Page 3 of To Cage a Wild Bird (Divided Fates #1)

“Give me a pint, Vern.”

“Not until you go see Aggie,” the barkeep growled, wiping the worn wooden counter with an oily rag. “She’s in the back with

the others.”

“And I can talk to her just as well with a mug of ale in my hand, even better with a mug of ale in my hand, as a matter of fact,” I said, waving my wristband in his direction, showing off the screen

full of credits. Calling it ale was a stretch, a compliment, really, for the home brew that Vern illegally concocted.

The plump, wiry-haired man had owned the musty basement tavern—aptly known as Vern’s Tavern—for as long as anyone could remember.

He was perpetually grouchy and a man of few words, but as long as his patrons paid their tabs and shut their mouths when the

patrols came around, he couldn’t have cared less about the insidious activities they got up to under the comfort of his leaky

roof.

Vern scanned my wristband and shoved a mug into my hand, the ale sloshing over the sides and soaking my skin.

“Now get back there,” he demanded, turning his prickly gaze toward the next paying customer.

I raised the mug in a mock salute but stopped short, narrowing my eyes, when I saw Jed descending the steps into the tavern.

At eighteen, he was all sharp angles and lanky limbs, the spitting image of our father with his light blond hair, wide blue

eyes, and the constellation of freckles that danced across his ivory cheeks.

Though I had five years on him, I was often mistaken for his younger sibling.

I’d inherited our mother’s features—gray eyes and long, dark brown hair that fell in waves down the middle of my back. The only trait Jed and I had in common was our complexion.

“What are you doing here?” I snapped, grabbing him by the elbow and yanking him into an unoccupied corner of the tavern. “You

should be at work. It’s almost curfew.”

“I’m on my way there.” Jed rolled his eyes, pulling his arm from my grasp. “I needed to make a quick stop.”

“At Vern’s ?” I pressed, raising a brow. “For what?” I glanced around, but no one seemed to be paying us much attention.

Jed tried to push past me, but I held an arm out, refusing to let him by.

“You know what I’m here for, Raven,” he said in a whisper, nodding in the direction of the private meeting room. “I’m eighteen

now. I can start initiation.”

“Absolutely not,” I seethed, fighting to keep my voice down. “You’re not getting involved with them. It’s not safe.” Panic

clawed at my chest when I pictured him getting caught and sent to Endlock. I’d gotten us this far by having as little to do

with the Collective as possible, but of course, he would want to follow in our parents’ footsteps by joining the rebel group.

“I don’t need you to keep me safe.” Jed’s voice shook, his hands fisting at his sides. “I need you to stop using me as an

excuse to arrest people to pay the rent.”

“Jed, I—”

“For every person you turn in, you’re aligning yourself with the Council. Taking their side. You’re no better than the hunters

who get off on putting a bullet through a prisoner’s head.”

My mouth snapped shut, his words cutting into me like a thousand shards of glass. I knew he disapproved of my job, but it

was something we almost never talked about. Just like our parents.

“There is no other side,” I whispered, my voice brittle. “There is the Council’s side or death.”

“You sound just like them,” Jed spat. “You’re not even willing to try anything else.”

“If I hadn’t taken a strike for you, maybe I’d have the option of trying something else,” I hissed. As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could take them back.

It was true I’d taken a strike for Jed and that having two strikes made me unhirable at the factories, but that wasn’t his

fault. It was mine. I’d take it again in a heartbeat. Take all his pain if I could.

Jed stared at me for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line, and then turned on his heel and marched toward the exit.

“Where are you going?” I asked, shoving a strand of hair away from my heated cheek.

“Work. I can’t look at you right now.”

Jed stomped up the stairs and out of the tavern without a backward glance, and I tipped back my mug of ale, drowning everything

out with the sour liquid.

“Getting drunk so you can live with yourself, Thorne?”

I groaned, looking up to see Aggie’s son, Graylin, leaning against the bar. His brown hair, streaked with gold, was curled

up at the edges from the damp humidity of the room, and he twirled a dagger between his fingers.

Self-righteous prick.

There had been a time when my mother and Aggie would whisper behind their hands and shoot each other conspiratorial looks

when they saw the way Gray teased me and how I blushed in turn.

