Scarlet

Twenty-Two

Night crept up fast. The forest leaned in toward them, a solid wall of shadows beneath the dim spotlight of a waning moon. They’d passed only one junction and continued wordlessly north. Seeing another set of tracks combining with theirs had given Scarlet a beat of hope—at least now there was a chance of crossing paths with a new train. But the maglev tracks remained silent. Scarlet’s portscreen light was enough to see by for a time, but she worried about killing the battery and knew they should probably stop soon.

Wolf was no longer looking back every few minutes and Scarlet suspected he’d known they were being followed all along.

Wolf stopped suddenly and Scarlet’s heart leaped, for a moment sure he’d heard wolves again. “Here. This will work.” He peered upward at a log that had fallen across the embankments on either side of them, creating a bridge over the tracks. “What do you think?”

Scarlet followed him through the waist-high brush. “I thought maybe you were kidding before. You really think you can jump onto a moving train from there?”

He nodded.

“Without breaking a leg?”

“Or anything else.”

He met her speculative look with a hint of arrogance.

She shrugged. “Anything to be out of these woods.”

The ledge was a few feet over her head, but she clambered up with little trouble, grasping onto roots and jutting rocks. She heard a hiss from below and turned to see a shot of pain cross Wolf’s face as he hauled himself up after her. She held her breath, feeling guilty, as he dusted off his hands.

“Let me see,” she said, grasping Wolf’s forearm and holding up her portscreen to shine a light on the bandage. No blood had leaked through yet. “I really am sorry about shooting you.”

“Are you?”

Her touch lingered as it reached the end of the bandage, checking that it was still securely tied. “What does that mean?”

“I suspect you would shoot me all over again if you thought it would help your grandmother.”

She blinked up at him, almost surprised to discover how close they were standing. “I would,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be sorry about it afterward.”

“I’m just glad you didn’t take my advice and shoot me in the head,” he said, his teeth showing in the portscreen’s brightness. His fingers barely fluttered across her sweater’s pocket, making her jump.

Then his fingers were gone and Wolf was squinting against the bright light of the portscreen.

“Sorry,” Scarlet stammered, angling it toward the ground.

Wolf moved around her, pressing on the fallen log with his foot. “It appears trustworthy.”

Scarlet discovered a strange irony in his choice of words. “Wolf,” she said, testing the way her voice echoed in the forest’s emptiness. He stiffened, though he didn’t turn around. “When you first told me about leaving the pack, I thought maybe it had been months, or even years, but Ran made it sound like you’d just left.”

One hand came up to ruffle his hair as he turned back toward her.

“Wolf?”

“It’s been three weeks,” he whispered. Then, “Less than three weeks.”

She sucked in a breath, held it, released it all at once. “About the time my grandmother disappeared.”

He ducked his head, unable to meet her gaze.

Scarlet shivered. “You told me that you were a nobody, barely more than an errand boy. But Ran called you an ‘alpha.’ Isn’t that a pretty high rank?”

She saw his chest rise with a slow, tense breath.

“And now you tell me that you left them around the same time my grandmother was kidnapped.”

He rubbed absently at the tattoo, still saying nothing. Scarlet waited, blood beginning to simmer, until he dared to look at her. The portscreen cast a wash of bluish white light at their feet, but it did little to illuminate him. In the dark, she could see only the vaguest outline of his cheekbones and jaw, his hair like a clump of pine needles sticking out from his scalp.

“You told me that you had no idea why they would take my grandmother. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Scarlet—”

“So what was true? Did you really leave them or is this all some story to get me to—” Gasping, she stumbled back. Her thoughts turned, a cascade of doubts and questions rushing through them. “Am I the mission that Ran was talking about? The one that was supposedly canceled?”

“No—”

“And after my dad warned me about this! He said one of you would come for me and there you were, and I even knew you were one of them. I knew I couldn’t trust you and still I let myself believe—”

“Scarlet, stop.”

She wrapped her fist around her hood’s cords, tightening them against her throat. Her heart was pulsating now, blood running hot beneath her skin.

She heard Wolf inhale, saw his hands spread out in the beam of the portscreen. “You’re right, I lied to you about not knowing why they took your grandmother. But you aren’t the mission that Ran was talking about.”

She tilted the port upward, shining it into his face. Wolf flinched, but didn’t look away.

“But it has something to do with my grandmother.”

“It has everything to do with your grandmother.”

She bit down hard on her lower lip, trying to still the tide of rage rising inside her.

“I’m sorry. I knew that if I told you, you wouldn’t trust me. I know I should have anyway, but … I couldn’t.”

The hand holding her port began to shake. “Tell me everything.”

There was a long pause.

A sickeningly long pause.

“You’re going to despise me,” he murmured. His chest sank in, trying to make himself small again, like he had in the alleyway, in the headlights of her ship.

Scarlet pressed her hands so hard onto her hips, her bones began to ache.

