HarperCollins Publishers
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52
Cora
FEAR THREADED THROUGH CORA’S veins. “Did Leon tell you?”
“The Caretaker told me himself.” Lucky took a step forward, his face unreadable. “He came to visit me last night. He said you were asleep in his bed. He didn’t say anything outright, just that I could have whatever I wanted if I left you alone. To tell him the type of girl I wanted and he’d give her to me.” He looked toward the sea, because it must have been easier than looking at her. “I told him the girl I wanted was you.”
“Lucky, I didn’t know—”
“I didn’t believe him. I thought he was tricking me, but he wasn’t, was he?”
She swallowed. “No.”
“Jesus. Why?”
“You loved me because I was a victim. But I never was, Lucky. I was the one who came up with the idea to take the fall for my dad.” A month ago, if she’d met Lucky, she’d have fallen like a comet for him. She clasped her necklace as if she could hold on to that girl she’d been before, but then she released it. “Cassian knew that. He sees me as someone who can save herself.”
Lucky touched the place on the side of his head where she had hit him. Cora had expected he would be furious at her. Crazed. She hadn’t expected such heartbreaking hurt in his eyes.
He shook his head. “Just go. You never needed someone to protect you, I can see that now.”
He turned toward the boardwalk, but Cora grabbed his arm. “You always wanted to be a hero, Lucky, but you don’t need a victim for that. Be your own hero. Come with us.”
Mali glanced over her shoulder, and Cora felt nervous too. Had Rolf kept Nok from sounding the alarm? Did the Warden know? Not even Cassian could help them then.
“Please, Lucky. We can go back. Earth is there, I know it.”
His head tilted toward the stars that shone over a red desert, snow-covered mountains, a town where they might have been amused, but never truly happy. Would the Kindred take Nok and Rolf and Leon away? Without humans, this place would be meaningless.
Lucky turned away from the shops and habitats that had made up their artificial world, facing the ocean instead.
“Let’s go home.”
THE THREE OF THEM stood in the sand, letting the surf whisper to their toes. “You have to swim without stopping,” Cora said. “There will be a pressure lens. You have to push past.”
Lucky and Mali listened intently, then waded fearlessly past the breakers. But Cora hung back. She hadn’t been in water over her head since the accident. The rush of pure cold pouring in the car windows, up through the gearshifts. These crashing waves were mild and warm, but they still drenched her with fear. She waded deeper, crunching the sand with her toes, and didn’t panic until the moment when a wave lifted her up and her toes didn’t touch the ocean floor when she bobbed back down.
She treaded water with quick, jerky movements. Breathe. Count backward from ten.
Ten. Nine. Eight . . .
Lucky was a good swimmer. Mali’s strokes were jerkier, less practiced, but she was strong where the others weren’t: she knew the Kindred’s mind games. Even if she’d never faced a puzzle like this before, she could handle the psychological pressure.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Lucky asked.
Cora took a deep breath. Seven . . .
“I’m sure.” As soon as Cora answered, she hit a cold patch in the ocean. It chilled her certainty. She recalled Cassian’s kiss and his whispered words. “Leave them to me.” He wouldn’t lie to her, would he? Lying would mean death for them—and she’d looked into his storm-cloud eyes. She’d seen raw emotions there. The last thing he wanted was their deaths.
Six. Five . . .
That was what kept her going. She wasn’t paddling toward death. She was paddling toward life.
Four . . .
Toward home.
“On the count of three,” she said. “Count backward.” The stars overhead shone brightly. A strange nostalgia crept over her. From here, the diner lights were still flashing, the jukebox music still playing.
“Three,” Lucky said.
Cora thought about Nok, and Rolf, and Leon, and what would happen to them. Yasmine’s ghost would haunt this same water. When death had come to her, Cora hoped it had been quick.
“Two,” Lucky said.
Cora’s lungs started to close up. She wondered if she would ever see Cassian again.
“One.”
Their heads disappeared, just as Cora filled her lungs. A second before she dived below, a figure appeared on the beach. There was no mistaking his hulking shape as he came tearing into the water.
Leon. He’d changed his mind.