“I had expected more from the galaxy’s most-wanted criminal,” she said, watching as Cinder pressed her free hand into the guard’s chin, struggling to push him away. The thaumaturge smiled, looking like a hungry cat with a new toy. Stars began to speckle Cinder’s vision. “Shall I kill you here, or deliver you in chains to my que—”
She cut off, her gray eyes flickering toward the door. A guttural roar was followed by Wolf throwing himself against the thaumaturge and trapping her against the podship.
The guard’s hold slackened, indecision flashing across his face as he glanced up at his mistress. Cinder swung her fist toward his jaw. She felt the crunch and he reeled back, his attention back on her.
Cinder pulled her knees up, gaining purchase, and shoved him away. She scrambled to her feet, as Wolf grabbed the thaumaturge and wrenched her back. His lips curled, revealing his implanted fangs.
The guard reached for his holster, drawing Cinder’s focus. He pulled the gun out. Cinder raised her hand.
Two shots fired in unison.
Wolf howled in pain as the guard’s bullet buried itself beneath his shoulder blade.
The guard grunted as Cinder’s projectile found his side.
Cinder pivoted, her aim seeking out the thaumaturge’s heart, but Wolf was between them, a dark spot of blood seeping through his shirt.
Sybil’s face was disfigured by fury as she placed her palm against Wolf’s chest and snarled. “Now then,” she hissed. “Let’s remind you what you really are.”
Wolf snapped his jaw shut. A low growl rumbled through his throat. He spun toward Cinder, his gaze filling with bloodlust.
“Oh, stars,” she murmured, backing up until she was pressed against the second podship. She held her hand steady, but she had no hope of hitting Sybil with Wolf in the way, especially now that he was under the thaumaturge’s control. Gulping, she reached out with her mind, grasping for the familiar waves of Wolf’s energy, his own signature of bioelectricity, but found something brutal and feral clouding around him instead.
Wolf lunged for her.
Cinder switched her target, reaching for the guard instead. It felt natural, the half second it took to claim his willpower and force him into action. In a blink, the guard was between them. He raised his gun, but was too slow as Wolf backhanded him out of the way, sending him sliding between the ship’s landing gear. The gun clattered along the row of cabinets.
Cinder skittered around the podship’s nose. They made eye contact over its roof and Wolf hesitated, his fangs bared. Cinder’s internal warnings were coming so fast they’d blurred together, pointing out escalated heart rates and an unhealthy increase of adrenaline. She ignored them, focused only on keeping the podship between her and Wolf as he prowled back and forth.
But then his entire body flinched. Wolf turned and raced toward Sybil as another gunshot echoed through the dock. Wolf threw himself in front of the thaumaturge, catching the bullet in his chest.
Scarlet screamed from the doorway, a gun in her shaking hands.
Panting, Cinder scanned for a weapon, a plan. The thaumaturge was backed into a corner with Wolf acting as her shield. The Lunar guard was curled up beneath the nearest podship, hopefully unconscious. Scarlet lowered the gun. The thaumaturge would have no trouble controlling her.
Except, the thaumaturge had doubt in her expression and a grimace on her face. A vein was throbbing in her forehead as she cowered behind Wolf.
Cinder realized with some shock that it was almost as difficult for Sybil to control Wolf as it was for her. She couldn’t control anyone else so long as she had him, and the moment she released Wolf, he would turn on her and the battle would be over.
Unless.
Unless she killed Wolf and removed him from the equation entirely.
With the blood pooling and dribbling out of his two bullet wounds, Cinder wondered how long that would take.
“Wolf!” Scarlet’s voice shuddered. The gun was still aimed at Sybil, but Wolf was still between them.
Another gunshot made Cinder jump, the noise ricocheting off the walls. Sybil cried out in pain.
The guard—not unconscious after all—had grabbed the abandoned gun. And he’d shot the thaumaturge.
Sybil hissed, her nostrils flaring as she fell to one knee, one hand pressed against her thigh, already covered in blood.
