The Cage by Megan Shepherd Page A

down.”
    Any sense of accomplishment she’d had collapsed.
    Lucky went first, moving fast, and was on the ground in no time. Cora took a deep breath. Not letting go of the trunk, she crawled to the closest branch, her muscles shaking. Left hand, then the right. Not so bad as long as she didn’t look down.
    “You’re almost there,” Lucky called. “Two more branches.”
    His voice gave her enough courage to glance down. That was a mistake. The ground was dizzyingly far, telescoping toward her, and her mind was already so sleep deprived.
    Her tired hands slipped.
    She grabbed for the branch, but her hand glided off it, and she tumbled toward the clearing.
    Lucky caught her. It was awkward and painful and she must have landed half against his head, because when she found her feet, his ear was red and his hair was ruffled.
    “Whoa. That was close.” His breathing was only slightly taxed, his eyes glinting with the thrill of having finished the puzzle.
    She tried to comb her hair into some semblance of neat. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were enjoying yourself.”
    “Rescuing a pretty girl? I don’t mind too much.” He still held her tight. He was warm—she had missed that. The only other boy who had ever hugged her so close was Charlie. Her brother had always smelled of cologne, but Lucky was pinesap and cut grass. Home. The burn spread to her cheeks.
    He let go of her almost reluctantly, and she almost wished he hadn’t.
    Overhead, the light grew brighter.
    “Noon.” Lucky slipped his token into his pocket. “We should keep going before it’s time to turn back.”
    “I hope Rolf and Nok are getting along,” Cora said, as they ducked through a perfectly engineered tunnel of vines. “They’re sort of a mismatched pair.”
    “Maybe the Kindred’s research found that opposites attract. Look at us—I mean, back home, guys like me don’t end up with girls like you.”
    “Girls like me?”
    “Rich girls. Important girls.” He paused. “Beautiful girls.”
    Beautiful? Not with her eyes sunken from lack of sleep. Not with her hair tangled and wild. At least she was walking in front, where he couldn’t see her burning cheeks. The last thing she needed was to start blushing whenever he threw his dimple around. The Kindred would love that. The researchers were probably checking off boxes left and right. Attraction? Check. Witty banter? Check. Rescuing a girl in distress? Check.
    “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with opposites,” she said. “Maybe there’s some connection between the couples we don’t know about. We both lived in Virginia for a while.”
    “Right. That’s true.” Lucky kept walking in silence. Cora tossed a glance over her shoulder. What wasn’t he telling her?
    They crested a ridge and stopped. Ahead, colored lights twinkled between the trees. One flashed blue, another orange. Neon signs.
    “Is that . . . another town?” She squinted at the lights. “Maybe there are more kids like us. Or maybe it’s where the Kindred live.”
    Music slowly trickled through the trees, finding its way to her ears.
    Don’t belong in paradise,
    Don’t belong in hell . . .
    She shot Lucky a worried look. “That’s my song.”
    They pushed through the last of the forest, toward an enormous cherry tree that rose in the center of a town square exactly like theirs. Pooled in the grass was one of Leon’s ties. The same tie he had ripped off their first day.
    “Oh, no,” she whispered.
    “It’s our town,” Lucky said quietly. “We’ve come back.”
    Across the town square, Nok and Rolf emerged from the jungle, looking stricken.
    Cora ran toward them. “Did the paths loop you back too?”
    Nok had gone pale. “Yeah . . . we didn’t turn once, I swear.”
    A curse came from the boardwalk, where Leon came stalking up the beach. “Am I going mad? I must have tramped up that mountain for six hours, and in five minutes I was back. After a couple hundred feet, it started