“Can you untie my hands?”
She said nothing as she snatched the knife from him. Her hands were shaking as she angled the blade toward the binds around her knees, and Thorne thought maybe it was best for her to practice on herself anyway.
Sawing through the sheet, she looked like a madwoman—her brow wrinkled in concentration, her hair knotted, her complexion damp and blotchy, red lines drawn into her cheeks from the gag. But the adrenaline had her working quickly and soon she was kicking away the material.
“My hands,” Thorne said again, but she was already grasping for the sink and pulling herself up on trembling legs.
“I’m sorry—the entry procedures!” she said, stumbling out into the main room.
Thorne grabbed the knife and clambered to his feet as the satellite took a sudden turn. He slipped, stumbling into the shower door. They were falling faster as Earth’s gravity claimed them.
Using the wall for balance, Thorne rushed into the main room. The girl had fallen too, and was now scrambling to get over the bed.
“We need to get to the other podship and disconnect,” said Thorne. “You need to untie me!”
She shook her head and pressed herself against the wall where the smallest of the screens was embedded, the screen that the thaumaturge had meddled with before. Strings of hair were sticking to her face.
“She’ll have a security block on the ship and I know the satellite better and—oh, no, no, no!” she screamed, her fingers flying over the screen. “She changed the access code!”
“What are you doing?”
“The entry procedures—the ablative coating should hold while we’re passing through the atmosphere, but if I don’t set the parachute to release, the whole thing will disintegrate on impact!”
The satellite shifted again and they both stumbled. Thorne fell onto the mattress and the knife skittered out of his grip, bouncing off the end of the bed, while the girl tripped and landed on one knee. The walls around them began to tremble with the friction of Earth’s atmosphere. The blackness that had clouded the small windows was replaced with a burning white light. The outer coating was burning off, protecting them from the atmosphere’s heat.
Unlike the Rampion, this satellite was designed for only one descent toward Earth.
“All right.” Forgetting about his binds, Thorne swung himself over to the other side of the bed and hauled the girl back to her feet. “Get that parachute working.” She was still wobbly as he spun them toward the screen and dropped his arms over her, forming a cocoon around her body. She was even shorter than he’d realized, the top of her head not even reaching his collarbone.
Her fingers jabbed at the screen as Thorne widened his stance and locked his knees, bracing himself as much as he could while the satellite shook and rocked around them. He hunched over her, trying to hold his balance and keep her steady while codes and commands flickered and scrolled across the screen. His attention flicked to the nearest window, still fiery white. As soon as the satellite had fallen far enough into Earth’s atmosphere, the auto-gravity would shut off and they would be as secure as dice in a gambler’s fist.
“I’m in!” she shouted.
Thorne curled the toes of his one shoeless foot into the carpet. He heard a crash behind him and dared to glance back. One of the screens had fallen off the desk. He gulped. Anything not bolted down was about to turn into projectiles. “How long will it take to—”
“Done!”
Thorne whipped her around and thrust them both toward the mattress. “Under the bed!” He stumbled and fell, dragging her down with him. The cabinets swung open overhead and Thorne flinched as a rain of canned goods and dishes clattered around them. He hunkered over the girl, deflecting them away from her. “Quick!”
She scurried forward, out of the ring of his arms, and pulled herself into the shadows. She backed against the wall as far as she could, both hands pushing against the bed frame to lock her body in place.
Thorne kicked off from the carpet and grabbed the nearest post to pull himself forward.
The shaking stopped, replaced with a smooth, fast descent. The brightness from the windows faded to a sunshine blue. Thorne’s stomach swooped and he felt like he was being sucked into a vacuum.
He heard her scream. Pain and brightness exploded in his head, and then the world went black.
BOOK
Two
The witch snipped off her golden hair and cast her out into a great desert.
Thirteen
Cress would not have believed that she had the strength to drag Carswell Thorne beneath the bed and secure his unconscious body against the wall if the proof wasn’t in her arms. All the while, cords and screens and plugs and dishes and food jostled and banged around them. The walls of the satellite groaned and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to imagine the heat and friction melting through the bolts and seams, trying not to guess at how stable this untested satellite could be. Trying not to think about plunging toward the Earth—its mountains and oceans and glaciers and forests and the impact that a satellite thrown from space would have when it crashed into the planet and shattered into billions of tiny pieces.
She was doing a poor job of not imagining it all.
The fall lasted forever, while her small world disintegrated.
She’d failed. The parachute should have opened already. She should have felt it release, felt the snap back as it caught their descent and lowered them gently to Earth. But their fall was only faster and faster, as the satellite’s air grew warmer. Either she’d done something wrong or the parachute hatch was faulty, or perhaps there was no parachute at all and the command was from false programming. After all, Sybil had commissioned this satellite. Surely she’d never intended to let Cress land safely on the blue planet.
Sybil had succeeded. They were going to die.
Cress wrapped her body around Carswell Thorne and buried her face into his hair. At least he would be unconscious through it all. At least he didn’t have to be afraid.
