And then I heard Kade. Hissing and cussing.

“Keep quiet,” he kept saying. “Get off me. They’ll hear.”

I wrapped my hands around his neck. “Drop the knife.”

He took the blade and stabbed it in the dirt.

“Let me speak.” It was like I’d squeezed the words out of him. His face was all twisted and red. “I had to make certain. Put on a good show. We can’t have them doubt me.”

I took my hands off his throat. How do you trust someone who’s been so full of lies?

“I was gone so long.” His voice was all shredded, and he sucked at each breath. “And I’m young. Just a nobody. It’s only the trees that got me onto the Council.”

I watched as he pulled himself back to the wall, wheezing and choking. He’d started sweating, and he smeared a dirty hand across his brow.

“Come on,” he said, trying to breathe normal. “Save your anger. You have to see what I’m doing.”

“But these are your people.”

“The trees.” He shook his head. “They’re not safe.”

I crept to the cell door and peered out through the bars. I called for Crow. Alpha.

No answer at all.

I rubbed my ankles, worked at my wrists. Then I glanced back at Kade.

“So spit it out, Cornhusk.”

“We have to save them,” he said. “The saplings.”

“You’re gonna give them up?”

“I want one of them. You aren’t leaving me with nothing. But the rest can’t stay here. Not now.”

“Why? These old friends of Orlic’s that are coming?”

Kade covered his face with his hand.

“Who is it?” I asked him, and he made a moaning sound. “Tell me, damn it.”

“He made it,” Kade said.

“Who?”

“He got out of that crater.”

“Harvest?”

Kade winced when I said the man’s name.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Kade wiggled a tooth free from his gum, then flicked it across the cell floor as he slumped against the wall beside me.

“Harvest’s a hard man to kill,” I said. “Hell of an ally you poachers rustled up.”

“He’s not my ally.”

“So, what? You a poacher or ain’t you? Shit, how am I supposed to believe a word that you say?”

“Orlic used to pick corn with him.”

“They were field hands?”

“Used to be,” Kade said. “Harvest clawed his way up through the ranks. Started to work as an agent.”

“Then what? Decided he could do more damage on his own?”

“They say he knew GenTech needed bodies, so he started to snatch people off the plains, trading them for machinery and the army they made him.”

“Right,” I muttered. “The replicants.”

Kade scratched his left arm, rubbed its stump. “I want to see every one of them dead. You know I do. All of them. All of him.”

“So how come your people trust him?”

“Because he never touched the poachers. In all the years he spent taking people, he never bothered the people down here. He knew our location—could have sold us out to the agents. Traded us all.” Kade shook his head. “But half the people here were field hands once. Just like him.”

“Well, you sure made it nice and easy for him, didn’t you? All the trees in one place.”

“No. I’m going to kill him. I’ll make him pay for what he did to Zee—for everything.” Kade sucked at his torn lips. “I don’t know. Maybe Orlic’s done us a favor.”

“A favor? We’ll be surrounded.”

“There’s still a chance.”

“Ever feel like you’re all out of chances?”

“We can’t give up,” he said. “Not yet. I told you Zee said you’re important. That you could bring people together. She said they’d believe in you because you’d never give up, no matter what.”

“Right. A real glutton for punishment.”

“They made contact with Harvest the day before yesterday. We still have some time.”

“I was out for two days?” I felt the cuts on my face. My head bruised and swollen. “You poachers kick a guy good when he’s down.”

“It’s no worse than you’ve dished out to me.”

“So we’re even now?”

“Come on. We need each other.” Kade reached out his hand. “I cared about her, you know. Your sister. I still do, man. I can still feel what she was like.” He breathed slow and deep, like he was giving all he could to keep steady. “She was like one of the saplings. Fragile and special, but strong when it mattered the most.”

“You were leading us into a trap.”

“I didn’t know we were going to end up in these tunnels.”

“But we did,” I said. “And you’d have stuck Zee in the flames of that pit, if that Council told you to do it.”

“You can’t say that.”

“You did it to me.” I pointed at the burns on my stomach. “You’d have done it to Alpha.”

“I called your bluff, that’s all.”

“That ain’t all, and you know it,” I said. “And I ain’t shaking your one lousy hand.”

“You still need me, bro.”

“Stop calling me that.”

I looked at him. Dressed up in his cornhusk robes. A poacher and a thief.

But hadn’t he also been a friend to me? Hadn’t he pulled me out of harm’s way when I’d needed it, yanking me clear of the lava when I’d been slipping off the side of that cliff?

“We have to get the trees out,” he said.

“For Zee?” I scowled at him.

“For everyone. It’s like you said before. Everyone rising up together to take on GenTech. With me on the Council, I could get the poachers on board. These tunnels could come in handy, going into battle against the forces of Vega. And the poachers have food for the troops—more than the bootleggers could ever provide.”

“I don’t want to hear no more of your talking, unless it’s you telling me a plan to get out of this place.”

“Our scouts contacted Harvest’s people out on the plains. They said he’d be here by nightfall on the third day, so that means tonight.”

“Well, shit.”

“He’ll have a small group with him, but not too many. He’ll want to keep a low profile in the fields, stay out of sight so he can sneak through the corn. He’s on good terms with GenTech, but he won’t want to draw their attention—he wants those trees for himself.”

“But even if he don’t bring an army, how do we get the trees past your people?” I said. “There’s thousands of them.”

“That’s why we have to be stealthy.”

I thought about it. Stealthy weren’t something we’d been real good at. But I reckoned it had to be worth a shot.

“And you’ll come with us?” I asked him. “If we get out?”

“No.” Kade shook his head. “It can’t look like I helped you escape. But I keep one of the trees here, and I’ll rally the poachers to our cause. I belong here. They took me in when no one else would have me.”

I wondered then if Kade and I were so different. We’d both been born to struggle, and both wound up on our own.

“They broke me,” he whispered. “The crystal. These people got me clean.”

“All right,” I said. “Stay in this hole if you want to. But how do I get the hell out?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work on it faster. And you gotta tell Alpha and Crow. Whatever you come up with.”

“I’ll tell them. Just be ready when the time comes.”

He staggered to his feet, robes rustling. He retrieved his knife and that small pouch he’d thrown on the floor. Then he handed them to me and started working at the locks on the door.

“What’s this?” I asked him, squeezing the little nylon bag.

“It’s for your belly,” he said, not turning around. He clinked and rattled the locks until he got the door open. “If someone peers in here, try to make it look like those ropes are still on you. And keep the knife stashed down in your boot.” Then he stepped into freedom and sealed me inside.