It was a few seconds before Cinder found her voice and she had to grip the door frame to keep standing.
“Thorne?”
His head jerked around. “Cinder?”
“Wh—what are you—how? Where have you been? What’s going on? Why are you wearing that stupid bandanna?”
He laughed. Gripping a wooden cane, he stumbled toward her, waving one hand until it landed on her shoulder. Then he was hugging her, suffocating her against his chest. “I missed you too.”
“You jerk,” she hissed, even as she returned the hug. “We thought you were dead!”
“Oh, please. It’d take a lot more than a satellite plummeting to Earth to kill me. Although, admittedly, Cress may have saved us that time.”
Cinder pushed him away. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Blind. It’s a long story.”
Her tongue flailed around all the questions stammering to get out, and she finally landed on: “When did you have time to take a mistress?”
His smile faltered. “Don’t talk about Cress like that.”
“What?”
“Oh—wait! You mean Darla. I won her in a hand of cards.”
Cinder gawked.
“I thought she’d make a nice gift for Iko.”
“You … what?”
“For her replacement body?”
“Um.”
“Because Darla’s an escort-droid?”
Slow, gradual understanding. An escort-droid. That would explain the girl’s perfect symmetry and ridiculously lush eyelashes. And the way her presence felt off—because there was no bioelectricity coming off her.
“Honestly, Cinder, to listen to you, people would think I’m a helpless flirt or something.” Tipping back on his heels, Thorne gestured toward the blonde girl. “By the way, you remember Cress?”
The girl smiled uncomfortably. Only then did Cinder recognize her—now with flaking, sunburned cheeks and hair chopped short and uneven.
“Hello,” said Cinder, although the girl was quick to duck behind Thorne and cast her eyes nervously around all the people in the room.
Cinder cleared her throat. “And, Wolf, you’re awake. This is … I’m … er, listen, Thorne—you were spotted in a nearby city. They’re already pulling together search parties. This whole area is about to be flooded with people searching for us.” She faced the doctor. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
“Cinder?”
She tensed. Wolf’s voice was rough and desperate. She dared to meet his eyes. His brow was damp with sweat, his pupils dilated.
“I had a dream where you said … you told me that Scarlet…”
Cinder gulped, wishing she could avoid the inevitable.
“Wolf…”
He paled, seeing it in her face before she spoke.
“It wasn’t a dream,” she murmured. “She was taken.”
“Wait, what?” Thorne listed his head. “What happened?”
“Scarlet was taken by the thaumaturge after we were attacked.”
Thorne cursed. Wolf slumped against the wall, his expression hollow. Silence stole into the room, until Cinder forced herself to stand up straighter, to be optimistic, to not lose hope.
“We believe she was taken to Luna,” she said, “and I have an idea. For how we can get onto Luna without being seen, and how we can find her and save her. And now that we’re all together again, I believe it can work. You just have to trust me. And right now—we can’t stay here. We have to leave.”
“She’s dead,” Wolf whispered. “I failed her.”
“Wolf. She’s not dead. You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.” He hunched over, burying his face behind both hands. His shoulders began to shake, and it was just like before. The way all his energy darkened and thickened around him. The way he seemed empty, missing.
Cinder took a step toward him. “She’s not dead. They’ll want to keep her for … for bait. For information. They wouldn’t just kill her. So there’s still time, there’s time to—”
His anger flared like an explosion—one moment, nothing. Then a spark, and then, suddenly, he was burning up, raging and white hot.
He reached for Cinder, turning and pinning her against the wall with such force that the netscreen shook and threatened to crash to the floor. Cinder gasped, clamping both hands over Wolf’s wrist as he held her suspended by her throat, feet dangling off the ground. The warnings on her retina display were instantaneous—rising pulse and adrenaline and temperature and irregular breathing and—
“You think I want that?” he growled. “For them to keep her, alive? You don’t know what they’ll do to her—but I do.” In another instant, the fury softened, buried beneath terror and misery. “Scarlet…”
He released her and Cinder collapsed to the ground, rubbing her neck. Over the tumult in her thoughts, she heard Wolf turn and run, his footsteps crashing across the floor, down the hallway toward Dr. Erland’s room.
When they stopped, there was a short silence that filled up the entire hotel. And then howling.
Horrible, painful, wretched howling that sank into Cinder’s bones and made her stomach turn.
“Wonderful,” Dr. Erland drawled. “I’m glad to see you were so much more prepared this time.”
Hissing around the pain, Cinder used the wall to pull herself to her feet, and glanced around at her friends, her allies. Cress was still hiding behind Thorne, her eyes now wide with shock. Jacin was fingering the handle of his knife. Dr. Erland, with his messy gray hair and glasses perched at the end of his nose, could not have looked any less impressed.
“You all go ahead,” she said. Her throat stung. “Load up the ship. Make sure Iko is ready to go.”
Another long, heartbreaking howl shook the hotel, and Cinder steadied herself as well as she could. “I’ll get Wolf.”
Forty-One
Cress followed the guard down the hotel steps. Thorne was behind her, one hand on her shoulder and the other gripping his cane. She warned him about the last step as she turned down the dark hallway. Dr. Erland was in the back, already wheezing with the exertion of carrying his prized lab equipment down the stairs.
It was difficult for Cress to focus. She wasn’t even sure where they were going. The ship, did Cinder say? At the time, Cress had been filled with horror at seeing the Lunar operative snap. His howls were still bouncing off her eardrums.
The guard shoved open the hotel door and they all scrambled down onto the rough, sand-covered road. Two steps later, he froze, thrusting his arms out to catch Cress, Thorne, and the doctor as they crashed into him.
Whimpering, Cress shriveled against Thorne and scanned the road.