Then, a shudder—a sensation different from the drop—and she heard the brisk sound of nylon ropes and hissing and there it was, the sudden jerk that seemed to pull them back up into the sky. She cried out and gripped Carswell Thorne tighter as her shoulder smacked into the underside of the bed.
The fall became a sinking, and Cress’s sobs turned to relief. She squeezed Thorne’s prone body and sobbed and hyperventilated and sobbed some more.
It took ages for the impact to come and when it did, the jolt knocked Cress into the bed again. The satellite crashed and slid, rolled over and tumbled. They were slipping down something solid, perhaps a hill or mountainside. Cress clenched her teeth against a scream and tried to protect Thorne with one arm while bracing them against the wall with the other. She’d expected water—so much of the Earth’s surface was water—not this solid something they’d hit. The spiraling descent finally halted with a crash that shook the walls around them.
Cress’s lungs burned with the effort to take in what air they could. Every muscle ached from adrenaline and the strain of bracing for impact and the battering her body had taken.
But in her head, the pain was nonexistent.
They were alive.
They were on Earth and they were alive.
A grateful, shocked cry fell out of her and she embraced Thorne, crying happily into the crook of his neck, but the joy receded when he did not hold her back. She’d almost forgotten the sight of him hitting his head on the bed’s frame, the way his body was thrown across the floor, how he’d slumped unnaturally in the corner and made no sound or movement as she’d hauled him beneath the bed.
She pried herself away from him. She was covered in sweat and her hair had tangled around them both, binding them almost as securely as Sybil’s knotted sheets had.
“Carswell?” she hissed. It was strange to say his name aloud, like she hadn’t yet earned the familiarity. She licked her lips and her voice cracked the second time. “Mr. Thorne??
?? Her fingers pressed against his throat. Relief—his heartbeat was strong. She hadn’t been sure during the fall whether he was breathing, but now with the world quiet and still, she could make out wheezing air coming from his mouth.
Maybe he had a concussion. Cress had read about people getting concussions when they hit their heads. She couldn’t remember what happened to them, but she knew it was bad.
“Wake up. Please. We’re alive. We made it.” She placed a palm on his cheek, surprised to find roughness there, nothing at all like her own smooth face.
Facial hair. It made sense, and yet somehow she’d never worked the sensation of prickly facial hair into her fantasies. She would amend that after this.
She shook her head, ashamed to be thinking of something like that when Carswell Thorne was hurt right before her and she couldn’t do any—
He twitched.
Cress gasped and attempted to cushion his head in case he jerked around too much. “Mr. Thorne? Wake up. We’re all right. Please wake up.”
A low, painful moan, and his breaths began to even out.
Cress pushed her hair out of her face. It fought against her, clinging to her sweat-dampened skin. Long strands of it were pinned beneath their bodies.
He groaned again.
“C-Carswell?”
His elbow lurched, like he was trying to lift his hand, but his wrists were still bound between them. His lashes fluttered. “Wha—huh?”
“It’s all right. I’m here. We’re safe.”
Thorne dragged his tongue around his lips, then shut his eyes again. “Thorne,” he grunted. “Most people call me Thorne. Or Captain.”
Her heart lifted. “Of course, Tho—Captain. Are you in pain?”
He shifted uncomfortably, discovering that his hands were still tied. “I feel like my brain’s about to leak out through my ears, but otherwise, I feel great.”
Cress inspected the back of his head with her fingers. There was no dampness, so at least he wasn’t bleeding. “You hit your head pretty hard.”
He grunted and tried to wriggle his hands out of the knotted blanket.
“Hold on, there was that knife…” She trailed off, scouring the clutter and debris around them.
“It fell off the bed,” said Thorne.
“Yes, I saw it … there!” She spotted the knife handle lodged beneath a fallen screen and went to grab for it, but her hair had gotten so wrapped up around her and Thorne that it yanked her back. She yelped and rubbed at her scalp.
He opened his eyes again, frowning. “I don’t remember being tied together before.”
“I’m sorry, my hair gets everywhere sometimes and … if you could just … here, roll this way.”
She grabbed his elbow and nudged him onto his side. With a scowl, he complied, allowing her enough movement to reach the knife handle.
“Are you sure it’s over—” Thorne started, but she had already draped herself over his side and was sawing through the blanket. “Oh. You have a good memory.”
“Hm?” she murmured, focused on the sharp blade. It frayed easily and Thorne sighed with relief as it fell away. He rubbed his wrists, then reached toward his head. When the tangles of Cress’s hair tried to hold him back, he tugged harder.
Cress yelped and crashed into Thorne’s chest. He didn’t seem to notice as his fingers found the back of his scalp. “Ow,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“This bump is going to last awhile. Here, feel this.”
“What?”
He fished around for her hand, then brought it to the back of his head. “I have a huge bump back here. No wonder I have such a headache.”
He did, indeed, have an impressive bump on his scalp, but Cress could think only of the softness of his hair and the way she was practically lying on top of him. She blushed.
“Yes. Right. You should probably, um…”
She had no idea what he should probably do.
