Scarlet (19 page)

But what if she was only avoiding the inevitable? What if this was just a distraction to keep her from going to Dr. Erland and accepting her fate? At least the doctor could teach her how to be Lunar. How to protect herself from Queen Levana.

She didn’t even know how to use her glamour. Not properly anyway.

Pursing her lip, she held her cyborg hand up over her face. Its metal plating shone almost mirror-like beneath the ship’s dim lights. It was so pristine, so well crafted—it did not seem like
her
hand. Not yet.

Tilting her head, Cinder held up her other, human hand beside it and tried to imagine what it would be like to be fully human. Two limbs made of skin and tissue and bones. Blood pumping in faintly blue veins beneath the surface. All ten fingernails.

An electric current traipsed down her nerves and her cyborg hand began to morph in her vision. Little wrinkles appeared in her knuckles. Tendons stretched beneath her skin. The edges softened. Warmed. Turned to flesh.

She was looking at two hands, two human hands. Small and dainty with perfectly sculpted fingers and delicate, rounded nails. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, forming a fist, then stretched them out again.

An almost giddy laugh fell out of her. She was doing it. She was using her glamour.

She did not need gloves anymore. She could convince everyone that
this
was real.

No one would ever know she was cyborg again.

The realization was stark and sudden and overwhelming.

And then—too soon—an orange light flickered in the corner of her vision, her brain warning her that what she was seeing was a lie. That this was not real, would never be real.

She sat up with a gasp and squeezed her eyes shut before her retina scanner could start to pick up on all the little inaccuracies and falsehoods like it had done with Levana’s glamour when Cinder had begun to see through it. She was annoyed with herself—disgusted at how easily the desire had come to her.

This was how Levana did it. She kept a hold on her people by tricking both their eyes and their hearts. She ruled with fear, yes, but also with adoration. It would be easy to abuse a person when they never recognized it as abuse.

It was not so different from when she’d glamoured Thorne. She’d owned his mind without even trying to and he’d jumped at the chance to do her bidding.

She sat shivering for a while, listening to Thorne banging around in the galley and humming to himself.

If this was her chance to decide who she was, who she wanted to be, then the first decision was an easy one.

She would never be like Queen Levana.

Twenty

The track’s magnets had gone silent, replaced with the sounds of their own footsteps in the brush and the caws of migrating birds. Only a suggestion of sun filtered down through the thick tree cover, and the forest smelled of tree sap and the coming of autumn.

Time seemed to stretch on for eons, although Scarlet’s portscreen indicated that not even an hour had passed when they came across the stopped train. Scarlet first noticed sounds that didn’t belong to the forest—the crunching of treads on dirt and gravel as dozens of androids circled the perimeter.

Wolf abandoned the tracks, pushing through the brush and leading them into the security of the woods. Scarlet tucked away the port so she could use both hands to climb fallen logs and keep twigs and spiderwebs out of her hair. After a while, she tugged her hood over her head, lessening her vision but feeling better protected from the things that reached and jabbed at her.

They climbed up an embankment, using the roots of a pine tree that looked about to topple over onto the tracks. On higher ground, Scarlet could see the dappled glint of sunlight off the train’s metal roof. The occasional passenger cast a shadow against the windows. Scarlet could not imagine being among them. Surely everyone knew what the “medical emergency” was by now. How long would it take to test every passenger for the plague and determine who could be let go? How long could they keep healthy people quarantined?

Or would they let them go at all?

To prevent escapees, a small army of androids patrolled around the train, their yellow sensors shuffling over the windows and doors, occasionally darting toward the forest. Though Scarlet didn’t think they could see her so high above the tracks, she nevertheless crept back from the embankment and slowly, slowly unzipped her hoodie. Wolf glanced back just as she was pulling her arms from the sleeves, glad she was wearing a much more camouflage-worthy black tank top underneath. She cinched the hoodie tight around her waist.

Better?
she mouthed, but Wolf only glanced away.

“They’ll have noticed we’re missing,” he whispered.

The nearest android spun toward them and Scarlet ducked, worried that even her hair could draw attention.