Dozens of men and women dressed in the official uniform of the Commonwealth military had them surrounded, with guns raised. They filled up the roads and the spaces between buildings, peered down from rooftops and around rust-covered podships.
“Cress?” Thorne whispered, as tension prickled on the stifling air.
“Military,” she murmured. “A lot of them.” Her gaze landed on a girl with blue hair, and instant hatred blossomed inside her chest. “What is she doing here?”
“What? Who?”
“That—that girl from the last town.”
Thorne tilted his head. “That’s Darla. The escort-droid? Why are you and Cinder so confused about this?”
Her eyes widened. She was an escort-droid?
The girl was watching them without emotion, sandwiched between two soldiers with her hands hanging limp at her sides. “I am sorry, Master,” she said, her voice carrying through the silence. “I would have warned you, but that would be illegal, and my programming prevents me from breaking human laws.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be the first thing we fix,” said Thorne, before whispering to Cress, “I had to find one heck of a legal loophole to get her to help me steal that car.”
A voice boomed and it took Cress a moment to spot the man holding a portscreen and amplifier to his mouth. “You are all under arrest for the harboring and assisting of wanted fugitives. Get down on your stomachs and put your hands on your heads and no one will be hurt.”
Trembling, Cress waited to see what the guard would do. The gun he’d taken from Thorne was still tucked into his belt, but his hands were full of the doctor’s stuff.
“We have you surrounded,” the man continued, when no one moved. “There is nowhere to run. Get down, now.”
The guard moved first, lowering himself to his knees and setting down the bag of medical supplies and the strange machine, before settling into the dirt.
Gulping, Cress followed suit, sinking down to the hard ground. Thorne dropped down beside her.
“Stars above,” she heard the doctor moan, grumbling as he joined them on the ground. “I’m too old for this.”
Hot and uncomfortable, with rough pebbles pressing into her stomach, Cress set her palms on top of her head.
The officer waited until they were on the ground before speaking again. “Linh Cinder. We have you surrounded. Come to the front exit immediately with your hands on top of your head and no one will be hurt.”
* * *
Cinder released a string of the most creative curses she could think of as the man’s voice died away. She left Wolf in the hallway, where he’d been unresponsive to her reminders that having a mental breakdown now wouldn’t do anything to help Scarlet. He had only sat curled in on himself with his head tucked against his knees, saying nothing.
Ducking into the doctor’s hotel room, Cinder inched her way to the window and peeled open the blinds.
The rooftop directly opposite the alley had two armed military officers with guns pointed right at her.
She dropped the blinds and cursed again, plastering herself to the wall.
A comm from Iko appeared in her vision. She pulled it up, already fearing what it would say.
RADAR IS PICKING UP MILITARY SHIPS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH. I THINK WE’VE BEEN SPOTTED.
“Do you think?” she muttered. Shutting her eyes, she jotted back a fast message, words scrolling across her eyelids as she thought them.
AT THE HOTEL, SURROUNDED BY EC MILITARY. PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE TAKEOFF. WE WON’T BE LONG—I HOPE.
Letting out a slow breath, she pried open her eyes again. How was she supposed to get a mid-crisis wolf operative, a blind man, and an elderly doctor past all those soldiers without getting anyone killed?
She doubted the girl would be much help. Cress didn’t strike Cinder as the bold, risk-taking type, and Cinder doubted she’d had much experience fighting her way out of situations like this.
She could abandon her friends and make a run for it herself. She could try to control Wolf and use him as a weapon, but even he couldn’t take on that many soldiers at once, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. She could try to brainwash the soldiers so they would let them pass, but she’d have to abandon Wolf if he didn’t come willingly.
Outside, the officer repeated his commands again and again, like a robot.
Squaring her shoulders, she returned to Wolf in the hallway. “Wolf,” she said, stooping beside him, “I need you to help me out here.”
He shifted enough to peer at her over his arm. His green eyes looked dull and faded.
“Wolf, please. We need to get to the ship, and there are a lot of people with guns out there. Come on—what would Scarlet want you to do?”
His fingers curled, nails digging into his thighs. Still, he said nothing, made no move to get up.
The officer’s voice boomed again. You are under arrest. Come out with your hands on your head. We have you surrounded.
“Fine. You leave me no choice.” Standing, she forced her shoulders to relax. The world shifted around her as she flipped off the panic and desperation and reached out instead for the energy crackling around Wolf.
Except this time it wasn’t crackling. Not like usual.
This time, it was like controlling a corpse.
* * *
They stepped into the doorway together.
At least sixty guns pointed at them that she could see—no doubt more hidden behind buildings and vehicles.
Jacin, Thorne, Dr. Erland, and Cress were all lying on the ground.
Two streets separated them from the ship.
She kept feeding lies to Wolf like medicine from a drip. Scarlet will be fine. We will find her. We will save her. But, first, we have to get out of this mess. We have to get to the ship.
From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers twitch, but she didn’t know whether he was acknowledging that there was still hope out there, or whether he was just ticked at her for using him like this. Turning him into a puppet, just like the thaumaturge that had turned him into a monster.
Standing on the hotel step, with sixty guns trained on her, Cinder realized she was no better than that thaumaturge. This really was war, and she really was in the middle of it.
If she had to make sacrifices, she would.
What did that make her, anyway? A real criminal? A real threat?
A real Lunar?
“Put your hands on your head and walk away from the building. Do not make any sudden movements. We are authorized to kill if necessary.”
Cinder coerced Wolf to stay beside her. They walked in unison. The dusty air clouded around them, sticking to her skin. A dull ache was spreading through her head, but it wasn’t anywhere near as difficult to control Wolf as it used to be. In fact, how easy it was made her sick. He wasn’t even trying to fight her.
“About time,” Thorne muttered as she passed.
“Cinder—save yourself,” hissed Dr. Erland.