Inching away from the neglected cable on his cot, Thorne cleared his mind of the image of her opening a plate in her skull, once again calling up the personification of a gentleman, and attempted to make small talk while she worked. He asked what she was in for and complimented the fine workmanship of her metal extremities, but she ignored him, making him briefly question if he’d been separated from the female population for so long that he could be losing his charm.
But that seemed unlikely.
A few minutes later, the girl seemed to find what she was looking for, and Thorne heard the motorized-drill sound again.
“When they locked you up,” Thorne said, “didn’t they consider that this prison might have some security weaknesses?”
“It didn’t at the time. This hand is kind of a new addition.” She paused and stared hard at one corner of the alcove, as if trying to see through the wall.
Maybe she had X-ray vision. Now that he could find some good uses for.
“Let me guess,” Thorne said. “Breaking and entering?”
After a long silence of examining the retracting mechanism, the girl wrinkled her nose. “Two counts of treason, if you must know. And resisting arrest, and unlawful use of bioelectricity. Oh, and illegal immigration, but honestly, I think that’s a little excessive.”
He squinted at the back of her head, a twitch developing in his left eye. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
The screwdriver in her finger began to spin again. Thorne waited until there was a lull in the grinding. “What’s your name?”
“Cinder,” she said, followed by another swell of noise.
When it died down: “I’m Captain Carswell Thorne. But usually people just call me—”
More grinding.
“Thorne. Or Captain. Or Captain Thorne.”
Without responding, she wriggled her hand back into the alcove. It seemed like she was trying to twist something, but it must not have budged, as a second later she sat back and huffed with frustration.
“I can see that you’re in need of an accomplice,” Thorne said, straightening his jumpsuit. “And lucky for you, I happen to be a criminal mastermind.”
She glowered at him. “Go away.”
“That’s a difficult request in this situation.”
She sighed and dusted the flecks of white plastic from her screwdriver.
“What are you going to do when you get out?” he asked.
She turned back to the wall. The grinding persisted for a while before she paused to roll her neck, working out a crick. “The most direct route out of the city is north.”
“Oh, my naive little convict. Don’t you think that’s what they’ll be expecting you to do?”
She jabbed the screwdriver into the alcove. “Would you please stop distracting me?”
“I’m just saying we might be able to help each other.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I have a ship.”
Her gaze darted to him for only a beat—a look of warning.
“A spaceship.”
“A spaceship,” she drawled.
“She could have us halfway to the stars in less than two minutes, and she’s just outside the city limits. Easy to get to. What do you say?”
“I say if you don’t stop talking and let me work, we won’t be getting halfway to anywhere.”
“Point taken,” Thorne said, holding up his hands in surrender. “You just think it over in that pretty head of yours.”
She tensed, but kept working.
“Now that I’m thinking of it, there used to be an excellent dim sum bar just a block away too. They had mini pork buns that were to die for. Rich and succulent.” He pinched his fingers together, salivating over the memory.
Face scrunching up, Cinder started to massage the back of her neck.
“Maybe if we have time we could stop in and pick up a snack for the road. I could use a treat after suffering through the tasteless junk they call food in this place.” He licked his lips, but when he refocused on the girl, the pain on her features had tightened. Sweat was beading on her brow.
“Are you all right?” he asked, reaching for her. “Do you need a back rub?”
She swatted him away. “Please,” she said, hands braced between them. She struggled to draw in a shuddering breath.
As Thorne stared, her image wavered, like heat rising off maglev tracks. He stumbled back. His heartbeat quickened. A tingle filled his brain and raced down his nerves.
She was … beautiful.
No, divine.
No, perfect.
His pulse thumped, thoughts of worship and devotion swimming through his head. Thoughts of surrender. Thoughts of compliance.
“Please,” she said again, hiding behind her metal hand. Her tone was desperate as she slumped against the wall. “Just stop talking. Just … leave me alone.”
“All right.” Confusion reigned—cyborg, prison mate, goddess. “Of course. Anything you like.” Eyes watering, he stumbled backward and sank blindly down to his cot.
Five
Scarlet’s thoughts seethed as she hauled the empty crates out of the back of her ship and through the hangar’s yawning doors. She’d found her portscreen on the floor of the ship and it was now in her pocket, the message from the law enforcement office burning against her thigh as she mindlessly traipsed through her evening routine.
