Winter (79 page)

“
Luna!
Can I see? Is it even safe up there?”

“Ém, please stop screaming.” Scarlet rubbed her temple.

“Don’t you tell me to stop screaming, Mademoiselle Too-Busy-to-Send-a-Comm-and-Let-Me-Know-You’re-Not-Dead.”

“I was a prisoner!” Scarlet yelled.

Émilie gasped. “A prisoner! Did they hurt you? Is that a black eye or is it just my port, because my screen’s been acting up lately…” Émilie scrubbed her sleeve over the screen.

“Listen, I promise I will tell you the whole story when I get home. Just, please tell me you’re still watching the farm. Please tell me I have a home to go back to?”

Émilie scowled. Despite her hysteria, she’d been a welcome sight. Pretty and bubbly and so far removed from everything Scarlet had been through. Hearing her voice reminded Scarlet of home.

“Of course I’m still watching the farm,” said Émilie, in a tone that suggested she was hurt Scarlet had doubted it. “You asked me to, after all, and I didn’t want to think you were dead, even though … even though everyone believed it, and I did too for a while. I’m so glad you’re not dead, Scar.”

“Me too.”

“The animals are fine and your android rentals are still coming … you must have paid them very far in advance.”

Scarlet smiled tightly, recalling something about how Cress had set up a few payments in her absence.

“Scar?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Did you ever find your grand-mère?”

Her heart had built up a strong-enough wall that the question didn’t knock the breath out of her, but Scarlet still felt the pang of remembering. It was impossible to keep away the memories of the prisons beneath the opera house. Her grandmother’s broken body. Her murder, as Scarlet watched and could do nothing.

This and this alone was the one thing she dreaded about returning home. The house wouldn’t be the same without her grandmother’s bread rising in the kitchen or her muddy boots left in the entry.

“She’s dead,” Scarlet said. “She died in the first attacks on Paris.”

Émilie’s face pinched. “I’m so sorry.”

A silence crept in, that moment when there was nothing appropriate to say.

Scarlet straightened her spine, needing to change the subject. “Do you remember that street fighter who was coming into the tavern for a while?”

Émilie’s expression lit up. “With the
eyes
?” she asked. “How could a girl forget?”

Scarlet laughed. “Yeah, well. It turns out he’s Lunar.”

Émilie gasped. “
No.
”

“Also, I’m kind of dating him.”

The view on the screen shook as Émilie clasped a hand over her mouth. “Scarlet Benoit!” She stammered for a moment, before—“It’s going to take weeks for you to explain this all to me, isn’t it?”

“Probably.” Scarlet brushed her hair over one shoulder. “But I will. I promise. Look, I should go. I just wanted you to know I’m all right, and to check on the farm—”

“I’ll tell everyone you’re safe. But when are you coming home?”

“I don’t know. Soon, I hope. And, Ém? Please don’t let Gilles put up a plaque about me.”

The waitress shrugged. “I make no promises, Scarling. You are our little hero.”

Scarlet clicked off the portscreen and tossed it onto the bed. Sighing, she glanced out the window. Below, she could see the destruction of the courtyard and hundreds of people trying to put it back together.

Artemisia was beautiful in its own way, but Scarlet was ready for fresh air and home-cooked food. She was ready to go home.

A knock sounded at the door and it opened, just a bit at first, Wolf hesitant on the other side. Scarlet smiled and he dared to come in, shutting the door behind him. He was holding a bouquet of blue daisies and looking immensely guilty.

“I was eavesdropping,” he confessed, hunching his shoulders beside his ears.

She smirked, teasingly. “What’s the point of superhuman hearing if you don’t eavesdrop once in a while? Come in. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

Wolf took another step and paused. He had a slight limp from the bullet that had hit his side, but it was healing fast. That was one thing to be said for the alterations—Wolf had certainly been made to be tough.

On the outside, at least.

He frowned at the flowers, his ferocious teeth digging into his lower lip.

