Page 27 of To Cage a Wild Bird (Divided Fates #1)

“And did you always know this was what you wanted to do with your life?” I continued, badgering him.

“I always knew this was where I would end up,” he snapped bitterly.

Both of us fell silent as we turned a corner and met a pair of guards standing before a locked door. I mulled over Vale’s

words as he nodded at the guards and swiped his key card, ushering me through the door and into another hallway.

The door clicked shut behind us, and Vale stopped short in the middle of the empty corridor. “What are you doing?”

My pulse thrummed. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you asking so many questions?” he asked, stepping close enough that I felt the cool stone wall meet my back, the chill bleeding through my uniform.

He rested his hands against the wall on either side of my head, caging me in, and I had to crane my neck to look into his molten eyes.

“You don’t strike me as someone who’s interested in small talk.

On the contrary, I distinctly remember skipping straight past the small talk the night we met. ” His eyes glittered wickedly.

I took a deep breath, willing my face not to flush crimson at his words or the memories from that night. But it was next to

impossible with his eyes on me.

“You saved me out there yesterday,” I breathed, our chests nearly touching. “That’s not something an enemy would do. I’m attempting

to call a truce.” I nearly cringed at the foolishness of my words and waited for him to call me out on my lie.

He stared at me, eyes narrowed as if he could see past my forehead and straight to the thoughts swirling through my mind.

“You’re a criminal.”

But he didn’t call me a rebel.

“Yes, and I’m paying for that by being here,” I answered, trying to select the words that would win him over. “Isn’t that

enough? Or do you need to continue hating me, too?”

He lifted his hand to my face, and the pad of his thumb brushed against my full bottom lip, swiping slowly from the middle

to the corner and lingering there. I held my breath, my mouth parting, and he smirked, lifting his thumb into my line of sight

to show me the crumb he’d removed, a remnant of my breakfast.

I flushed again.

“Did you grow up dreaming of being a bounty hunter?” His voice cut through the charged air as he turned from me to continue walking

down the hall.

The sudden loss of proximity left me chilled.

I rolled my eyes, jogging to catch up to his long-legged pace. “Yes. I always wanted to track down fugitives and turn them

in, knowing they’d be killed.”

Our arms brushed, and my skin prickled.

“You always do that,” Vale murmured.

“What?”

“Hide behind sarcasm.”

I turned, expecting to find him smirking, but instead, he was studying me intently.

“Are you so afraid of the world finding out that you’re not heartless like you pretend to be?” he asked.

I missed a step and nearly fell flat on my face. “I—” I took a deep breath, steadying myself. “No one wants to be a bounty hunter. But I was the sole provider for Jed, and I needed a job that would make me enough credits to keep

him fed and...”

Safe.

My words dissolved into a heavy silence between us, the only sound the steady tread of our shoes on the cement.

“You know I read your file,” Vale finally said. “The criminals you turned in did some heinous things. All of them. As far

as I can tell, you never apprehended anyone for petty thievery.”

“The Council would consider petty thievery equal to any other crime,” I reminded him. And no matter the crimes of the fugitives

I’d turned in, I’d enabled the hunters who visited Endlock.

A memory surged of Verona dragging Torin’s corpse through the hunting grounds, and my breath caught as I shook the image from

my mind.

Vale looked away, not meeting my eyes. “All crimes open the door to disorder. Disorder leads to chaos, and chaos leads to

war.” The words came out rough.

I narrowed my eyes.

Vale opened the door to the stairwell, and we descended into the depths of Endlock. To my disappointment, we passed the infirmary

without pausing—some part of me had still harbored a sliver of hope that I might train in medicine again, mending the inmates

that escaped the hunts without mortal wounds.

We reached the workshop, and the door creaked open to reveal a room lined with neat rows of workbenches.

They were covered with chisels and hammers, and most everything was coated in a fine layer of wood shavings.

