the stuffing poking out sat inexplicably next to him. Was he . . . hallucinating? He didn’t have the strength to reach out to the bear; just that one small attempt to sit up had nearly made him vomit.

“Get us out of here,” someone was saying. He blinked until he could see Mali standing over the alien in the chair. “This ship is Axion technology,” she said, drumming on the curved interior walls with her knuckles. “Stolen, I think.”

Ship? Why would they hide out in a ship?

“Kid snatchers,” Leon grumbled, rubbing his sore shoulder and pointing to some cages that had been soldered to the walls. “Bonebreak must have retrofitted the ship for runs to Earth.”

Lucky closed his eyes again. So that creature in the chair was Bonebreak. Waves of blackness shivered over him. He winced through the pain until he saw Cora climb up through the hatch and close it behind her.

Cora.

The others.

They were all safe. All together.

Bonebreak grumbled from behind his mask, and Lucky opened one heavy eyelid. It sounded something like dogs or logs, but then a girl he didn’t know, tiny, short hair, nine or ten years old, jerked her fingers—she was missing two and her hands were shaking badly—and Bonebreak’s voice turned to garbles again. That must be Anya. But when had Cora freed her? How had . . . how had he even gotten here?

Anya twitched her small fingers again, and Bonebreak jerkily removed his glove, then traced a few symbols into the control panel; other controls seemed to move on their own—either Bonebreak was moving them with his mind or Lucky was truly hallucinating now.

Leon was pacing unsteadily, cradling his shoulder like it was hurt. “How’s she know how to work the controls?” he snapped, jerking his head toward Anya.

“She does not know how,” Mali answered. “Bonebreak knows how. His mind is still alert.