After that morning, she’d lived in fear for a week. Two weeks. A month.
But the man never came for her, and she and her grandmother never spoke of it again.
“Scarlet?”
The tightening of Wolf’s arm around her waist dragged Scarlet back into the present, into a train car that was slowing down around her. She was curled up like a child with her back against him, and though her eyes were squeezed shut, a few hot tears had escaped, rolled over the bridge of her nose, dripped across her temples. She hastily brushed them away.
Wolf stirred and propped himself up behind her. “Scarlet?” His tone was nervous.
“I had a bad dream,” she said, not wanting him to think the tears had anything to do with him. Already they were stopping and she rolled onto her back. It must have still been night for the darkness that took up the train car, but the unnatural glimmer of city neon targeted the crates just inside the door, sending splashes of pink and green over the stacked boxes.
“I remembered something,” she whispered. “I think it might have to do with the princess.”
He tensed.
“I remember my grandma mentioning Logan now, but she didn’t want me to overhear. I was eavesdropping. And there was another man…” She told him the story as well as she could, piecing the memory back together again as her brain threatened to fog over.
When she was done, she lay still, listening to the whistle of wind outside the train cars. Her side was stiff from sleeping on the hard crate.
Rather than look relieved or hopeful, Wolf peered down at her, terrified.
“That’s what they’re looking for, isn’t it? I mean—it must have been the princess that they were talking about. I don’t know where she was, who was taking care of her … I never saw her. All this time I thought she’d been planning on sending me away, but now … after what you told me about Logan Tanner and Grand-mère and Princess Selene…”
Wolf pulled away from her, sitting up and curling his knees against his chest. He stared blankly at the stacks of crates surrounding them.
“This man had an accent. I think he was from the Eastern Commonwealth.” Scarlet pushed herself up beside him, combing her hair to one side. “And I’m pretty sure my grandma called his wife ‘Madame Linh.’ I don’t know how common of a name it is, but … I would recognize him if I saw him again. I’m sure I would.”
“Don’t say that.” Wolf pressed his hands over his ears. “I didn’t hear that.”
Scarlet blinked, stunned by his grimace. “Wolf?” Reaching forward, she tugged his hands down. “This is good, isn’t it? They want information, I have information. We’ll barter. We’ll trade for my grandmother’s safety. Isn’t that—”
“Don’t go.”
His gaze trapped her in the darkness. Tousled hair, faint scars, flecks of sleep in his eyelashes. Wolf twisted a curl of her hair around his fingers.
“Don’t go looking for your grandmother.”
A streak of orange light flashed through the door and vanished.
“I have to.”
“No, Scarlet, you don’t have to.” He grasped her hand, engulfing it in both of his. “There’s nothing you can do for her. If you go, you’ll only be putting yourself in danger. Would your grandmother want that?”
Scarlet yanked her hand out of Wolf’s grip.
“We can run away,” he continued, his fingers scrambling for contact, knotting themselves around her pockets. “We’ll disappear in the forest. Go to Africa, or the Commonwealth. We can survive and they’ll never find us. I can keep you safe, Scarlet. I can protect you.”
“What are you talking about? Just last night you said that if I had any information it could help, it could be my grandma’s only chance, and now I have information. I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe, if you had a full name, an address, something specific. But a last name and a country—an enormous country—and a description? Scarlet, if you tell them this, they’ll only take you captive, in hopes that you’ll be able to identify this man.”
Tugging at her zipper, she studied him, how his eyes were more crazed with every breath he took.
“Good,” she said. “Then we’ll offer to trade me for my grandmother.”
He shrank back, shaking his head, but Scarlet was bolstered. “We’ll go together. You can tell them that you have information, but you’ll only give it to them on the condition that they let you walk away free, and that you take my grandmother with you. And they can have me.”
Wolf shuddered.
“Wolf, you have to promise me you’ll take care of her. We don’t know what kind of condition she’ll be in. If they’ve … if she’s hurt … you’ll have to take care of her.” Her voice hitched, but there were no more tears. Her resolve was complete.
Until—“What if she’s already dead, Scarlet?”
Dread settled in her stomach at the words she’d refused to speak, for fear it could make them real. The train was still slowing and Scarlet could make out the furious noise of the city: hovers and netscreens and buzzers warning to stay off the tracks. It was the middle of the night, but in the city there was never silence.
“Do you think she is?” Her voice trembled. Her heart throbbed as she waited for him to answer. “You think they’ve killed her?”
Every moment wrapped around Scarlet’s neck, strangling her, until the only possible word from Wolf’s lips had to be yes. Yes, she was dead. Yes, she was gone. They’d murdered her. These monsters had murdered her.
Scarlet pressed her palms into the crate, trying to push through the plastic. “Say it.”
“No,” he murmured, shoulders sinking. “No, I don’t think they’ve killed her. Not yet.”
Scarlet shivered with relief. She covered her face with both hands, dizzy with the hurricane of emotions. “Thank the stars,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
His tone hardened. “Don’t thank me for telling the truth when it would have been mercy to lie to you.”
“Mercy? To tell me she’s dead? To break my heart?”
“Making you believe she was dead was the only chance I had to convince you not to go looking for her. We both know that. I should have lied.”
The hum of the tracks deepened as the train crawled into a station. Voices yelled. Machinery clanked and hissed.
“It’s not your decision to make,” she said, grabbing the portscreen and checking their location. They’d made it to Paris. “I have to go after her. But you don’t have to come with me.”
“Scarlet—”
“No, listen. I appreciate your help. How far you’ve brought me. But I can go on alone. Just tell me where to go and I’ll find it myself.”
“Maybe I won’t.”
Scarlet shoved the port into her pocket, anger burning in her cheeks. But then she met Wolf’s gaze and saw, not stubbornness, but panic. His fingers curling and uncurling, again and again.
She released her mounting resentment. Scooting toward Wolf, she cupped his face in her hands. He flinched, but didn’t pull away. “They’ll want this information, won’t they?”