Cress

He peeled his gaze away, as a gun clattered to the ground. Cinder jumped. The woman she had been controlling was gaping around at her comrades, trembling. Not knowing where to look. Not knowing what to do. She nervously raised her hands in surrender.

Red with anger, the man with the portscreen lowered the amplifier. He faced Cinder again, his eyes filled with hatred. Then he tossed his portscreen to the ground.

Thorne swiveled his head from side to side. “Uh, could someone explain to me—”

“Later,” said Cinder, letting her weight sink against Wolf. “Get up. It’s time for us to go.”

“No arguments here,” said Thorne, as he and the others clambered to their feet. “But does someone think they could grab my escort-droid? I kind of went through a lot to get her, and—”

“Thorne.”

Cinder felt light-headed and weak as they weaved their way through the stalemate. It felt like walking through a maze of stone sculptures—stone sculptures who carried big guns and followed them with their eyes, writhing inside with fury and distrust. Cinder tried to meet the gazes of the townspeople, but many of them had their own eyes shut tight and were shaking from concentration. They couldn’t hold the soldiers forever.

Only the obvious Earthens met her look and nodded with scared, fleeting smiles. Not a fear of their Lunar neighbors, she thought, but a fear of what would happen if Levana took control of Earth. What would happen if Lunars ruled everything. What would happen if Cinder failed.

Jacin grabbed the escort-droid’s wrist and pulled her along after them.

“That woman was right,” Wolf said when they’d broken away from the crowd, and the Rampion—their freedom—rose up from the streets in front of them. “There’s nothing worse than your own body being used against you.”

Cinder stumbled, but Wolf caught her and dragged her a few steps before she found her balance again. “I’m sorry, Wolf. But I had to. I couldn’t leave you there.”

“I know. I understand.” Reaching out, he grabbed a sack out of the doctor’s hand, lessening his load as they hurried toward the ship. “But it doesn’t change the fact that no one should have that sort of power.”

Forty-Two

The Lunar boy couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and yet Scarlet was certain that she would wring his neck like a chicken if she ever got the chance. He was, without a doubt, the most horrible child that ever lived. She couldn’t help thinking that if all Lunar children were like this, their whole society was doomed and Cinder would be better off letting them destroy themselves.

Scarlet didn’t know how, exactly, she had ended up the property of Venerable Annotel and his wife and the little monster they’d raised. Maybe it was favoritism from the crown, or maybe they’d purchased her, like an Earthen family might purchase a new android. Either way, for seven days, she had been the new toy. The new pet. The new test subject.

Because at eight years old, young Master Charleson was learning how to control his Lunar gift. Evidently, Earthens were great fun to practice on, and Master Charleson had a very sick sense of humor.

Chained from a collar around her neck to a bolt in the floor, Scarlet was being kept in what she figured was the boy’s playroom. An enormous netscreen took up one wall and countless virtual reality machines and sports-tech had been abandoned in the corners, out of her reach.

His practice sessions were agony. Since she’d come to the Annotel household, Scarlet had had long-legged spiders crawl up her nose. Snakes as long as her arm wriggle their way through her belly button and wind their bodies around her spine. Centipedes burrow into her ear canals and creep around the inside of her skull before emerging on her tongue.

Scarlet had screamed. She had thrashed. She had gouged her own fingernails into her stomach and blown her nose until it bled in an effort to get the trespassers out.

And all the while, Master Charleson had laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was all in her head, of course. She knew that. She even knew it when she was roughly banging her head on the floor to try to knock out the spiders and centipedes. But it didn’t matter. Her body was convinced, her brain was convinced. Her rational mind was overcome.

She hated that little boy. Hated him.

She also hated that she was starting to be afraid of him.

“Charleson.”

His mother appeared in the doorway, temporarily rescuing Scarlet from his most recent infatuation—squinty-eyed ground moles, with their fat bodies and enormous reptilian claws. One had been gnawing at her toes while its talons shredded the sole of her foot.

The illusion and the pain vanished, but the horror lingered. The rawness of her throat. The damp salt on her face. Scarlet rolled onto her side, sobbing in the middle of the playroom floor, grateful that the boy couldn’t maintain the brainwashing while he was distracted.