He’d left to go back to the house that morning—his childhood home. Though his mother’s body had already been taken out to one of the great graveyards in the wasteland of Luna, it had been important to him that he see the house one last time. To see if there was anything worth saving there, anything to remember his parents by, or even his brother.

Scarlet had offered to go with him but he wanted to do it alone.

She understood. Some things had to be done alone.

“Did you … find anything?”

“No,” he said. “There was nothing I wanted. Everything from my childhood was gone, and … she didn’t have much, you know. Except these.”

He approached her, unable to hold eye contact, and handed her the bouquet of flowers. Over half of their delicate stems had been crushed or snapped in Wolf’s indelicate fists.

“When I was a kid, I used to pick wildflowers for my grand-mère. She would keep them in a jar until they started to wilt, then press them between parchment paper so they’d last forever. I bet she has an entire box full of dried flowers somewhere.” She trailed a finger around some of the soft petals. “That’s what we’ll do with these. In honor of Maha.” She arranged the flowers in a half-full water glass that had been brought with her breakfast.

When she turned back, Wolf had nudged aside the portscreen and lowered himself onto the edge of the enormous bed. Scarlet was pretty sure the linens had been made by slave labor, and the thought made her uncomfortable every time she crawled into them.

As soon as he was sitting, Wolf’s leg started bouncing with anxious energy. Scarlet squinted at it. This wasn’t mourning.

He was nervous.

“What is it?” she said, sinking beside him. She set her hand on his knee and it froze.

His bright eyes found her. “You told your friend we’re dating.”

Scarlet blinked, and a sudden laugh tickled her throat, but at Wolf’s distraught face she held it back. “It seemed easier than trying to explain the whole alpha mate system.”

He looked down at his fidgeting hands. “And … you told her you’ll be going back to the farm.”

“Of course I’m going back to the farm.” She cocked her head, starting to grow anxious herself. “I mean, not
tomorrow
, but once things have calmed down.”

Wolf’s opposite knee started to bounce instead.

“Wolf?”

“Do you still—” He scratched behind his ear. “Do you still want me to come back with you? Now that I’m … that I…” He sucked in a quick breath. “Do you still want me?”

Wolf seemed like he was in pain. Actual pain. Her heart softened.

“Wol—” She paused and swallowed. “Ze’ev.”

His eyes snapped to her, surprised. The portscreen chimed, but Scarlet ignored the comm. She shifted on the bed so she could face him and tucked one foot beneath his thigh. She said firmly, “I still want you.”

His jogging leg slowly stilled. “It’s just … I know I’m not what you had in mind.”

“Is that so? Because I was envisioning a big strapping fellow who can chop firewood and master the post-hole digger, and you certainly fit that description. I mean, my grandma and I got along just fine, but honestly … I’m looking forward to having the help.”

“Scarlet—”

“
Ze’ev.
” She tilted his face toward her. She didn’t flinch when she looked at him. Not at his enormous teeth or his monstrous hands. Not at the inhuman slope to his shoulders or the way his jaw protruded from his cheekbones. It was all superficial. They hadn’t changed
him.
“You’re the only one, Ze’ev Kesley. You’ll always be the only one.”

His eyebrows rose in recognition of the words he’d once said to her.

“I’m not going to say it won’t take some getting used to. And it might be a while before we can convince the neighbor kids not to be terrified of you.” She smoothed down a lock of his hair. It popped right back up. “But we’ll figure it out.”

His body sagged. “I love you,” he whispered.

Scarlet slipped her hands through his crazy hair. “Really? I couldn’t tell.”

The portscreen chimed again. Scowling, she reached over and silenced it, then leaned into Wolf, nudging his nose with hers. Wolf hesitated for only a moment before kissing her. Scarlet sank against him. It was as tender a kiss as any half-man, half-wolf mutant had ever given.

When he pulled away, though, he was frowning. “Do you really think the neighbor kids will be afraid of me?”

“Definitely,” she said. “But I have a feeling you’ll win them over in the end.”

His eyes crinkled. “I’ll do my best.” Then his smile turned wicked. His hand gathered the material at the small of Scarlet’s back and he fell back on the bed, pulling her down beside him.