Tools of all shapes and sizes hung from the back wall—wrenches, hammers, screwdrivers, and—

I froze, staring, my mind flashing back to the fence.

I rolled my lips together to keep from smiling.

Wire cutters.

“You’ll be assigned here,” Vale announced, arm sweeping over the room. “Jed will be in the laundry room.”

I was being assigned to a position that would give me access to the wire cutters. If I could find a way to smuggle them out...

I fought to keep from getting my hopes up again. Even if I managed to steal a pair of the cutters from the workshop, I’d have

to figure out how to get them onto the hunting grounds.

I made a mental note to talk to Kit and August about it at dinner.

Vale stared at me, waiting for a reaction.

The workshop did seem like a cushy job for a Lower-ranked inmate, and beyond that, I knew Kit and Momo worked in laundry. Had Vale purposefully

placed Jed there with them?

I met his eyes. “Thank you.”

“You’ll be promoted to the Middle level if you get through another hunt, you know,” he responded, ignoring my thanks.

The pounding of footsteps in the hallway outside the workshop kept me from answering.

Larch appeared in the open doorway, his face flushed. A pair of guards flanked him on either side, and two more followed behind.

Vale tensed, his eyes narrowing. “Warden?”

Ignoring Vale, Larch’s eyes found me. “224. You attacked a hunter yesterday—not in self-defense, but on behalf of another

inmate, when your life wasn’t in danger. That’s against the rules.”

I froze, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. August had eased my fears about being found out by the tracking in my wristband,

and between learning he was in on the escape plan and my conversation with Jed, I’d put what I’d done on the hunting grounds

out of my mind.

“I thought inmate 447 knocked the hunter unconscious,” Vale said, a flicker of something I couldn’t quite discern passing over his face. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

I looked sideways at him. Most of the guards I’d encountered wouldn’t make eye contact with the warden, let alone speak to

him out of turn. Vale, on the other hand, addressed Larch like an equal.

“224 must have threatened him to get him to lie,” Larch said, lips forming a straight line.

“How can you be sure?” Vale asked, skeptical. His fingers beat a staccato against his thigh, and my eyes flitted back and

forth between the two men.

Larch smirked, stepping aside to reveal the hunter I’d knocked unconscious the day before. “The hunter just woke up. His weapon

was never recovered from the grounds.”

My stomach dropped at the sight of the hunter, and I pictured the hollow tree where I’d stowed his stolen rifle.

The hunter glared at me, his teeth bared and fists clenched at his sides. His lip was swollen, and a strip of gauze was wrapped

around his head. “That’s her,” he said through his teeth.

I stepped back involuntarily, gripping the fabric of my uniform to stop my hands from shaking.

“As I suspected,” Larch hissed. “And now, 224, I’m going to show you how we deal with inmates that defy Endlock’s rules.”

I swallowed, remembering my first day at Endlock and Landis, the inmate who’d been shot down by a guard when he tried to run.

And what I’d done was worse.

I’d attacked a guest. Damaged Larch’s reputation, which I guessed was the gravest misstep of all.

A slow, self-congratulatory smile spread across Larch’s face, and I fought the urge to slap it away. He got off on the terror

that this miserable place inspired in its inhabitants.

I shoved down my fear, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing it on my face. There was nowhere to run. If these were

my last moments, I wouldn’t spend them cowering, no matter how badly I wanted to curl up and hide.

For some inexplicable reason, I found my eyes drawn to Vale. I let them roam his face freely, even as he shook his head, eyes wide with fear and an unspoken warning.

Don’t provoke him.

But it was too late.

I hid my sweating, trembling hands in the folds of my uniform and rolled my shoulders back.

“What are you going to do? Kill me?” I drawled, forcing the words out and letting a smirk pull my lips to one side.

Larch faltered, a slight frown marring his face. But he quickly replaced it with a serpentine grin.

He leaned in until his stale breath filled my nose. “Do you think there aren’t worse things than death, inmate?”