“Shh,” he said. “I’d never turn against you.”
Over his shoulder, Nok had her hands pressed to her stomach, Rolf still kissing her cheek, but Nok’s smile shifted to uneasiness when she caught Cora’s words.
“At home, we were living half a life,” Lucky said. “I held on to so much anger, Cora. At your dad. At myself. But after our talk, I finally let all that guilt and pain go, and you should too.” He softly pointed his chin toward the others. “Look at how happy Nok and Rolf are. That could be us.”
Nok’s dress ruffled as she came toward them. She smiled at Cora, but the sweetness of the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Lucky’s right,” Nok said. “We were so worried, we even thought we might have to kick you out of the house if you kept making life so difficult for everyone. But you’re over that, now, yeah? You want to be one of us. Don’t you?”
Her threat was as clear as the challenge in her eyes. This was Cora’s ultimatum: embrace their insane paradise, or be ostracized to the biomes like Leon, starved for human contact. And meanwhile, they’d just keep sliding further into insanity.
The bone was still in her hand.
The song ended, and there was a second of silence before it reset itself. Someone had overturned a glass of water that rolled off the table and dripped onto the floor like the ticking of a clock. Drip. Drip. Drip. Lucky was looking at Cora with eyes so full of hope—delusional hope—and if she said yes, they would be a couple, they would run obstacle courses and eat gumdrops and pretend they weren’t rats running on a wheel for the benefit of their alien captors.
He would be happy.
She would be numb.
She had done it before—shut out the screaming voice in the back of her head. At Bay Pines, she’d given in. Back at home, too. The saddest part was how easy giving in was: a tug of the lips into a smile, voice silenced, lyrics kept to herself. Now, she’d resisted the Kindred for weeks—for what? Sunken eyes and weary limbs? Cold looks from the only people in the world who could laugh and smile and comfort her?
She rubbed her eyes with limbs that felt impossibly heavy.
“Okay,” she whispered.
As soon as she spoke the words, relief wound into her tired muscles. She’d had sixteen years of practicing how to give in. It came so naturally, so effortlessly, like greeting an old friend. A small voice tried to claw its way back up, but she forced a smile.
She ignored the tears in her eyes.
“And Rule Three?” Nok said tightly. “You’ll even obey Rule Three?”
Lucky stopped his pacing. Cora’s heart stopped its beating, as the voice tried once more to claw up her throat. Then, with a single lurch, she swallowed it back down again.
“Yes.”
Her voice sounded as broken as she felt.
Genuine smiles stretched across Lucky’s and Nok’s faces. Mali looked as expressionless as always, until her eyes shifted to the black window, where a murky shadow flickered.
Lucky kissed Cora’s temple. “I knew you’d come around. The night of the accident bound us. It was fate. Now we’ll always be together.”
Cora forced a wider smile. Smile, even when you feel like crying.
Lucky brushed away her tears. “I know you’re worried. But the Kindred are so much more advanced than us. They have to know what they’re doing. If they want us to be together and have kids, they must have a good reason. It’s like . . . our duty, Cora. To continue the species.”
He kissed her tear-stained cheek.
“Our duty,” she repeated.
He gave a serious nod. “Exactly.”
This was what they had done to him, skewed his ethics, made him think they were like children who didn’t know what was best for themselves.
He took her hand. “We’re going to be so happy.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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43
Leon
LEON HAD LEARNED TO move through the habitats silently. It was difficult at first; the words quiet and subtle had never once been used to describe him, but now, as he crept through the marigolds by the side of the diner, he felt like a jungle beast.
A figure dropped over the side of the railing, landing on all fours in front of him. He let out a curse and stumbled back.
Mali stared into his eyes like she could see the very stains on his soul. Her eyes went from the mud on his hems to the sharpened stake he had made out of a rocking horse. “What are you doing.”
“Hunting. Now scram.”
She stood slowly. “Hunting what.”
“Ghosts.” He braced himself. He knew that sounded crazy, but it wasn’t. Yasmine’s ghost was here. He could feel her eyes. They had it all wrong, when they thought the Kindred were the ones watching.
A bird trilled and he crouched lower. The bird sounds weren’t real, either. They were Yasmine, trying to drive him mad for running her into the ocean.
Mali gave his shoulder a sharp pinch.