Crack.
Rolf swung his croquet mallet, his force extra hard as he smacked the ball.
Crack.
The sound was strange; not like wood against wood. “Try it again,” Nok ordered, a hard edge to her voice. Rolf paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then slammed the croquet mallet down again. Nok stooped to examine the ball. She gave him a grim nod.
“That’s the right amount of force. Remember, she can make a weapon out of anything. If she comes back, she’ll probably be armed, yeah? We can’t take any chances after she tried to kill Lucky. Now hit it again.”
Rolf hefted the croquet mallet.
Fear trickled down Cora’s back. They weren’t playing croquet. So what were they hitting so hard with the mallets? She dared to peek over the bushes.
Pumpkins. Big, round ones. They’d painted blue-eyed faces on them that looked an awful lot like hers.
Rolf brought down the mallet. Crack.
Nok nodded. “Perfect.”
Cora slunk along the ground, afraid to even breathe, until fear got the best of her and she took off at a run toward the habitats. Her legs burned. Her vision went glassy. Did they really think she had tried to kill Lucky? What had this place done to them, to twist them into such angry versions of themselves?
She stopped running when she reached the swamp, and collapsed against a tree to catch her breath. This was going to be harder than she thought. She needed to test her theory that they could escape through the fail-safe exit beneath the waves, but that wouldn’t help her much if the others had it out for her. She couldn’t go to Lucky for help; she was sure the Kindred had fixed his head injury, but they couldn’t fix a broken heart. That left Mali, who might as well be a Kindred, and Leon, who had gone completely insane—but at least he didn’t hate her, so he was her best chance.
The sun shifted a degree. Noon already. She ran for the jungle, her bare feet slapping across the raised walkway through the thick underbrush. She reached Leon’s makeshift camp just as a drenching rain began.
Oh, no.
The camp was destroyed. The sheets with Leon’s artwork had been torn down and trampled in the mud. Rotten fruit spilled out of overturned orchard crates. No one lived there anymore, that was certain. And judging by how violently Leon had destroyed his camp, he might be even more dangerous than he had been before.
Cora flinched as rain came harder, and thunder struck high up in the sky. It made the same sound as a hideous crack, like a croquet mallet slamming into a pumpkin. She leaned against a tree, hands pressed to her throbbing head. The previous six inhabitants were dead now, murdered by each other. How long before history repeated itself?
She sank down the tree to the jungle floor, letting the mud streak her clothes. The rain pounded harder against the nearest black windows. Were the researchers there now, studying her fear? She balled herself tight, as though that could protect her from their watching eyes.
This wasn’t some experiment.
This was her life.
Thunder cracked again. Little rivers formed in the mud. Soon the clearing would flood, but she didn’t care. Even if she found the fail-safe exit, she couldn’t escape on her own, knowing what grisly fate awaited the others.
She didn’t hear feet approaching until a set of toes wiggled in front of her. She jerked upright. A girl stood among the palm fronds, her long, dark hair streaked with rain, so quiet and still that she nearly blended into the shadows.
The dead girl, Cora thought. Yasmine, come to take her dress back.
Cora grasped the charm around her neck as though it could protect her. The girl stepped out of the shadows, and light fell on her face.
Not Yasmine. Mali.
“The Warden sent you to remove, didn’t he?” Cora had to shout over the rain. She wiped the rain from her face, trying to see better, tasting salty tears. She pictured cages and drugged children. Herself in a toga, forced to do tricks.
Mali crouched in the mud. “No one sends me.” Her eyes slid to the nearest black window. She pinched her shoulder. “I decide on my own to help you escape.”
The rain was so loud that Cora thought she must have misunderstood. But Mali’s eyes were unflinching.
“Why?”
Mali stood abruptly, rain dripping off her eyelashes. “Follow me. I will take you to a place where the Kindred cannot easily read our minds.”
She moved faster than Cora had ever seen anyone go. Cora sprinted behind her. The rain lightened as they neared the edge of the jungle. The walkway gave way to stone through the swamp, and then sand as they entered the desert. The maze loomed a hundred feet away, but Mali veered away from it. She led Cora up the highest dune. From the top, they could see all eight habitats.