Cassian leaned in close. “Do you still intend on disobeying our rules?”
34
Cora
CORA’S HEAD SPUN. THIS little girl. The boy in the scroll room. The other girl, asleep under the watch of statues. They were just a few of many who had been taken. A living display, a breathing museum, to satisfy the Kindred’s fascination.
Her stomach twisted.
“I am trying to keep you from this, Cora,” Cassian said quietly. “Do not make me bring you to a place like this. It would only—”
He stopped when the door below opened. They both leaned toward the window as two Kindred women entered the chamber below, wearing Grecian costume dresses, their hair loose, their faces plastered with the exaggerated emotion that meant they were uncloaked. They strode directly to the Icelandic girl’s cell.
Cassian’s cold gaze slowly slid to Cora, and she got the sense that whatever they were about to witness was going to be even worse than it already was.
Below, the taller Kindred woman reached through the bars and beckoned to the girl, who stood and approached slowly, walking like she was dizzy. The Kindred woman said a few words that Cora couldn’t hear through the viewing panel.
“She wants the girl to clap,” Cassian explained. “To perform a trick for her entertainment.”
The girl slowly brought her disfigured hands together like a wind-up toy, which made the Kindred women gasp in delight.
The Kindred woman’s lips moved again.
“Now she wishes for the girl to bow,” Cassian translated.
The girl bent at the waist, sweeping her arm with a slightly dizzy flourish, and the Kindred handed her a token. The token fell from the girl’s missing fingers, but she picked it up with her other hand and slipped it into her pocket.
“The humans in these exhibits collect the tokens and redeem them for prizes,” Cassian explained. “The more tricks they perform, the more rewards they earn.”
Disgust crept up Cora’s skin. This was what the Kindred though of humans? That, other than a handful of elite ones suitable for breeding, they were no good for anything but performing cheap tricks?
The shorter Kindred handed the girl another token, then leaned forward with her lips pursed. Cassian explained, “She has asked for a kiss, this time.”
All the tension that had been knotted in Cora’s body unraveled all at once, plunging to her feet.
A kiss?
The shackles felt too tight. Her lungs constricted. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her vision started to blur as the horror of everything descended on her all at once.
The Kindred could do anything to them, she realized.
Kiss them.
Kill them.
The insanity of this place hit her like a blow to the chest. The world didn’t seem to move in real time. It jerked and jolted between slow motion and fast forward. Her balance keeled, just like it had that day in the bookstore. Her vision sharpened and blurred too, as the colors of the room pulsed too brightly.
Cora pressed a hand against the glass. Cassian said a few words that she couldn’t process. She couldn’t stop staring at the little girl below. The girl bent forward and met the woman’s lips through the bars of the cage, giving her a peck, chaste and sexless, like a deranged kissing booth. A small sound came from Cora’s throat. She realized she was swaying.
Strong hands shook her. The bright colors faded to normal. The sound of her own pulsing heart dialed down in volume. Cassian shook her again, hard.
“Cora. What is happening to you?”
She tried to speak, but her lips were too dry. Cassian checked her pulse, lifted each eyelid, even looked down her throat. Examining her, just as the Warden had done, like she was merely a problem to be solved, but Cora didn’t care.
Lucky was right. They’ll never let us go.
“Describe what is happening.” His voice came urgently in her ear. “Are you experiencing strange sensations? Visual disturbances?”
She shoved Cassian and his strange questions away and braced herself against her knees, but her hands were too sweaty and slipped off. She stumbled toward the floor. Cassian caught her. Her hands were still bound, but she grabbed the strap across his chest, holding tight. She pressed her face against his chest, eyes squeezed closed, as though to block out everything that was happening.
“Take me away from here. Please.”
Through his clothes, his heartbeat was nearly as fast as her own, and she wondered why he cared so much about her panic attack to ask such odd questions. He hesitated only briefly before removing her from the viewing room, sweeping her up in his arms and carrying her when her limbs were too sluggish to move on her own. He spoke in a rush to the blue-eyed Kindred and took Cora through another doorway to a Parthenon-style room that was blessedly silent, empty save for a circular fountain in the center, surrounded by a ring of artificial stone benches.
A bathroom. No matter how intelligent they were, the Kindred still had to take a piss somewhere.
Cassian set her down on the soft cushions around the fountain. He removed his gloves and dipped his hands in the water, then touched them to her face, trying to cool her down, but his touch never cooled her. The water just made it spark more.
Her eyes were closed. She panted for air. Once her head cleared, she grabbed the strap across his chest and pulled him close. She slapped him, hard, across the face.
Her palm stung.
He didn’t flinch, of course—she could never hurt skin as hard as metal. But his throat constricted. He was very close to her, water dripping off his hands onto her dress.
“Why did you strike me?” he asked.
“Because you’re one of them. You’re a monster just like those women down there.”
“I am trying to protect you from that. It is the way the world is, and I want you to understand how dangerous it would be without my assistance.”
“Our enclosure is no different from this one! Run your mazes. Play your games. You’re sick, all of you.”
Cassian’s black eyes shifted between Cora and the door back to the menagerie. “I brought you here to show you how desirable your environment is.”
“Because there we’re only forced to kiss each other, you mean? Here we have to kiss you?”
His eyes darkened to a deeper shade of black. “A kiss is a very common trick. I do not understand why it bothers you to this degree.”
She let her head fall back on the cushions. “Because it’s more than a kiss. It’s Rule Three. Procreation. Taking love and making it a trick, or an obligation. You’ll never understand that.”