The Cage(15)

She hadn’t needed to speak English to understand that it was not like winning the lottery.

Nok blinked back to the present. “Home? Right—London. Oh, I’ve a gorgeous flat there. In Notting Hill, by the river. Penthouse suite with a balcony, a massive bathroom with a chandelier.”

“I’ve been to London. . . .” Cora paused. “I didn’t think Notting Hill was near the river.”

Nok’s heart thudded. She knew that—she’d just spoken in such a rush. “Chelsea, I mean. I moved last year. My flat in Notting Hill was a postage stamp. I couldn’t stand it.” She craned her head, trying to see on Cora’s face if she’d sensed the lie, but there was only darkness.

“Right.” Cora’s voice was softer. “A chandelier. Wow.”

Thank you, Nok mouthed to the heavens. If Cora did suspect anything, she was going to keep it to herself.

The bed rumpled, as Cora must have flipped over. “We have a nice house too. My dad invested in tech companies at the right time. Now he’s in politics. He doesn’t know this, but I painted glow-in-the-dark stars on my bedroom ceiling when I was twelve. You can only see them when the lights are off.” She paused. “It seems silly now.”

Nok’s own secret sweated from her pores as her mind raced for a safer topic. “What do you think about the guys?”

“Leon’s kind of an ass,” Cora whispered.

Nok laughed before she could stop herself, and clamped a hand over her mouth. “I never go for those muscle types. Or the good-looking ones, like Lucky. Too full of themselves.”

“You think Lucky’s cute?”

“You don’t?”

Cora didn’t answer. Nok rolled over on her pillow, staring at the ceiling. That awful silence. One of the boys started snoring. It mingled with the hum from the black panel, and Nok’s throat started to close up. Her hand shot to her neck. Blackness swamped her from both sides: the night outside, the black window. She could feel eyes behind that dark glass studying her. She didn’t care about being watched—she’d spent her life watched by photographers from behind dark camera lenses.

When she closed her eyes, she could still see their flashing bulbs. Delphine, her steely-haired talent manager who seemed never to age, standing by the doorway eating black licorice, while a photographer who couldn’t be more than seventeen hid behind a curtain snapping his bulb like squeezing a trigger. Bam. Bam. Bam.

“Look beyond the camera,” Delphine had said. “Look into the heart of the photographer—not this greasy-faced boy, but every man. Because it will be always be a man, even if a woman is taking the pictures, because it’s a man’s world. They always want something. Vulnerability. Weakness. Need. When you give it to them, you control them completely.” Sugary black saliva dribbled from the corner of Delphine’s mouth as she bit into another licorice stick. “And controlling men is the only way women like you and me will survive.”

“What did you say?” Cora asked.

Nok didn’t realize she’d mumbled aloud until Cora’s hand squeezed hers in the darkness. “Hey. You should sleep. Lucky’s keeping watch, and I don’t sleep much either. You can close your eyes. It’s safe.”

Nok searched the dark ceiling for flashing bulbs but found none. No photographers. No Delphine with her dribbling black licorice.

She didn’t let go of Cora’s hand. She squeezed her eyes shut, and thought of banana leaves and khee mao noodles. Her name meant bird in Thai; she missed the birds back home.

If she was being honest, the birds were the only thing she missed.





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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10

Cora

CORA STARED AT THE ceiling, feeling the absence of the glow-in-the-dark stars as strongly as the absence of her necklace. Her eyes were bleary with exhaustion, but her mind wouldn’t quiet.

She sat up to see if Lucky was still awake too.

The doorway was empty. Alarms rang in her head, and she jumped out of bed and checked the other bedrooms, then jogged down the stairs, and stopped.

He sat in the front doorway, head tilted back, eyes closed. He looked peaceful. She could almost believe she was home, a normal girl at a house party that had gone on too late, stumbling upon a cute guy passed out in the doorway.

His head rolled toward her, and his eyes opened. He scrambled to his feet. “Is something wrong?”