She was perhaps most angry with herself now, for being distracted, even for a minute, by nothing more than a handsome face and a veneer of danger, so soon after she’d learned that her grandma’s case had been closed. Her curiosity about the street fighter made her feel like a traitor to everything important.
And then there was Roland and Gilles and every other backstabber in Rieux. They all believed her grandma was crazy, and that’s what they’d told the police. Not that she was the most hardworking farmer in the province. Not that she made the best éclairs this side of the Garonne River. Not that she’d served her country as a military spaceship pilot for twenty-eight years, and still wore a medal for honorable service on her favorite checkered kitchen apron.
No. They’d told the police she was crazy.
And now they’d stopped looking for her.
Not for long though. Her grandma was out there somewhere and Scarlet was going to find her if she had to dig up dirt and blackmail every last detective in Europe.
The sun was sinking fast, sending Scarlet’s elongated shadow down the drive. Beyond the gravel, the whispering crops of cornstalks and leafy sugar beets stretched out in every direction, meeting up with the first spray of stars. A cobblestone house disrupted the view to the west, with two windows glowing orange. Their only neighbor for miles.
For more than half her life, this farm had been Scarlet’s paradise. Over the years, she’d fallen in love with it more deeply than she’d known a person could fall in love with land and sky—and she knew her grandma felt the same. Though she didn’t like to think of it, she was aware that someday she would inherit the farm, and she sometimes fantasized about growing old here. Happy and content, with perpetual dirt beneath her fingernails and an old house that was in constant need of repair.
Happy and content—like her grandmother.
She wouldn’t have just left. Scarlet knew it.
She lugged the crates into the barn, stacking them in the corner so the androids could fill them again tomorrow, then grabbed the pail of chicken feed. Scarlet walked while she fed, tossing big handfuls of kitchen scraps in her path as the chickens scurried around her ankles.
Rounding the corner of the hangar, she halted.
A light was on in the house, on the second floor.
In her grandmother’s bedroom.
The pail slipped from her fingers. The chickens squawked and darted away, before clustering back around the spilled feed.
She stepped over them and ran, the gravel skidding beneath her shoes. Her heart was swelling, bursting, the sprint already making her lungs burn as she yanked open the back door. She took the stairs two at a time, the old wood groaning beneath her.
The door to her grandma’s bedroom was open and she froze in the doorway, panting, grasping the jamb.
A hurricane had come through the room. Every drawer was pulled out from the dresser, clothes and toiletries had been dumped onto the floor. The quilts from the bed were piled haphazardly at its foot, the mattress at an angle, the digital picture frames beside the window all pulled from their brackets, leaving dark spots on the wall where the sunlight hadn’t managed to fade the painted plaster.
A man was on his knees beside the bed, tearing through a box of her grandmother’s old military uniforms. He jumped up when he saw Scarlet, nearly hitting his head on the low oak beam that spanned the ceiling.
The world spun. Scarlet almost didn’t recognize him—it had been years since she’d seen him, but it could have been decades for how much he had aged. A beard was taking over his normally clean-shaven jawline. His hair was matted on one side, sticking up straight on the other. He was pale and gaunt, like he hadn’t had a proper meal in weeks.
“Dad?”
He clutched a blue flight jacket to his chest.
“What are you doing here?” She surveyed the chaos again, heart still pounding. “What are you doing?”
“There’s something here,” he said, his voice rough and unused. “She’s hidden something.” He peered down at the jacket, then tossed it onto the bed. Kneeling, he started digging through the box again. “I need to find it.”
“Find what? What are you talking about?”
“She’s gone,” he whispered. “She’s not coming back. She won’t ever know and I … I have to find it. I have to know why.”
The smell of cognac swirled through the air and Scarlet’s heart hardened. She didn’t know how he’d found out about his mother’s disappearance, but for him to just assume all hope was lost, so easily, so quickly, and to think he would be entitled to a single thing that belonged to her, after he’d abandoned them both. To go so many years without a single comm, only to show up drunk and start tearing through her grandmother’s things—
Scarlet had the sudden urge to call the police, except she was mad at them too.
“Get out! Get out of our house!”
Unfazed, he started to pile the mishmash of clothes back into the box.
Face burning, Scarlet rounded the bed and grabbed his arm, trying to yank him to his feet. “Stop it!”
He hissed and fell back onto the old wooden floorboards. He scurried away from her as he would from a rabid dog, clutching his arm. His gaze was stark madness.
Scarlet drew back, surprised, before planting clenched fists on her hips. “What’s wrong with your arm?”