The guard was kneeling, gripping the gun. Cinder couldn’t see his face, but he sounded strained when he spoke. “She’s controlling me. The cyborg—”
Cinder’s lie detector flickered, unnecessarily. She was doing no such thing, although, had she thought of it before …
Sybil shoved Wolf toward the guard. The energy in the room quivered, waves of bioelectricity steaming and shimmering around them. Sybil had released her power over Wolf. The gunshot had weakened her—she could no longer control him.
Wolf collapsed against the guard, and they both crumpled to the ground. The guard grappled for purchase, keeping a tight hold on the gun as he shoved Wolf away. Pale and shaking, Wolf couldn’t even fight back. Blood puddled around them, slicking the floor.
“WOLF!” Scarlet raised the gun toward the thaumaturge again, but Sybil had already scrambled up, limping behind the nearest podship.
Cinder dove for Wolf, grabbing him under both arms and dragging him away from the guard. He flailed his legs, his heels slipping on the blood, but otherwise offered no assistance.
The guard rose up to a crouch, panting, covered in blood, his own side bleeding from Cinder’s projectile. He still held the gun.
As Cinder stared at him, she saw the choice.
Take control of the guard before he raised the gun and killed her.
Or take control of Wolf and give him the strength he needed to get out of the dock before he bled to death.
The guard held her gaze for one throbbing moment, before he hauled himself up and ran toward his mistress.
Cinder didn’t wait to see whether he was going to kill her or protect her.
Clenching her fists, she blocked out everything around them, focusing only on Wolf and the bioelectricity that simmered around him. He was weak. This was not like trying to control him in their mock fights. She found her will slipped easily into his, and though his body protested, she urged him to stiffen his legs. Just enough to take most of his weight off her. Just enough so she could carry him, limping, into the corridor.
She dropped Wolf against the wall. Her palms were sticky with blood.
“What’s happening?” Iko wailed over the speakers.
“Keep your sensor on this corridor,” said Cinder. “When all three of us are safely out of the dock, shut the door and open the hatch.”
Sweat dripping into her eyes, she rushed back into the dock. All she needed was to get Scarlet and let Iko open the hatch. The vacuum of space would take care of the rest.
She spotted the thaumaturge first. Not ten paces in front of her.
She had a clear shot.
Nerves humming with adrenaline, she lifted her hand and prepared a projectile. She took aim.
Scarlet leaped in front of her, her arms out in a T. Her expression was blank, her mind under the thaumaturge’s control.
Cinder almost wilted with relief. Without hesitating, she grabbed Scarlet around the waist with one arm and raised the other to let off a volley of projectiles toward the thaumaturge—more to keep her at bay than in hopes of doing any real damage. The last of her welded nails struck the metal walls as Cinder stumbled and fell back into the corridor.
She noticed the orange light in her vision at the same moment she screamed, “Iko, now!”
As the corridor door zipped shut, she spotted Sybil racing toward the nearest pod, and a glimpse of feet on the other side of the podship.
The guard’s feet.
But—
But—
Blue jeans and tennis shoes?
Cinder shoved Scarlet’s body away with a scream.
The glamour vanished, along with the ora
nge light in her vision. Scarlet’s red hoodie flickered, transforming into the Lunar uniform. The guard groaned and rolled away. He was bleeding from the wound in his side.
She’d grabbed the guard. Sybil had tricked her. Which meant—
“No—Scarlet! Iko!”
She threw herself at the control panel and punched in the code to open the door, but an error flashed at her. On the other side, the docking hatch was opening. A curdled scream echoed through the corridor, and Cinder almost didn’t realize it was hers.
“Cinder! What’s happening? What—”
“Scarlet’s in there.… She has…”
She raked her fingernails viciously along the door’s airtight seal, unable to keep away the vision of Scarlet being pulled out into space.
“Cinder, the podship!” said Iko. “She’s taking the podship. Two life-forms aboard.”
