Marissa Meyer - Cinder

“Until further notice,” Adri continued, “you will go only so far as the basement during the week and to your booth at the festival so you can begin repaying me for the money you stole.”

Cinder dug her fingers into her thighs, too incensed to argue. Every fiber, every nerve, every wire was trembling.

“And you will leave your foot with me.”

She started. “Excuse me?”

“I think it a fair solution. After all, you bought it with my money, therefore it is mine to do with as I please. In some cultures they would cut off your hand, Cinder. Consider yourself fortunate.”

“But it’s my foot!”

“And you will have to do without it until you can find a cheaper replacement.” She glowered at Cinder’s feet. Her lip curled with disgust. “You are not human, Cinder. It’s about time you realized that.”

Jaw working, Cinder struggled to form an argument. But legally, the money had been Adri’s. Legally, Cinder belonged to Adri. She had no rights, no belongings. She was nothing but a cyborg.

“You may go now,” said Adri, casting her eyes toward the empty mantel. “Just be sure to leave your foot in the hallway before going to bed tonight.”

Fists clenching, Cinder drew back into the hallway. Pearl plastered herself to the wall, eyeing Cinder with disgust. Her cheeks were flushed with recent tears.

“Wait—one more thing, Cinder.”

She froze.

“You will find I’ve already begun selling off some unnecessary items. I’ve left some faulty parts in your room that were deemed worthless. Perhaps you can find something to do with them.”

When it was clear that Adri was finished, Cinder stormed down the hall without looking back. Anger sloshed through her. She wanted to rampage through the house, destroying everything, but a quiet voice in her head calmed her. Adri wanted that. Adri wanted an excuse to have her arrested, to be rid of her once and for all.

She just needed time. Another week, two at the most, and the car would be ready.

Then she really would be a runaway cyborg, but this time, Adri wouldn’t be able to track her.

She stomped into her bedroom and slammed the door, falling against it with a hot, shaking breath. She squeezed her eyes. One more week. One more week.

When her breath had begun to settle and the warnings in her vision disappeared, Cinder opened her eyes. Her room was as messy as ever, old tools and parts scattered across the grease-stained blankets that made up her bed, but her eyes immediately landed on a new addition to the mess.

Her gut plummeted.

She knelt over the pile of worthless parts that Adri had left for her to find. A beat-up tread punctured with pebbles and debris. An ancient fan with a crooked blade. Two aluminum arms—one that still had Peony’s velvet ribbon tied around the wrist.

Clenching her jaw, she started sorting through the pieces. Carefully. One by one. Her fingers trembled over every mangled screw. Every bit of melted plastic. She shook her head, silently pleading. Pleading.

Finally she found what she was searching for.

With a dry, grateful sob, she crumpled over her knees, squeezing Iko’s worthless personality chip against her chest.

CINDER SAT INSIDE HER BOOTH, CHIN CUPPED IN BOTH palms, watching the huge netscreen across the crowded street. She couldn’t hear the reporter’s commentary over the chaos, but she didn’t need to—he was reporting on the festival that she was stuck in the middle of. The reporter seemed to be having a lot more fun than she was, gesturing wildly at passing food vendors and jugglers, contortionists on miniature parade floats and the tail end of a passing lucky dragon kite. Cinder could tell from the hubbub that the reporter was in the square just a block away from her, where most of the events took place throughout the day. It was a lot more festive than the street of vendor booths, but at least she was in the shade.

The day would have been busy compared to market days—lots of potential customers had sought prices on broken portscreens and android parts—but she had been forced to turn them all away. She would be taking no more customers in New Beijing. She would not have been there at all if Adri hadn’t forced her to come, dropping her off while she and Pearl went shopping for last-minute ball accessories. She suspected that Adri really just wanted to watch as everyone gawked at the limping, one-footed girl.

She couldn’t tell her stepmother that Linh Cinder, renowned mechanic, was closed for business.

Because she couldn’t tell Adri that she was leaving.

She sighed, blowing a misplaced lock of hair out of her face. The heat was miserable. The humidity clung to Cinder’s skin, pasting her shirt to her back. Along with the budding clouds on the horizon, it promised rain, and lots of it.

Not ideal driving conditions.

But that wouldn’t stop her. Twelve hours from now, she would be miles outside of the city, putting as much distance between herself and New Beijing as she could. She had gone down to the garage every night that week after Adri and Pearl were in bed, hopping along on homemade crutches so she could work on the car. Last night, for the first time, the engine had roared to life.

Well, more like sputtered to life and spewed out noxious fumes from the exhaust that made her cough like mad. She had used nearly half of the plague-research money Erland had wired her on a big tank of gasoline that, if she were lucky, would carry her at least into the next province. It would be a bumpy ride. It would be a stinky ride.

But she would be free.

No—they would be free. Her and Iko’s personality chip and Peony’s ID chip. They were going to escape together, like she’d always said they would.

Though she knew she could never bring Peony back, she hoped that someday she would at least find another body for Iko. Some other android shell, perhaps—maybe even an escort with their tauntingly ideal feminine shapes. She thought Iko would like that.

The netscreen changed, showing the other favorite news story of the week. Chang Sunto, miracle child. Plague survivor. He’d been interviewed countless times about his unbelievable recovery, and every time it sparked a little glow in Cinder’s silicon heart.

Footage of her mad dash from the quarantines had been played repeatedly on the screens too, but the recording never showed her face, and Adri had been too distracted—by the ball and the funeral that Cinder had not been invited to attend—to realize the mystery girl was living under her own roof. Or perhaps Adri just paid her such little attention that she wouldn’t have recognized her anyway.

Rumors abounded about the girl and Chang Sunto’s miraculous recovery, and while some had talked of an antidote, no one was coming clean. The boy was now under the surveillance of the palace research team, which meant that Dr. Erland had a new guinea pig to play with. She hoped it would be enough, given that her role as research volunteer was over. She hadn’t had the heart to tell the doctor that yet, though, and the guilt clawed at her upon seeing a new monetary deposit every morning. Dr. Erland had made good on his promises—he’d set up an account ID-linked so that only Cinder could access it, not Adri, and had made almost daily payments from the research and development fund. So far he’d asked for nothing in return. His only comms had been to tell her he was still making use of her blood samples and to remind her not to return to the palace until the queen was gone.