Marissa Meyer - Scarlet

“You don’t know anything about her!”

“No, you don’t! You’ve been idolizing her since you were four years old and it’s blinded you to the truth! She’s betrayed us both, Scarlet.”

Blood pounding against her temples, Scarlet pointed out the door. “Get out. Get off my farm, and never come back. I hope I never see you again.”

He paled, the circles like bruises under his eyes. Slowly, he peeled himself off the floor. “You’re going to abandon me too? My own daughter and my own mother, both turning against me?”

“You abandoned us first.”

Scarlet realized that in the five years since last she’d seen him, she’d come to match her father’s height. They stood eye to eye; she burning up on the inside, he frowning as though he wanted to be sorry but couldn’t quite grasp the emotion.

“Good-bye, Luc.”

His jaw flexed. “They’ll come for me again, Scarlet. And it will be on your hands.”

“Don’t you dare. You’re the one who was wearing that transmitter, you’re the one who was willing to sell me out.”

He held her eyes for a long, slow count, like he was waiting for her to change her mind. Waiting for her to welcome him back to the house, back into her life. But all Scarlet could hear was the crunch of the hammer against the transmitter. She thought of the burn marks on his arm and knew he would just as soon give her over for torture, if it would have saved his own skin.

Finally, his gaze fell, and without looking at her, without looking at Wolf, her dad shuffled through the debris and out of the hangar.

Scarlet’s fists settled against her sides. She would have to wait. He would go into the house to collect his shoes. She imagined him rummaging through the kitchen for food before he went—or trying to hunt down some stray liquor bottles. She dared not run the risk of their paths crossing again before he was gone for good.

The coward. The traitor.

“I’ll help you.”

She crossed her arms, protecting her anger against the gentleness of Wolf’s voice. She scanned the chaos all around her, the mess that would take weeks to put right. “I don’t need your help.”

“I meant, I’ll help get your grandmother back.” Wolf ducked away, like he was surprised he’d made the offer.

It took a pathetically long time for her thinking to change directions, from the internal rant against her traitorous father, to the hefty meaning behind Wolf’s words. She blinked up at him and held her breath, imagining his words captured in a bubble that might blow away. “You will?”

His head jerked in what could have been a nod. “The Wolves are headquartered in Paris. That’s probably where they’re keeping her.”

Paris. The word filled her up. A clue. A promise.

She glanced at her ship and its shattered window. Renewed hatred flared for her father, but it deflated quickly—there wasn’t time. Not now. Not when she had her first taste of hope in two endless weeks.

“Paris,” she murmured. “We can take the train from Toulouse—it’s, what, eight hours?” She hated the thought of being without her ship, but even the obnoxiously slow maglev train would be quicker than getting the window replaced. “Someone will have to look after the farm while I’m gone. Maybe Èmilie, after her shift. I’ll send her a comm, then I just need to grab some clothes and…”

“Scarlet, wait. We can’t just rush up there. We need to think this through.”

“Rush? We can’t rush ? They’ve had her for more than two weeks! This isn’t rushing!”

Wolf’s gaze darkened and Scarlet paused, for the first time recognizing his unease.

“Look,” she said, wetting her tongue, “we’ll have eight hours on the train to think up something. But I can’t stay here a moment longer.”

“But what if your father is right?” His shoulders stayed stiff. “What if she has hidden something here? What if they come looking for it?”

She roughly shook her head. “They can look all they want, but they won’t find anything. My dad is wrong. Grand-mère and I don’t keep secrets.”

“Your Majesty.”

Kai turned away from the window that he’d been staring out half the morning, listening to the drone of the news anchors and military officials reporting on the escape of the most-wanted convict in the Eastern Commonwealth. Chairman Huy stood in the doorway, Torin beside him. Both looked supremely unhappy.

He gulped. “Well?”

Huy stepped forward. “They’ve gotten away.”

Kai’s pulse hiccupped. He took a tentative step toward his father’s desk and gripped the back of the chair.

“I’ve given the order to deploy our reserve fleets immediately. I am confident we’ll have the fugitives found and taken into custody by sunset.”

“With all respect, Chairman, you don’t sound particularly confident.”

Though Huy puffed his chest out, his face took on a tinge of pink. “I am, Your Majesty. We can find them. It’s only that … it’s complicated by it being a stolen ship. All the tracking equipment has been stripped.”

Torin let out an irritated sigh. “The girl has proven herself to be more clever than I would have given her credit for.”

Kai dragged his hand through his hair, extinguishing an unexpected spark of pride.

“There is also the issue of the girl being Lunar,” Huy added.

“Whoever captures her will just have to be alert,” said Kai. “They should all be made well aware that she’ll no doubt try to turn their minds against them.”

“There is that too, but not what I was referring to. In the past, we’ve had difficulty tracking Lunar ships. It seems that they’ve learned how to disable our radar systems. I’m afraid we’re not sure how they do it.”

“Disable our radar systems?” Kai glanced at Torin. “Did you know about this?”

“I’ve heard rumors,” said Torin. “Your father and I chose to believe that’s all they were.”

“Not all my contemporaries agree with me on this matter,” said Huy. “But I myself am convinced it is the Lunars disabling our equipment. Whether it’s through their mental abilities or some other talent, I can’t tell. Regardless, Linh Cinder won’t get far. We’ll have every resource searching for her.”

Tempering his inner turmoil, Kai molded his face into stone. “Keep me informed.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. There is one other thing I thought you might want to see. We’ve finished going over our security footage from the prison.” Huy gestured to the inlaid screen in Kai’s desk.

Rounding his chair, Kai tugged on his long sleeves, suddenly warm, and sat down. A comm from the council of national security rotated in the corner. “Accept comm.”

The screen brightened with footage of the prison, all white and glossy walls. It showed a long hallway lined with smooth doors and ID scanners. A prison guard moved into view and gestured at a door. He was followed by a short, old man wearing a gray cap.

Kai jerked upward. It was Dr. Erland. “Volume up.”

Dr. Erland’s familiar voice filtered through the screen. “I am the leading scientist of the royal letumosis research team, and this girl is my prime test subject. I require blood samples from her before she leaves the planet.” Looking miffed, he reached into a bag and pulled something out—a syringe, but the bag still bulged. That wasn’t all that was inside it.

“I have my orders, sir,” said the guard. “You’ll have to obtain an official release from the emperor to be allowed entrance.”

Kai frowned as the doctor put the syringe back into the bag, knowing that Dr. Erland hadn’t made such a request.

“All right. If that’s protocol, I understand,” said Dr. Erland. And then he just stood there, serene and patient. After the space of a few heartbeats, Kai glimpsed the doctor’s smile. “There, you see? I have obtained the necessary release from the emperor. You may open the door.”