“I couldn’t let you go on your own,” said Scarlet, most of the venom gone from her tone.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Call me crazy.”
Winter shut her eyes. “I won’t. You are not damaged like I am. You are not a hundred scattered pieces, blowing farther and farther away from each other.”
“How would you know?”
Listing her head, Winter dared to look up again.
Scarlet leaned against the regolith wall. “My father was a liar and a drunk. My mother left when I was a kid and never looked back. I witnessed a man kill my grandmother and then rip out her throat with his teeth. I was kept in a cage for six weeks. I was forced to cut off my own finger. I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with a guy who has been genetically modified and mentally programmed to be a predator. So all things considered, I’d say I have a fair amount of scattered pieces myself.”
Winter felt her resolve crumbling. “You came with me because it was the quickest path to death, then.”
A crease formed between Scarlet’s eyebrows. “I’m not suicidal,” she said, the sharpness returning to her tongue. “I came with you because—” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Because ever since my grandma took me in, I’ve heard people tell me she was crazy. A kooky, belligerent old woman, always good for a joke around town. They had no idea how brilliant she was. That crazy old woman risked everything she had to protect Cinder when she was a baby, and in the end, she sacrificed her own life rather than give up Cinder’s secret. She was brave and strong, and everyone else was too closeminded to see it.” She rolled her eyes, annoyed with her own frustration. “I guess I’m just hoping that despite all the absurd things you say, you might also be a little bit brilliant. That this time, you might be right.” She held up her finger. “That said, if you’re going to tell me how stupid this idea was to begin with and we should run like hell, then I’m right behind you.”
Beyond the doors, something crashed, and there was a round of boisterous laughter. Then, a howl. A chorus of a dozen other voices rose up to meet it, sounding victorious.
A muscle twitched in Winter’s jaw, but her lip had stopped trembling. She hadn’t cried. She’d been too focused on Scarlet’s words to remember to be upset. “I believe they were boys once and they can be boys again. I believe I can help them, and they will help me in return.”
Scarlet sighed, sounding a little disappointed and a little resigned, but not surprised. “And I believe you’re not as crazy as you want everyone to think you are.”
Winter’s gaze flitted toward Scarlet, surprised, but Scarlet didn’t return it. She stepped forward and placed her palm on one of the heavy doors. “So, do we knock?”
“I do not think they would hear us.” Another round of howls echoed through the cavern. Winter swiped her fingers across the screen, and the text changed.
SECURITY CLEARANCE IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED
She pressed the pads of her fingers onto the screen and it brightened, welcoming her. The doors began to open, creaking on ancient hinges. When Winter turned back, Scarlet was staring at her, aghast.
“You do realize you just alerted the queen to where you are, right?”
Winter shrugged. “By the time she finds us, either we will have an army to protect us, or we will have already become meat and marrow and bone.”
She drifted through the doors and instantly froze.
Scarlet had been right. There were about a hundred men in the 117th Regiment of Levana’s army, though men was a general term for what they’d become. Soldiers felt inadequate too. Winter had been hearing stories of her stepmother’s army for years, but they were far more beastly than she had ever imagined, with malformed bodies, fur down the sides of their faces, and snarled lips curved around enormous teeth.
This storeroom, which had begun life as housing for the first colonists, was equipped to hold many more than a hundred people. The ceiling reached three stories high and was rough with divots and stalactites where air bubbles had formed and lava had dripped eons ago. Though the cavern was ancient and impenetrable, someone long ago had had the foresight to reinforce it with interspersed stone columns. Countless alcoves and more corridors stretched in every direction, leading to additional barracks or training grounds.
Around the exterior were dingy lockers and open crates, many of which had been left wide-open and neglected. Benches and exercise equipment filled the remaining space: freestanding punching bags, chin-up bars, weights. Many of them had been shoved aside to make room for the main entertainment in the room’s center.
The howls dissolved into cheering and whooping again. Canine teeth flashed. Most of them were in some state of undress—missing shirts, bare feet, a stunning amount of hair in places that Winter wasn’t certain were natural or not.
A shudder danced over her skin. Scarlet’s words rang back to her: They will do what they’re told, and that will be to eat us.
Scarlet was right. This had been a mistake. She was not brilliant. She was losing her mind.
The doors slammed shut, making her jump. One man jerked around to face them. His gaze fell on Winter, skipped to Scarlet, then returned. First curious, then—inevitably—ravenous.
A sly smile curled one side of his mouth.
“Well, well,” he mused. “Feeding time already?”
Fifty-Seven
The man who had spoken grabbed the nearest soldier by the neck and tossed him toward the center of the circle. Shouts of surprise and anger rolled through the gathered men as a few toppled beneath their comrade’s weight. Within seconds there was a furor of flying fists and snapping jaws. One man slashed at the one who had noticed them, sharpened fingernails drawing lines of blood across his chest. A second later, he was also picked up and hurled into the turmoil.
“Manners,” someone yelled, loud enough that his voice shook through the walls, and Winter had a quick and searing vision of the dome of lava rock crumbling on top of them. It would start with a quaking of the walls, then a few dribbles of dust and pebbles, until a crack drove its way from one end of the cavern to the other, opening wide and—
“There are ladies in our presence,” said the mutant who had first seen them. His nose crinkled at the word ladies.
The attention of a hundred hybrid soldiers landed on Winter and Scarlet. As eyebrows rose and thorny gazes raked over them, the men seemed to forget their brawl. They started to spread out. Lithe, muscular bodies creeping between the mess of equipment with agonizing patience. Noses twitching. Tongues tapping at sharp teeth.
Hair prickled at the back of Winter’s neck and she found herself rooted to the floor, shocked by the sudden, breathable silence.
Once the crowd had dispersed, she could see that their focus had been on a fight between two of the soldiers, both of whom were bleeding and swollen and grinning, as intrigued as the rest. It was impossible to tell which of them had been winning the fight prior to the interruption.
There was an abundance of scars and faded bruises on all of the men, suggesting that such brawls were a common occurrence. A way to pass the time while waiting to be sent to Earth and take part in Levana’s war.
Fear pulsed through Winter. What if she had been wrong?
“Hello, pretty ladies,” said one of the soldiers, rubbing his whiskered jaw. “Are you lost?”