Kiss her, she thought. Isn’t that what people did after they survived thrilling, near-death experiences together? She was sure it wasn’t an appropriate suggestion, but this close, it was all she could think about. She yearned to lean in closer, to press her nose into the fabric of his shirt and inhale deeply, but she didn’t want him thinking she was odd. Or guessing the truth, that this moment, filled with injuries and her destroyed satellite and being separated from his friends, was the most perfect moment of her entire life.
His brow creased and he picked at a lock of hair that had tightened around his bicep. “We need to do something about this hair.”
“Right. Right!” She shifted away, her scalp screaming as her hair was trapped beneath them. She started to untangle the strands, gently, one by one.
“Maybe it would help if we turned on the lights.”
She paused. “The lights?”
“Are they voice activated? If the computer system went down in the fall … spades, it must be the middle of the night. Is there a portscreen or something we can turn on, at least?”
Cress cocked her head. “I … I don’t understand.”
For the briefest moment, he seemed annoyed. “It would help if we could see.”
His eyes were open, but he was looking blankly past Cress’s shoulder. He pried away some strands of hair that had gotten twisted around his wrist, then waved his hand in front of his face. “This is the blackest night I’ve ever seen. We must be somewhere rural … is it a new moon tonight?” His scowl deepened, and she could tell he was trying to remember where Earth was in its moon cycle. “That doesn’t seem right. Must be really overcast.”
“Captain? It’s … it isn’t dark. I can see just fine.”
He frowned in confusion and, after a moment, worry. His jaw flexed. “Please tell me you’re practicing your sarcasm.”
“My sarcasm? Why would I do that?”
Shaking his head, he squeezed his eyes tight together. Opened them again. Blinked rapidly.
Cursed.
Pressing her lips, Cress held her fingers in front of him. Waved them back and forth. There was no reaction.
“What happened?” he said. “The last thing I remember is trying to get under the bed.”
“You hit your head on the bed frame, and I dragged you under here. And then we landed. A little rocky, but … that’s all. You just hit your head.”
“And that can cause blindness?”
“It might be some sort of brain trauma. Maybe it’s only temporary. Maybe … maybe you’re in shock?”
He settled his head on the floor. A heavy silence closed around them.
Cress chewed on her lip.
Finally, he spoke again, and his voice had taken on a determined edge. “We need to do something about this hair. Where did that knife go?”
Before she could question the logic behind giving a knife to a blind man, she had set it into his palm. Thorne reached behind her with his other hand and gathered a fistful of her hair. The touch sent a delicious tingle down her spine.
“Sorry, but it grows back,” he said, not sounding at all apologetic. He began sawing through the tangles, one handful at a time. Grab, cut, release. Cress held perfectly still. Not because she was afraid of being cut—the knife was steady in his hand, despite the blindness, and Thorne kept the blade angled carefully away from her neck. But because it was Thorne. It was Captain Carswell Thorne, running his hands through her hair, his rough jaw mere inches away from her lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.
By the time he was brushing feather-soft fingers along her neck, checking for any strands he’d missed, she was dizzy with euphoria.
He found a missed lock of hair by her left ear and cut it away. “I think that’s it.” He tucked the knife under his leg so he would know where to find it and buried his hands into the short, impossibly light hair, working out the remaining tangles. A satisfied grin stretched over his face. “Maybe a little jagged on the ends, but much better.”
Cress reached for the back of her neck, amazed a
t the sensation of bare skin, still damp from sweat, and short-cropped hair that had a subtle wave to it now that all the weight was gone. She scratched her fingernails along her scalp, riveted by the pleasure of such a foreign sensation. It felt as though twenty pounds had been cut from her head. Tightness was fading from muscles that she hadn’t even realized was there.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, brushing away the locks of hair that still clung to him.
“And I’m really sorry … about the blindness.”
“Not your fault.”
“It is kind of my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to come rescue me, and if I had—”
“It’s not your fault,” he said again, his tone cutting off her argument. “You sound like Cinder. She always blames herself for the stupidest things. The war is her fault. Scarlet’s grandmother is her fault. I bet she’d take responsibility for the plague too, if she could.”
Picking up the knife, he shimmied out from beneath the bed, pushing his arms out in a wide circle to nudge away any debris before pulling himself up onto the edge of the mattress. His progress was slow, like he didn’t trust himself to move more than a few inches at a time. Cress followed and stood up beside him, shuffling some of the debris around with her bare toes. One hand stayed buried in her hair.
“The point is, that witch tried to kill us, but we survived,” said Thorne. “And we’ll find a way to contact the Rampion, and they’ll come get us, and we’ll be fine.”
He said it like he was trying to convince himself, but Cress didn’t need any convincing. He was right. They were alive, and they were together, and they would be fine.
“I just need a moment to think,” said Thorne. “Figure out what we’re going to do.”
Cress nodded and rocked back on her heels. For a long time, Thorne seemed to be deep in thought, his hands clasped in his lap. After a minute, Cress realized they were shaking.
Finally, Thorne tilted his head toward her, though his unfocused eyes were on the wall. He took in a deep breath, let it out, then smiled.