“
Scarlet!
Scar—oh.”

They both froze. Groaning, Scarlet pushed herself up onto her elbows. Iko was half inside her suite, gripping the door handle. Her android body was covered in bandages, which were purely aesthetic, but there weren’t a whole lot of android supply shops on Luna and she’d told Scarlet she was sick of everyone staring at her.

“Sorry! I should have knocked. But you weren’t answering your comms and—” Iko beamed, with more happiness than a person who ran on wires and power cells should have possessed. “Cinder’s awake!”

Ninety-Two

DIAGNOSTICS
CHECK
COMPLETE
.
ALL
SYSTEMS
STABILIZED
.
REBOOTING
IN
3 … 2 … 1 …

Cinder’s eyes sprang open, met with a white ceiling and blinding lights. She jerked upward and hissed at the shock of pain in her chest.

The woman who had been hunkered over Cinder’s hand cried out and fell off her rolling stool, landing hard on the ground. Metal fuse pullers clattered beside her.

Kai jumped up from a chair in the room’s corner and rushed to Cinder’s side, pushing his messy hair out of his eyes. “It’s all right,” he said, supporting Cinder as she pressed both hands against her chest. She could feel a lump of bandaging there, on top of the ache.

She pried her startled attention off the woman—a stranger—and turned to Kai.

Blinked. Noticed first how handsome he looked, and second how exhausted.

A spurt of data began to scroll against her vision in sterile green text.

EMPEROR
KAITO
OF
THE
EASTERN
COMMONWEALTH

ID
#0082719057

BORN
7
APR
108
T
.
E
.

FF
107,448
MEDIA
HITS
,
REVERSE
CHRON

P
OSTED
13 NOV T.E.:
I
N
A
STATEMENT
RELEASED
THIS
MORNING
,
E
MPEROR
K
AITO
INFORMED
THE
PRESS
THAT
HE
HAS
DELAYED
HIS
RETURN
TO
E
ARTH
FOR
AN
INDETERMINATE
AMOUNT
OF
TIME
,
STATING
THAT
HIS
PRESENCE
IS
NECESSARY
AT
THIS
TIME
TO
OVERSEE
THE
RECONSTRUCTION
OF
THE
L
UNAR
CAPITAL
—

Cinder squeezed her eyes shut and willed the text to descend out of her vision. She waited for her heart rate to calm before opening her eyes again.

Her lap was draped with a white linen blanket so thin she could see a groove in the fabric where the flesh of her left thigh met the top of her prosthetic leg. Her left hand was splayed out, palm up, on top of the blanket. The palm chamber was open, revealing a multitude of disconnected wires inside.

“What are you doing to my hand?” she croaked.

The woman climbed to her feet and straightened her white lab coat. “Fixing it.”

“Here, drink this.” Kai held out a glass of water. Cinder stared at it for longer than she should have, her brain working through mud, before she took it from him. “This is Dr. Nandez,” Kai said, watching her drink. “She’s one of Earth’s best cybernetic surgeons. I had her flown up yesterday to … to look at you.” His lips tightened, as if he wasn’t sure if he’d overstepped some boundary between them.

Handing the glass back to Kai, Cinder studied the doctor, who stood with her arms crossed, tapping the fuse pullers against her forearm. Cinder reached for the back of her head, where her panel was shut tight.

“I’m not dead?”

“You almost were,” said Kai. “The knife penetrated one of your prosthetic heart chambers, which drove your body into survival mode. That chamber shut down while the rest of your heart was able to keep functioning … more or less.” Kai glanced at the doctor. “Did I get that right?”

“Close enough,” said Dr. Nandez with a weak smile.

Cinder’s heart throbbed with every breath. “My retina display is functioning again.”

The doctor nodded. “You were in need of a new processing unit—the one you were installed with wasn’t designed for full underwater submersion. You were lucky it went into preservation mode, otherwise you wouldn’t have had any function over your hand or leg either.”