Scarlet barely resisted the urge to shake him and scream that he had to think harder. “Did they blindfold you?”
“No.” He squinted. “I was afraid to look.”
Frustrated tears were beginning to sting her eyes and Scarlet tilted her head back, gulping down patient breaths. Her worst fears, those sneaking, horrible suspicions, were true.
Her grandmother had been kidnapped. Not just kidnapped, but kidnapped by cruel, brutal people. Were they harming her as they’d harmed her son? What would they do to her? What did they want?
Ransom?
But why hadn’t they asked Scarlet for anything yet? And why had they taken her father too, but then let him go? It didn’t make sense.
Terror clouded her thoughts as all the possible horrors streamed through her imagination. Torture and burning and dark rooms …
“What did you mean, when you said they made you? What did they make you do?”
“Burn myself,” he whispered. “Handed me the poker.”
“But how—”
“So many questions. I don’t know. I never knew my father. She doesn’t talk about him. I don’t know what she does here in her big ancient house. What happened on the moon. Don’t know what she’s hiding—she’s hiding something.” He pulled weakly at the blankets on the bed, glancing halfheartedly beneath the sheets.
“You’re talking nonsense,” Scarlet said, her voice breaking. “You have to think harder. You have to remember something.”
A long, long silence. Outside, the chickens were clucking again, their scaly feet scratching across the gravel.
“Tattoo.”
She frowned. “What?”
He placed a finger over one of the burns, on the inside flesh of his arm, just below his elbow. “The one who handed me the poker had a tattoo. Here. Letters and numbers.”
Her vision prickled with bright lights and Scarlet gripped the rumpled quilt, for a moment feeling like she could faint.
Letters and numbers.
“Are you sure?”
“L … S…” He shook his head. “I can’t remember. There was more.”
Her mouth ran dry, hatred overtaking the dizziness. She knew that tattoo.
He’d pretended to be kind. Pretended he only needed honest work.
When—days? hours?—before, he’d tortured her father. Kept her grandmother prisoner.
And she’d almost trusted him. The tomato, the carrots … she’d thought she was helping him. Stars above, she’d flirted with him, and all the while, he knew. She recalled those moments of peculiar amusement, the glint in his eyes, and her stomach twisted. He’d been laughing at her.
Ears ringing, she peered down at her dad, who was turning out the pockets of a pair of pants that probably hadn’t fit her grandmother in twenty years.
She stood. The blood rushed to her head, but she ignored it. Marching to the corner of the room, she grabbed her grandma’s portscreen from where her father had tossed it onto the floorboards.
“Here,” she said, throwing the port onto the bed. “I’m going to the Morel farm. If I’m not home in three hours, comm the police.”
Dazed, her father reached out and grasped the port. “I thought the Morels were dead.”
“Are you listening to me? I want you to lock all the doors, and don’t leave. Three hours and then comm the police. Do you understand?”
Again he succumbed to that frightened, child-like expression. “Don’t go out there, Scar. Don’t you get it? They used me as bait for her and you’ll be next. They’ll come for you too.”
Clenching her jaw, Scarlet zipped up her hoodie to her chin. “I intend to find them first.”
Six
CARSWELL THORNE
ID #0082688359
BORN 22 MAY 106 T.E., AMERICAN REPUBLIC
FF 437 MEDIA HITS, REVERSE CHRON
POSTED 12 JAN 126 T.E.: EX–AR AIR FORCE CADET, CARSWELL THORNE, HAS BEEN CONVICTED AND SENTENCED TO A SIX-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE AT THE END OF A SPEEDY TWO-WEEK TRIAL …
Green text trekked across Cinder’s vision, documenting the crimes of one Carswell Thorne, who had already led a very productive life of lawbreaking despite having just turned twenty a few months ago: one count military desertion, two counts international theft, one count attempted theft, six counts handling of stolen goods, and one count theft of government property.
That last conviction hardly seemed to do the crime justice. He’d stolen a spaceship from the American Republic’s military.
Hence, the spaceship that he was so proud of.
Though he was currently serving a six-year sentence in the Eastern Commonwealth for attempted theft of a second-era jade necklace, he was also wanted in Australia and, of course, his own America, and would be standing trial and no doubt serving time in both countries for the harm he’d done there as well.
Cinder slumped against a breaker panel, wishing she hadn’t checked. Escaping from prison herself was bad enough, but assisting the escape of this criminal—a real criminal—and doing it in a stolen spaceship?
Swallowing hard, she peered back through the opening she’d made between the mechanical room and the prisoner’s cell. Carswell Thorne still sat on his cot with his elbows propped on his knees, thumbs twiddling.
She wiped her damp palm on her bleached-white jumper. This was not about Carswell Thorne. This was about Queen Levana and Emperor Kai and Princess Selene. The innocent child Levana had tried to murder thirteen years ago, but who had been rescued and smuggled down to Earth. Who remained the most-wanted person in the world. Who just happened to be Cinder herself.
She’d known for less than twenty-four hours. Dr. Erland, who had known for weeks, decided to inform her that he’d run DNA tests proving her bloodline only after Queen Levana had recognized her at the annual ball and threatened to attack Earth if Cinder wasn’t thrown into jail for being an illegal Lunar emigrant.
So Dr. Erland had sneaked into her prison cell and given her a new foot (hers had fallen off on the palace steps), a state-of-the-art cyborg hand with fancy gadgets that she was still getting used to, and the biggest shock of her life. He’d then told her to escape and come meet him in Africa, like that would be no more difficult than installing a new processor on a Gard3.9.
This order, simultaneously so simple and so impossible, had given her something to focus on other than her newfound identity. Good thing too because when she dwelled on that, her entire body had a tendency to seize up, leaving her useless, and this was a bad time to be suffering from indecision. Regardless of what she would do when she got out, she was sure of one thing: not escaping meant certain death when Queen Levana came to claim her.
She peered back at the inmate again. If she had a close destination in mind, and a working spaceship at that, it could be the key to her escape.
He was still twiddling his thumbs, still obeying her command—just leave me alone. The words had been fire in her mouth when she’d said them, while her blood had boiled and her skin had burned. The sensation of overheating was a side effect of her new Lunar gift—powers that Dr. Erland had managed to unlock after a device implanted on her spine had kept her from using them for so many years. Although it still seemed like magic to her, it was really a genetic trait Lunars were born with that allowed them to control and manipulate the bioelectricity of other living creatures. They could trick people into seeing things that weren’t real or experiencing made-up emotions. They could brainwash people into doing things they wouldn’t otherwise do. Without argument. Without resistance.