Lunar Chronicles #4 Winter - Page 75

Wolf’s head suddenly snapped up, his eyes locking on the fabric-covered window.

Cinder went rigid, ready to load a bullet into her finger or use her Lunar gift to defend herself and her friends—whatever this unseen threat called for. She felt the tension rise around her. Everyone falling silent, watching Wolf.

His nose twitched. His brow drew closer, doubtful. Suspicious.

“Wolf?” Cinder prodded.

He sniffed again and his eyes brightened.

Then he was gone—hurling himself past the group and tearing open the front door.

Cinder jumped to her feet. “Wolf! What are you—”

Too late. The door slammed shut behind him. She cursed. This was not the time for her mutant wolf ally to start running around and drawing attention to himself.

She yanked on her boots to chase after him.

*   *   *

Scarlet landed the ship in a tiny underground port that had only two ancient delivery ships already inside. Once the chamber had been sealed, two blinding lightbulbs lit up the ceiling, one of them with a sporadic flicker. Scarlet got out first, scanning every corner, inspecting beneath each ship. Empty.

There were two enormous freight elevators and three stairwells leading to the surface, labeled RM-8, RM-9, RM-11.

Every surface was covered in dust.

“You coming?” she called to Winter, who had made it so far as opening the podship door. The princess’s hair was a tangled mess and her skirt crusted with blood. The tablecloth they’d stolen had slipped down around her shoulders. Whereas the escape had filled Scarlet with adrenaline, it had left Winter drained. Her head bobbed as she pulled herself out of the ship.

Scarlet planted her hands on her hips, her patience stretched to near breaking. “Do I have to carry you?”

Winter shook her head. “You don’t think we were followed?”

“I’m hoping no one has figured out we’re missing yet.” Scarlet read the signs again, the letters almost undetectable beneath the dust. “Not that we have a whole lot of options at this point, even if we were followed.”

Scarlet turned back and tightened the tablecloth around Winter’s waist so it looked like an ill-fitting skirt, covering the blood, then she unzipped her hoodie and helped Winter into the sleeves. She tucked the princess’s voluminous hair back and pulled the hood over her face as well as she could. “Not great, but better than nothing.”

“Do you think he’s dead yet?”

Scarlet paused in the middle of zipping up the hoodie again. Winter peered back at her, looking small and vulnerable.

She sighed. “He’s smart and he’s strong. He’ll be all right.” She tugged the zipper up to Winter’s throat. “Come on.”

When they emerged on the surface, protected beneath the enormous dome, Scarlet paused to get her bearings. She had looked up the Kesley address on the ship’s database, though the series of numbers and letters made no sense to her.

The spaceship port was meant for freight and this entrance was situated between two warehouses, one wall lined with carts that were heaped to overflowing with chipped black rock. Not far away was an enormous cavern opening up into what looked like a mine or rock quarry. Regolith Mining, the sector map had said.

Were Wolf’s parents miners? Would Wolf have become a miner, too, if he hadn’t been conscripted into the army? It was impossible to imagine a life in which he lived here, on this moon, beneath this dome, and never came to Earth. Never met her.

“This doesn’t appear to be residential,” she muttered.

“Residences are usually in the outer rings of each sector,” said Winter.

“Outer ring. Right.” Scarlet scanned the squat warehouses. “Which way is that?”

Winter pointed up at the dome that encapsulated them. Even with the surrounding buildings, it was clear where the dome’s highest point was and where it rounded out toward the edges.

Scarlet turned away from the dome’s center.

As they walked, she tried to cobble together a plan. First, find where the people lived. Second, figure out how their homes were addressed and find the home of Wolf’s parents. Third, stumble through an awkward conversation in which she tried to explain to them who she was and why they had to shelter her and Winter.

When the industrial buildings gave way to ramshackle homes, Scarlet was relieved to see address numbers painted on the concrete in front of each building, faded from years of foot traffic. “A-49, A-50,” she murmured to herself, quickening her pace. The next circle of houses were labeled with Bs. “Easy enough. The Kesley house was D-313, right? So we’ll head to the row of Ds and…”

She glanced back.

Winter was gone.

Cursing, Scarlet spun in a full circle, but there was no sign of the princess. “You can’t be serious,” she growled, backtracking her steps. She’d been so immersed in finding the house, she couldn’t recall hearing Winter beside her since she’d left the warehouses behind. She’d probably wandered off, strung along by some hallucination …

Scarlet paused, catching sight of the princess down an alley. She was wedged between two factories and mesmerized by a metal shaft that poked out of one of the buildings. Broken white rock tumbled out of it into a cart below.

The red hood was still pulled over the princess’s face and a great cloud of dust was billowing around her, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Huffing, Scarlet squared her shoulders and started marching toward her, ready to drag the crazy girl away by her hair if she had to. She hadn’t crossed half the distance, though, when Winter’s head snapped around, away from Scarlet.

Chapter end