When the android rolled away again, Wolf slinked forward, holding back a tree branch for Scarlet to pass beneath.

They moved at a tractor’s pace, crouched low to keep out of sight. It seemed every step Scarlet took sent another creature scurrying away for cover—a squirrel, a tiny swallow—and she feared that the androids would be able to track them by the disturbed wildlife alone, but no warning alarm came from the tracks.

They stopped only once, when a streak of blue light danced on the trunks over their heads. Scarlet followed Wolf’s lead and pressed herself nearly to the ground, listening to the pounding of her heart, the rush of adrenaline in her ears.

With a start, she felt Wolf’s warm fingers pressing into her back. They were steady against her, calming, as she watched the android’s light scan back and forth, darting into the forest canopy. She risked the slightest tilt of her head until she could see Wolf beside her, immobile, every muscle taut—except the fingers of his other hand, which were tapping, tapping, tapping against a large rock, expelling the nervous energy that had nowhere else to go.

She watched the fingers, half mesmerized, and didn’t realize that the light had flickered away until the pressure of Wolf’s touch lifted from her back.

They prowled on.

Soon the train was behind them, the noise of lost civilization fading in the chatter of crickets and toads. When Wolf seemed satisfied they weren’t being followed, he led them out of the forest and back down to the tracks.

Despite the growing distance between them and the train, neither spoke.

Just as the sun was kissing the horizon, almost blindingly bright in those rare moments when it could be glimpsed through the trees, Wolf stopped and turned back. Scarlet halted a few steps ahead of him and followed his gaze, but she saw nothing but overgrown sticker bushes and long shadows that had no end.

Her ears were perked, listening for another howl, but she couldn’t pick up anything but bird chatter and, overhead, the squeaks of a colony of bats. “More wolves?” she finally asked.

A long silence, followed by a terse nod. “More wolves.”

It wasn’t until he started walking again that Scarlet released a captured breath. They’d been walking for hours without sign of another train, a cross-section of tracks, or civilization. On one hand, it was beautiful here—the fresh air, the wildflowers, the critters that came to the edge of the brush to watch Scarlet and Wolf before scurrying back into the ferns.

But on the other hand, her feet and back were sore, her stomach was growling, and now Wolf was telling her that the less loveable creatures of the forest were prowling nearby.

A chill rushed up her arms. Untying her hoodie from her waist, she tugged it on and yanked the zipper up to her neck. Pulling out her portscreen, she deflated to see that they’d gone a mere eighteen miles; they had another thirty to go before they reached the nearest station.

“There’s a junction coming up, in about a half mile.”

“Good,” said Wolf. “Whatever trains were scheduled to come through on these tracks won’t be making it through any time soon. We should start seeing some trains after the junction.”

“And when this train comes,” she said, “how do you plan on getting us onto it?”

“Same way we got off the last one.” He sent a sly grin toward her. “Like jumping off a barn, was it?”

She glared. “The comparison doesn’t work as well for jumping back
onto
a train.”

His response was that same teasing smile, and Scarlet turned away, thinking that maybe she didn’t want to know what his plan was, so long as he had one. A late-flowering shrub trembled just off the path and Scarlet’s heart thumped—until a harmless pine marten crawled out and disappeared into the trees.

She sighed, annoyed at her restlessness. “So,” she said, disrupting Wolf in another backward glance. “Who would win in a fight—you or a pack of wolves?”

He frowned at her, all seriousness. “Depends,” he said, slowly, like he was trying to figure out her motive for asking. “How big is the pack?”

“I don’t know, what’s normal? Six?”

“I could win against six,” he said. “Any more than that and it could be a close call.”

Scarlet smirked. “You’re not in danger of low self-esteem, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing at all.” She kicked a stone from their path. “How about you and … a lion?”

“A cat? Don’t insult me.”

She laughed, the sound sharp and surprising. “How about a bear?”

“Why, do you see one out there?”

“Not yet, but I want to be prepared in case I have to rescue you.”

