“Listen. Cora’s gone. Last night I followed her into the mountains, but she just vanished. I thought she was hiding out, but when I went back this morning, her footsteps ended in the snow. There was a second set of prints too, bigger than a human’s. The Caretaker must have taken her.”
Nok and Rolf only blinked calmly, and it made Lucky’s stomach flip. Didn’t they care?
He turned to Mali. “Where did he take her?”
When she didn’t answer, he grabbed her thin shoulders and shook her. Mali just allowed herself to get thrown around like a rag doll. “I do not know.”
“You have to! You’ve seen beyond the walls—you grew up in their world.”
“They tell me what they wish me to know. I assume they remove her.”
He let her go abruptly. “But it hasn’t been twenty-one days yet.”
Mali gave that odd head wobble that was meant to be a shrug. Lucky kicked over one of the bins in disgust; apples rolled everywhere. “They can’t just change the rules! They said we have twenty-one days to obey Rule Three. If they took her before that, then they should take me too. I haven’t obeyed yet either.”
“Perhaps he comes for you next.”
Lucky froze. His head pounded so hard he could barely think. “Coming for me? Well, good. Then he’ll take me wherever he took her, only this time I’ll be ready. Nok, give me that guitar.”
Nok looked up innocently through her long eyelashes. “You want to play?”
“No, I want to break it apart and wrap a string around the Caretaker’s neck when he comes back. Cora was right. It isn’t safe—they can take us at any moment. I should never have listened to you all.”
“Listening to us saved your life.” Rolf kicked an apple with short, sharp jabs, one eye twitching like his head stabbed with pain. His voice was suddenly bitter. “If the Kindred hadn’t—”
“Rolf, shh,” Nok hissed.
“No! I’m tired of everyone acting like idiots instead of using their brains. I thought Cora was smart, but she let her emotions get the best of her. She’s gone crazy with these stupid ideas of escape that are just going to get us all in trouble. You don’t want to end up like her, Lucky.”
Lucky dug his fingers against his temples.
“Don’t you get it?” Rolf sputtered. His face was splotched with red, but his fingers weren’t twitching. “Tell him what you told us, Mali. About Earth.”
A creeping feeling spread through Lucky’s veins. He eyed Mali warily. “What is he talking about?”
“I am not supposed to tell.” Mali shot Rolf a hard look. “The Kindred believe your minds are not yet ready to understand. I only tell you because your mind seems stronger than the others.”
Lucky braced himself. He didn’t care about whatever stupid thing Mali and Rolf had argued about. He sensed that he was about to learn something that he could never unlearn. For a moment he clung to his ignorance. If he didn’t know, he could pretend everything was okay. He could close his eyes and think of home and his granddad and that horse that kept kicking over the fence so the chickens got out.
“Earth is gone,” Mali said.
The ground fell out from under him. He collided with the grass, leaning against an apple tree, the smell of blossoms so thick around him he might choke. His head throbbed. He raked his fingers over his face and scalp, trying to ease the pain. Earth was gone, along with his dad in Afghanistan and his granddad and his mother’s grave with the faded plastic flowers and all the horses and the chicken houses he’d repaired last summer and everyone he had ever known, ever loved, ever said hello to as he crossed the street.
Nok crouched beside him. Her fingers were so soft against his head that he wanted to lean his head into her. His mother had had soft hands too.
He remembered her eyes meeting his as the car careened out of control.
Luciano.
And now even her grave was gone. But so was her murderer. Lucky might not have pulled the trigger that day on the airfield, but Senator Mason was dead.
Lucky lived. And Cora lived.
“Poor Lucky,” Nok said, brushing aside his hair. “I know it’s hard. I was upset too, but there’s nothing we can do but be thankful we weren’t there when it happened.”
Rolf crouched over them, casting a cold shadow. “She’s right, you know. You have to think about this logically, Lucky. Put aside your emotions. The Kindred knew what was going to happen to Earth and picked us, out of everyone, to survive. There’s only the six of us and a few thousand humans scattered throughout the Kindred world. The Kindred were telling the truth all along. The rules aren’t there to be cruel. They’re there to save humanity.” He rested a hand on Lucky’s back. “We have a duty to keep ourselves healthy and keep our species going.”
Lucky felt as though his head was splitting in two. The house in Roanoke he grew up in, with the patch of forest behind it. The strip mall where he used to skateboard. The school where he’d only had two months left to graduation. The army recruiting center. Everyone, and everything—gone.