Cress (Page 47)

Erland flashed a light past Wolf’s eyes. Wolf flinched back.

“He is better than I would have expected,” he said. “It seems you’re on target to make a full recovery, so long as you can avoid re-opening your wounds in the meantime.”

“We’re on Earth,” said Cinder, not sure if that was obvious to Wolf or not. “In Africa. We’re safe here, for now.”

But Wolf seemed distracted and upset as he tilted his head back and sniffed. His frown deepened. “Where’s Scarlet?”

Cinder grimaced. She had known the question would be coming. She had known that she wouldn’t know how to answer when it did.

His expression darkened. “I can’t smell her. Like she hasn’t been here in … like she isn’t here.”

Dr. Erland pressed a thermometer against Wolf’s brow, but Wolf snatched it away before it could gauge his temperature. “Where is she?”

Miffed, the doctor fisted his hand on his waist. “Now that is precisely the type of jerky movement you should be avoiding.”

Wolf snarled, showing his sharp teeth.

“She’s not here,” said Cinder, forcing herself not to shrink away when Wolf turned his glare on her. She struggled to form an explanation. “The thaumaturge took her. During the fight on the ship. She was alive—I don’t think she was even injured. But the thaumaturge took her aboard the podship. Jacin thinks she needed Scarlet to pilot it.”

Wolf’s jaw went slack. With terror, with denial. He jerked his head, no.

“Wolf…”

“How long? How long ago…?”

She scrunched her shoulders against her neck. “Five days.”

He grimaced and turned away, his face contorting with pain that had nothing to do with his wounds.

Cinder took half a step toward him, but paused. There were no words that would mean anything to him. No explanation, no apology.

So she braced herself for Wolf’s anger instead. She expected fury and destruction. His pupils had narrowed to pinpricks and his fists started to flex. Though Cinder had practiced her mind control sporadically on Jacin and the doctor since they’d arrived in Farafrah, it would be a true test of her abilities if Wolf lost control.

And she could sense it brimming inside him. Fear burning and roiling. Panic writhing inside his chest. The animal straining to be unleashed inside the man.

But then Wolf’s breath hitched and all the fury drained out of him with a shudder. Like a man shot fatally through the heart, he collapsed over his knees, covering his head with his good arm like he wanted to block out the world.

Cinder stood, staring. All her senses were attuned to Wolf, focused on the energy and emotions that clouded around him. It was like watching a candle extinguish.

It was like watching him die.

Gulping, Cinder sank into a crouch in front of him. She considered reaching out and placing a hand on his arm, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It was too much like an invasion, especially when her gift was attuned to him like this. When she was watching him break and crumble in front of her. She longed to put him back together. To take away the vulnerability that didn’t fit him. But it was his right to mourn. It was his right to be terrified for Scarlet, as she was.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But we will find her. We’re trying to come up with some way to get to Luna, and we’ll find her. We’ll rescue—”

His head jolted up so fast that Cinder nearly fell over from surprise. His eyes had brightened again.

“Rescue her?” he seethed, his knuckles turning white. “You don’t know what they’ll do to her—what they’ve already done to her!”

It happened fast. One moment he was a broken man, crumpled over his own knees. The next he was on his feet, grabbing the frame of the bed and upending it against the wall. The medical kit crashed to the floor. The room shook. Crying out, Cinder scurried backward.

Then the chaos quieted, just as suddenly. Wolf froze, teetered on his feet, and fell so hard onto the floor that the hotel trembled from the impact.

Dr. Erland stood above his prone body, empty syringe in hand, glaring at Cinder over his thin-framed spectacles.

She gulped.

“Wouldn’t it be handy,” said the doctor, “if we had someone here with the mental faculties capable of controlling one of his kind when he goes on just that sort of a tirade?”

Hands shaking, Cinder pushed her mess of hair out of her face. “I was—getting around to it.”

“Well. Faster next time, if I might make a suggestion.” Sighing, he tossed the syringe onto the room’s small desk and glowered down at the unconscious man. Blood was beginning to seep through the bandages beneath Wolf’s shoulder blade. “Perhaps it will be best to keep him sedated, for the time being.”

“Perhaps.”

The doctor’s lips puckered, wrinkles creasing down his cheeks. “Do you still have those tranquilizer darts I gave you?”

“Oh, please.” Cinder forced herself to stand, though her legs still shook. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve nearly died since you gave me those? They’re long gone.”

Dr. Erland harrumphed. “I’ll make you some more. I have a feeling you’re going to need them.”

Thirty

Cress hummed to herself as she rubbed a towel through her hair, amazed at how the weight of it no longer pulled on her. She emerged from the washroom rejuvenated—her skin was bright pink from scrubbing and she’d managed to get almost all the dirt out from beneath her fingernails. The bottoms of her feet and the insides of her legs were still sore, but all those complaints were petty compared to the sensation of unexpected luxury. A soft towel. Short, clean hair. More water than she could drink in a year. Or at least, her long bath had made it seem endless.

Cress eyed her pile of clothes and couldn’t bear to put them back on. As Thorne hadn’t returned yet, she pulled a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around herself instead, then struggled to kick the corners out of her way as she crossed to the netscreen on the wall.

“Screen, on.”

It was set to an animated netfeed that showed orange octopuses and blue children bopping around to tech-beats. Cress changed it to the local newsfeed, then opened a new box in the corner to check their GPS coordinates.

Kufra, a trading city at the eastern edge of the Sahara. She zoomed out on the map and tried to pinpoint where the satellite would have landed, though it was impossible to gauge how far they’d walked. Probably not half as far as it had seemed. Regardless, there was nothing, nothing, in the vast open sands to the north and west.

She shuddered, realizing how close they’d come to being food for the vultures.

She sent the map away, beginning to concoct a strategy for contacting the Rampion. Though they didn’t have the D-COMM chip anymore, that didn’t mean the Rampion was completely out of touch. After all, with or without tracking equipment, it would still have communication capabilities and a net protocol address. She could have hacked into the military database and tracked down the original NPA for the ship, but it would be a waste of time. If it was that easy, the Commonwealth would have been able to contact the Rampion as soon as they had determined which ship they were after.

Which meant the address had been changed, probably not long after Thorne’s desertion.

Which most likely meant the auto-control system had been replaced. Hopefully Thorne would have some information on where and when the new system had been purchased, or what programming it had been replaced with.

If he didn’t know anything, well … she was going to have to get creative.

That was not worth worrying about just yet. First things first.

She had to make sure there was someone aboard that ship to contact.

She began by checking the newsfeeds. A simple search made it clear that, at this time, the Earthen media had no more information on the whereabouts of Linh Cinder than they’d had five days ago.

“… Lunar satellite…”

She snapped her attention to the news anchor who was rambling in a foreign language, most likely the language that the caravan hunter had first spoken to them. Cress frowned, thinking she was only hearing things. But then, as she squinted at the man’s lips, she thought she heard Sahara and, again, Lunar.

“Set translation overdub to universal language.”