“What?”
Cinder looked up at the panel. Sure enough, the room’s scanners indicated there was only one shuttle still docked.
The thaumaturge had survived, and she’d taken Scarlet with her.
Eleven
“She has Scarlet,” said Cinder. “Quick—close the hatch! I’ll take the other pod, I’ll follow them—”
Her words faltered, her brain catching up.
She did not know how to fly a podship.
But she could figure it out. She could download some instructions and she could … she would have to …
“Your friend is dying.”
She spun around. She’d forgotten about the Lunar guard.
He was pressing a hand to his side, where Cinder’s projectile was still embedded, but his attention was on Wolf.
Wolf, who was unconscious and surrounded by blood.
“Oh, no. Oh, no.” She ejected the knife in her finger and started cutting the bloodstained fabric away from Wolf’s wounds. “Thorne. We need to get Thorne. Then we can go after Scarlet and I … I’ll bandage Wolf and—”
She glanced at the guard. “Shirt,” she said firmly, although the order was more to focus her own thoughts. In seconds, the guard’s hands were working at her command, removing the empty gun holster and pulling his own bloodied shirt over his head. She was glad to see a second undershirt as well—she had a feeling they were going to need every bit of “bandaging” she could find to stanch Wolf’s bleeding. Eventually they would have to get him to the medbay, but there was no way she could move him in this condition, especially not up that ladder.
She tried to ignore the niggling thought in her head that this was not enough. That not even the bandages in the medbay would be enough.
She grabbed the guard’s shirt and bunched it against Wolf’s chest. At least this bullet had missed his heart. She hoped the other one hadn’t hit anything vital either.
Her thoughts were hazy, repeating over and over in her head. They had to get Thorne. They had to go after Scarlet. They had to save Wolf.
She couldn’t do it all.
She couldn’t do any of it.
“Thorne—” Her voice broke. “Where’s Thorne?” Keeping one hand pressed onto Wolf’s wound, she reached for the guard with the other, grabbing his collar and pulling him toward her. “What did you do to Thorne?”
“Your friend who boarded the satellite,” he said, as much a statement as a question. There was regret in his face, but not enough. “He’s dead.”
She shrieked and slammed him into the wall. “You’re lying!”
He flinched, but didn’t try to protect himself, even though she’d already lost her focus. She could not keep him under her control so long as her thoughts were so divided, so long as this chaos and devastation reigned in her head.
“Mistress Sybil changed the satellite’s trajectory, removing it from orbit. It will burn up during entry. It probably already has. There’s nothing you can do.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Every part of her was trembling. “She wouldn’t have sacrificed her own programmer too.”
But there was no telltale orange light in her vision. He wasn’t lying.
The guard leaned his head back as his gaze skimmed Cinder from head to toe, as if examining an unusual specimen. “She would sacrifice anyone to get to you. The queen seems to believe you’re a threat.”
Cinder ground her teeth so hard she felt that her jaw would snap from the pressure. There it was—stated with such blatant simplicity.
This was her fault. This was all her fault.
They’d been after her.
“Your other shirt,” she whispered. She didn’t bother to control him this time, and he removed the undershirt without argument. Cinder grabbed it from him, spotting the end of her own projectile jutting from his skin, just below his ribs.
Looking away, she pressed the second shirt against the wound in Wolf’s back.
“Roll him onto his side.”
“What?”
“Get him on his side. It’ll open the airway, help him breathe.”
Cinder glowered at him, but a four-second net search confirmed the validity of his suggestion, and she eased Wolf onto his side as gently as she could, positioning his legs like the medical diagram in her brain told her to. The guard didn’t help, but he nodded approvingly when Cinder was done.
“Cinder?”
It was Iko, her voice small and restrained. The ship had become dark, running only on emergency lighting and default systems. Iko’s anxiety was clouding her ability to function as much as Cinder’s was.
“What are we going to do?”