The smile she’d been waiting for warmed his face, a glint of white teeth flashing. “I’m not sure. I’ve never had to fight a bear before.” He cocked his head toward the east. “There’s a lake that way, maybe a hundred yards. We should refill the water.”

“Wait.”

Wolf paused, glanced at her.

Scarlet’s brow was creased as she inched toward him. “Do that again.”

He took half a step back, eyes glinting with sudden nerves. “Do what?”

“Smile.”

The order was met with the opposite response. Wolf shrank back, his jaw tense as if to be sure his lips stayed locked together.

Scarlet hesitated only a moment before reaching for him. He winced, but didn’t move as she cupped his chin and gently pulled open his lips with her thumb. He took in a hissing breath, before touching his tongue to the point of his right tooth.

But they were not normal. They were almost fang-like, with sharp, elongated canines.

She realized, too slowly, they were like wolf teeth.

Wolf turned his face away, locking his jaw again. His whole body stayed tense, uncomfortable. She saw him gulp.

“Implants?”

He scratched the back of his neck, unable to look at her.

“That Order of the Pack sure takes this wolf thing seriously, don’t they?” Finding her hand still hovering in midair, her fingers dangerously close to tilting Wolf’s face back toward her, she let it fall and tucked it into her front pocket. Her heart was suddenly racing. “So are there any other oddities I should know about? A tail, perhaps?”

Finally, he met her gaze, flushed with insult until he found her smiling up at him.

“I’m joking,” she said, offering an apologetic grin. “They’re only teeth. At least they’re not implanted on your scalp like that guy at the fights had.”

It took a moment, but soon his embarrassment started to melt, his scowl softening around the edges. His lips turned up again, but it was not another true smile.

She nudged his foot with her toes. “All right, I’ll accept that smile for now. You said you heard a river nearby?”

Seemingly grateful to be released from the conversation, Wolf ducked back from her. “A lake,” he said. “I can smell it.”

Scarlet squinted in the direction he’d gestured, seeing nothing but more trees, the same old trees. “Of course you can,” she said, following as he pushed into the undergrowth.

And he was right, though it was more a pond than a lake—kept fresh by a creek that flowed in and out on the far side. The shore changed from grass to rocks before disappearing beneath the surface, and a cluster of beech trees hung their branches toward the water.

Rolling up her sleeves, Scarlet splashed some water on her face and slurped up big handfuls. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she found that she couldn’t stop drinking it. Wolf busied himself dunking his hands and pulling his wet fingers through his hair, making it stand in each direction again as if it had gotten too tame during their trek.

Refreshed, Scarlet sat back on her heels and glanced across at Wolf. “I don’t believe it.”

He met her gaze.

“Your hands aren’t twitching,” she said, gesturing at the palm set loosely on his knee—it instantly flexed into a fist, his fingers uncomfortable beneath her scrutiny. “Maybe the forest is having a good effect on you.”

Wolf seemed to consider this, his brow drawn as he topped off the water bottle and nestled it into the bag. “Maybe so,” he said, then, “Is there any more food?”

“No. I didn’t realize we’d be living off our own reserves.” Scarlet laughed. “Now that you mention it—here I am thinking the fresh air must be working a miracle, when you’re probably just suffering from low blood sugar. Come on, maybe we’ll come across some wild berries or something.”

She moved to stand when she heard quacking on the other side of the lake. Half a dozen ducks were making their way into the water, paddling out and dipping their heads beneath the surface.

Scarlet bit her lip. “Or … do you think you could catch one of those?”

As he shifted his attention to the ducks, a daring grin spread over his face.

He made it look easy, prowling up to the unsuspecting birds like a born predator. But if Scarlet was impressed, and perhaps she was, it was nothing compared to his awe as he watched her de-feather the dead fowl like a trained expert, pricking holes in its skin to allow for the outer layer of fat to drain out while it cooked.

The trickiest part was lighting a fire, but with a quick search on her portscreen and a clever use of the gunpowder in one of her gun’s cartridges, Scarlet was soon mesmerized by the gray plumes of a small fire winding their way toward the forest canopy.