Winter

Fifty-Five

“This was a bad decision,” said Scarlet.

Winter peered over at her. There was discomfort in Scarlet’s face, a deep-etched line between her eyebrows.

Reaching over, Winter tugged at one of Scarlet’s curls. “You have not turned back yet.”

Scarlet batted her away. “Yeah, because I no longer have any idea where we are.” Scarlet glanced over her shoulder. “We’ve been wandering around these caves for hours.”

Winter followed her look, but the cave was so dim they couldn’t see very far before it disappeared into shadows lit only by the occasional glowing orb on the ceiling. Winter couldn’t tell how far she and Scarlet had come through the underground lava tubes in search of the wolf soldiers—in search of an army—and she still didn’t know how much farther they would have to go. Whenever she thought of turning back, though, she would imagine she heard a faint howl in the distance, compelling her to go on. Her dream of Ryu and Levana clung to her thoughts like sticky pollen, inciting her resolve again and again.

Levana believed she could control everyone on this moon. The people, the soldiers, Winter herself.

But she was wrong. Winter was sick of being manipulated, and she knew she couldn’t be the only one. She would find soldiers to fight for her and together they would rid themselves of her stepmother and her cruelty.

They rounded another bend. The dark, gritty walls never changed. The ceiling was jagged, but the ground was worn smooth from years of foot traffic. And marching. Did the soldiers march? Winter wasn’t sure. She had not paid much attention to her stepmother’s army. She wished she’d taken more of an interest in what Levana was doing with these boys-made-soldiers. What she had been planning all along.

Otherwise, the cave looked like it had since it had first been carved out by molten lava billions of years ago. Back then, Luna had been a place of heat and transformation. It was difficult to fathom now in these cold, barren caverns, left to exist in quiet darkness.

When Earthens had first built their colony, they had made temporary homes of the vast interconnected lava tubes while the domes were under construction, and afterward converted them into storage and shuttle rails.

Only recently had they been used for something violent and grotesque.

“Secret barracks for a secret army,” she whispered to herself.

“All right, time out.” Scarlet stopped and settled her hands on her hips. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

Winter tugged on a lock of her own hair this time, like a spring curled against her cheek. There was still a bump on her scalp where she’d hit her head, though the headache was mostly gone. “Many of the lava tubes that were not used for the shuttles were converted into underground training facilities. That is where the soldiers will be. At least, those who have not been sent to Earth.”

Scarlet blinked, slowly. “And how many lava tubes are there under Luna’s surface?”

Winter blinked, slowly, back. “I do not know. But did you know Luna started its life as a giant ball of magma, liquid and burning?”

Scarlet knotted her lips to one side. “How many wolf regiments are left on Luna?”

This time, Winter did not answer at all.

Exhaling, Scarlet rubbed at her brow. “I knew better. I knew better than to listen to you. Winter. We could be wandering down here for days and not see a single person. And even if we do find one of these regiments, or packs, or whatever they call themselves, they are most likely going to eat us. This is suicide!” She pointed back the direction they’d come. “We should be looking for allies, not enemies.”

“You go back then.” Winter continued down the endless tunnel.

Scarlet let out a bedraggled groan and stomped after her. “Thirty minutes,” she said. “We are going to walk for thirty more minutes and if we haven’t seen any evidence that we’re getting closer, then we are turning around and going back, and I am not taking no for an answer. I’ll club you over the head and drag you back if I have to.”

Winter fluttered her lashes, amused by the thought. “We will find them, Scarlet-friend. They will join us. Your Wolf is proof that they are men, not monsters.”

“I really wish you would stop comparing them with Wolf. Wolf is different. The rest of them … they are monsters. I met Wolf’s pack in Paris, and they were brutal and terrible. And that was her special ops, and they’re still mostly human! You can’t reason with these monsters any more than you could a … a…”

“A pack of wolves?”

Scarlet glared. “Exactly.”

“Ryu was my friend.”

Scarlet threw her hands into the air. “What are you going to do, play fetch with them? You are thinking about this all wrong. They are under Levana’s control, or whoever their thaumaturge is. They will do what they’re told, and that will be to eat us.”

“They were young boys forced into a difficult situation. They did not ask for this life, just as your Wolf didn’t ask for it, but they have done what they needed to do to survive. If they are given the opportunity to break their binds of enslavement, I believe they will take it. I believe they will side with us.”

Winter heard a distant, low howl, and shivered. Scarlet didn’t seem to hear it, though, so she said nothing.

“You have no idea whose side they’ll take. They’ve been so messed with, they’ll side with whoever is offering them a bigger piece of steak.” Scarlet hesitated. “What’s wrong? Are you hallucinating right now?”

Winter forced a smile. “Not unless you are a figment of my imagination, but how could I ever be sure one way or the other? So I will go on believing you are real.”

Scarlet looked unimpressed with her logic. “You know what these men become, don’t you? You know they can never be normal again.”

“I would think that you, of all people, would believe in their ability to change. Wolf changed because of his love for you. Why can they not change also?” She started walking again.

“Wolf is—it’s not the same. Winter, I know you’re used to batting your eyelashes at everyone who walks by and expecting them to fall in love with you, but that’s not going to happen here. They are going to laugh at you and mock you and then they are going to—”

“Eat me. Yes. I understand.”

“You don’t seem to be grasping the meaning behind the words. This isn’t a metaphor. I’m talking about huge teeth and digestive systems.”

“Fat and bones and marrow and meat,” Winter sang. “We only wanted a snack to eat.”

Scarlet grunted. “You can be so disturbing.”

Winter hooked her elbow with Scarlet’s. “Don’t be afraid. They will help us.”

Before Scarlet could mount another argument, a peculiar smell assaulted their senses, sharp and pungent. An animal smell, like in the menagerie, but different. Sweat and salt and body odor mingling in the cave’s stale air, along with something rank, like old meat.

“Well,” said Scarlet, “I think we found them.”

A chill crawled down Winter’s neck. Neither of them moved for a long while.

“If we can smell them,” said Scarlet, “they can smell us.”

Winter raised her chin. “I’ll understand if you leave. I can go on without you.”

Scarlet seemed to consider it, but then she shrugged. Her expression was reckless. “I’m beginning to think we’re all going to end up wolf food anyway by the time this is over.”

Facing her, Winter cupped Scarlet’s face in both hands. “It is not like you to talk like that.”

Scarlet clenched her jaw. “They took Wolf and they took Cinder, and as much as I want to see Levana ripped into tiny pieces and fed to her own mutants, I just don’t think we have a whole lot of hope without them.” She gulped, her resentment clouding over. “And I … I don’t want to see this place. He was trained here too, you know. I’m afraid to see what he came from, what he … who he was.”

“He is your Wolf now, and you are his alpha.”

Scarlet laughed. “According to Jacin, you need a pack to be an alpha.”

Jacin. The name brought sunshine and blood and kisses and growls rising to Winter’s skin. She gave it a moment to sink back toward her bones, before she tilted Scarlet’s head down and placed a kiss on the top of her flame-and-fury hair. “I will get you your pack.”