Cinder struggled to breathe. A headache had burst open in her skull. The weight of everything pressed against her until it was almost too tempting to curl up over Wolf’s body and simply give up.
She couldn’t help them. She couldn’t save the world. She couldn’t save anyone.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know.”
“Finding someplace to hide would be a start,” said the guard, followed by a ripping sound as he tore a shred of material from the hem of his pants. He winced as he yanked out the projectile and tossed it down the corridor, before pressing the fabric against the wound. For the first time, she noticed that he still wore what looked like a large hunting knife sheathed on his belt. He looked up at her when she didn’t respond, his eyes sharp as ice picks. “Maybe someplace your friend can get help. As a thought.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. We just lost both of our pilots and I can’t fly … I don’t know how…”
“I can fly.”
“But Scarlet…”
“Look. Thaumaturge Mira will be contacting Luna and sending for reinforcements, and the queen’s fleet isn’t as far away as you might think. You’re about to have an army on your trail.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You can’t help that other girl. Consider her dead. But you might be able to help him.”
Cinder dropped her chin, curling in on herself as the warring decisions in her head threatened to tear her apart. He was being logical. She recognized that. But it was so hard to admit defeat. To give up on Scarlet. To make that sacrifice and have to live with it.
With every passing second, though, she was closer to losing Wolf too. She glanced down. Wolf’s face was scrunched in pain, his brow beaded with sweat.
“Ship,” said the guard, “calculate our location and relative trajectory over Earth. Where is the closest place we can get to? Someplace not too populated.”
There was a hesitation before Iko said, “Me?”
He squinted up at the ceiling. “Yeah. You.”
“Sorry, right. Calculating now.” The lights brightened. “Following a natural descent to Earth, we could be in central or north Africa in approximately seventeen minutes. A loose thousand-mile radius opens us up to the Mediterranean regions of Europe and the western portion of the Eastern Commonwealth.”
“He needs a hospital,” Cinder murmured, knowing as she said it that there wasn’t a hospital on Earth that wouldn’t know he was one
of the queen’s wolf-hybrids as soon as he was admitted. And the risk she posed to take him there herself, and how recognizable the Rampion would be … where could they possibly go that would offer them sanctuary?
Nowhere was safe.
Beneath her, Wolf moaned. His chest rattled.
He needed a hospital, or … a doctor.
Africa. Dr. Erland.
She peered up at the guard and for the first time struggled through the sluggish mess inside her head to wonder why he was doing this. Why hadn’t he killed them all? Why was he helping them?
“You serve the queen,” she said. “How can I trust you?”
His lips twitched, like she’d made a joke, but his eyes were quick to harden again. “I serve my princess. No one else.”
The floor dropped out from beneath her. The princess. His princess.
He knew.
She waited a full breath for her lie detector to recognize his falsehood, but it didn’t. He was telling the truth.
“Africa,” she said. “Iko, take us to Africa—to where the first outbreak of letumosis occurred.”
Twelve
The fall was slow at first, gradual, as the pull of the satellite’s orbit was overpowered by the pull of Earth’s gravity.
Thorne hiked up his pant leg, using his toe to pry off his left boot. The knife he’d stashed there clattered onto the floor and he grabbed for it, awkwardly trying to angle the blade toward the blanket that was knotted around his wrists.
The girl murmured around her gag and shifted toward him. Her binds were much more secure and complex than his own. The thaumaturge had only bothered to have Thorne tie his hands in front of him, but this girl had binds all down her legs, in addition to having her wrists fastened behind her and the gag over her mouth.
With no leverage to press the knife against his own binds, he nodded at the girl. “Can you turn around?”
She flopped and rolled onto her side, pushing off the wall with her feet to turn herself so her hands were toward him. Thorne hunkered over her and sawed at the sheet that was cutting into her arms. By the time he’d hacked it off, there were deep red lines carved into her skin.
She ripped the gag off her mouth, leaving it to hang around her neck. A knot of her frayed hair caught in the fabric. “My feet!”