“Ran and I were both in the pack sent to retrieve your grandmother.”

Scarlet’s stomach curdled. The pack sent to retrieve her.

“I wasn’t with them when she was taken,” he added quickly. “As soon as we arrived in Rieux, I saw my chance to escape. I knew I could disappear there without the grid of the city to find me. So I took it. That was the morning she was taken.” He crossed his arms, like he was protecting himself from her hatred. “I could have stopped them. I was stronger than all of them—I could have kept it from happening. I could have warned her, or you. But I didn’t. I just ran.”

Scarlet’s eyes started to burn. Inhaling sharply, she turned her back on him, tilting her head up toward the black sky to keep the sudden tears in without having to swipe at them. She waited until she was sure she could speak before pivoting back toward him. “That’s when you started going to the fights?”

“And the tavern,” he said with a nod.

“And then what? You felt guilty, so you thought you’d follow me around for a while, maybe help out on the farm, like that would make up for it?”

He winced. “Of course not. I knew that getting mixed up with you would be suicide, that eventually they would find me if I didn’t leave Rieux, but I … but you…” He seemed frustrated with the words that wouldn’t come. “I couldn’t just leave.”

Scarlet heard the crunch of plastic and forced her grip to loosen on the portscreen. “Why did they take her? What do they want with her?”

He opened his mouth, but was silent.

Scarlet raised both eyebrows. Her pulse was thundering. “Well?”

“They’re trying to find Princess Selene.”

The ringing in her ears made her think for a moment she hadn’t heard him correctly. “They’re trying to find who?”

“The Lunar Princess Selene.”

She drew back. It occurred to her that maybe Wolf was playing some kind of cruel joke, but his expression was too serious, too horrified. “What?”

He started to sway uncomfortably from foot to foot. “They’ve been searching for the princess for years, and they believe your grandmother has information on her whereabouts.”

Scarlet squinted at him, baffled, sure she misunderstood. Sure he must be mistaken. But Wolf’s attention held her, penetrating and sure.

“Why would my grandmother—” She shook her head. “The Lunar princess is dead!”

“There’s evidence that she survived the fire, and that someone rescued her and brought her to Earth,” said Wolf. “And, Scarlet…”

“What?”

“Are you sure your grandma doesn’t know anything?”

Her jaw hung for so long her tongue turned dry and sticky in her mouth. “She’s a farmer! She’s lived in France her whole life. How would she know anything?”

“She was in the military before she was a farmer. She traveled then.”

“That was over twenty years ago. How long has the princess been missing? Ten, fifteen years? That doesn’t even make sense.”

“You can’t discount it.”

“Sure I can!”

“What if she does know something?”

She frowned, but her disbelief faded upon seeing Wolf’s growing desperation.

“Scarlet,” he said, “Ran said that the assignment had been called off—he could only have meant the search for the princess. I can’t imagine why, after so many years … but if it’s true, then it may mean they have no more use of your grandmother.”

A pang in her stomach. “So they would let her go?”

Wrinkles formed around Wolf’s lips, and a weight dropped onto Scarlet’s chest. He didn’t need to speak for her to see his answer.

No. No, they would not let her go.

She sucked in a dizzying breath, dropping her attention to the streaks of moonlight on the tracks below.

“If I’d known … if I’d met you before … I want to help you, Scarlet. I want to try and make this better, but they want information that I don’t have. The best thing for your grandmother is to be useful. Even if they have stopped looking for Selene, there may still be something she knows, or something in her past, anything that would make her valuable to them. That’s why, if there’s anything you know, any information you have … It’s the best chance you have of saving her. You can barter for her. Give them the information they want.”

Her frustration nearly enveloped her. “I don’t know what they want.”

“Think. Has there ever been anything suspicious? Anything your grandma has said or done that struck you as peculiar?”

“She does peculiar things all the time.”

“That’s related to Lunars? Or the princess?”

“No, she’s…” She paused. “I mean, she’s always been more sympathetic to them than most people. She’s not quick to judge.”

“What else?”

“Nothing. Nothing else. She has nothing to do with the Lunars.”

“There’s evidence that that’s not true.”

“What evidence? What are you talking about?”

Wolf scratched at his hair. “She must have told you that she’s been to Luna.”

Scarlet pressed her palms against her eyelids, sucking in a shaky breath. “You’re insane. Why would my grandmother have ever gone to Luna?”

“She was part of the only diplomatic mission to be sent from Earth to Luna in the last fifty years. She was the pilot that brought the Earthen officials. The visit lasted almost two weeks, so she must have had some interaction with Lunars.…” He frowned. “She never told you any of this?”

“No! No, she never told me any of this! When was this?”

Wolf looked away, and she could see his hesitation.

“Wolf. When was this?”

He gulped. “Forty years ago,” he said, his tone going quiet again. “Nine months before your father was born.”