Then there was the stolen kiss, a week after my sixteenth birthday. The sticky heat of summer had given way to a deliciously

cool breeze as we sat, watching the sunset from the rooftop of my apartment building. Gray had transformed the barren, concrete

space with a blanket and the nubs of some of Aggie’s homemade candles, their gentle glow softening his features as the sky

faded from blue to orangey pink, then velvet black and glittering with stars.

Gray had leaned in, emerald eyes intent on mine as he cupped my chin. I’d let out a shaky breath, and he’d closed the distance

between us, our lips brushing as we jumped over the line of friendship into something new.

The next day, my parents were arrested.

A few days after that, they were dead, and I became a bounty hunter to take care of Jed.

A choice that Gray had never forgiven me for.

If we all look out for each other, we might have a fighting chance at survival. That’s how they win, Raven, when we only look

out for ourselves.

His words had started out earnest, an entreaty. But when he saw that something had shifted in me, that I would do anything

to ensure Jed’s survival, and his survival alone, he turned cold and distant. It was like he didn’t know me anymore, and I

didn’t know him. Like all those years faded into nothing in the face of empty cupboards and overdue rent.

I shook my head to clear the memory. “Maybe drunk is the only way I can withstand your company.”

Gray barked out a laugh, wielding a bright smile that didn’t reach his green eyes. “Where’d Jed go?”

I looked away from whatever emotion was swimming in his gaze, some combination of sadness and disgust, to examine the myriad

of small scars that dotted the tanned skin of his cheeks and hands. Some were faded, like the long gash on his left temple

from when he’d fallen through the floor of our makeshift fort in an abandoned factory when he was twelve. Others were fresh

enough that he’d likely gotten them from his involvement in a Collective mission. He was as tall as Jed, though no one would

describe Gray as lanky—he filled out his worn shirt well enough that I didn’t have to imagine the hard planes of muscle that

lay beneath.

“Stay away from him, Gray.”

I slammed my mug on the bar and waved my wristband at Vern, snatching the pint of ale he was passing to another patron. When

he cursed at me, I winked, strolling across the tavern until I reached the door that led to the back room, Gray on my heels.

“Hetty was killed in the last hunt.” Opal’s words reached me as soon as I slipped through the door, my eyes adjusting until I could see the woman was speaking to Aggie’s wife, Loria.

“We need to send in a replacement if we have any hope of getting Kit out. Someone with combat experience preferably, if we’re going to get her across the Wastes alive.

Besides the harsh conditions, we’ve had reports of scavengers stealing from travelers, sometimes even kidnapping them. ”

My brows knitted together. Attempting to travel across the Wastes was as much of a death sentence as a stint at Endlock.

Loria’s eyes shifted to me as she held up a hand to cut off Opal’s words.

“Drinking away your problems?” Aggie asked in the silence that followed. What was it with this family and their focus on my

ale intake?

Aggie sat at the head of a long table, smoking from a clay pipe. Loria sat to her right, her arms crossed over her chest and

her eyes narrowed as she watched me. Most of the other dozen chairs surrounding the table were filled with people of varying

ages, save the chair to Aggie’s left and one at the opposite end of the table that Gray promptly slipped into.

A collection of candles brightened the space, casting each face in an orange-hued glow. Aside from the factories that were

kept running at all hours, our sector had to resort to candles and oil lanterns after curfew when the electricity was cut

out for the night. The Lower Sector had the highest rate of criminal activity, which the Council used as an excuse to enforce

the nightly curfew. They said the curfew was to protect us, but it was mostly to ensure the Middle and Upper Sectors had access

to as much electricity as they wanted from the limited power grid.

The Lower Sector had the highest population—nearly a hundred thousand people, as many as the Middle and Upper Sectors combined—but

we were crammed into the smallest section of the city, packed into tiny apartment buildings like colonies of ants.

“Nothing like a room temperature mug of ale to chase away the guilt of sending another man to his death.” I raised my mug

and took a large swallow. Besides, Jed was working until dawn. When I stumbled back to our apartment, he wouldn’t be home

to see my disheveled state.

Or condemn me further.

When Jed turned eighteen, he’d been forced to pick up a grueling night shift at a water treatment facility. The position paid

less than scraps, but it was all that was available, and he didn’t have a choice until something opened up elsewhere.

“He deserved it, dear,” came Aggie’s soft reply as she tucked a graying strand of hair back from where it had fallen from her braid. Her face, tanned and heavily lined, held a sad smile. She already knew I’d turned in Torin—she had people everywhere. “Come sit with us.”