Winter (The Lunar Chronicles 4)

Scarlet knotted her lips to one side. “How many wolf regiments are left on Luna?”

This time, Winter did not answer at all.

Exhaling, Scarlet rubbed at her brow. “I knew better. I knew better than to listen to you. Winter. We could be wandering down here for days and not see a single person. And even if we do find one of these regiments, or packs, or whatever they call themselves, they are most likely going to eat us. This is suicide!” She pointed back the direction they’d come. “We should be looking for allies, not enemies.”

“You go back then.” Winter continued down the endless tunnel.

Scarlet let out a bedraggled groan and stomped after her. “Thirty minutes,” she said. “We are going to walk for thirty more minutes and if we haven’t seen any evidence that we’re getting closer, then we are turning around and going back, and I am not taking no for an answer. I’ll club you over the head and drag you back if I have to.”

Winter fluttered her lashes, amused by the thought. “We will find them, Scarlet-friend. They will join us. Your Wolf is proof that they are men, not monsters.”

“I really wish you would stop comparing them with Wolf. Wolf is different. The rest of them … they are monsters. I met Wolf’s pack in Paris, and they were brutal and terrible. And that was her special ops, and they’re still mostly human! You can’t reason with these monsters any more than you could a … a…”

“A pack of wolves?”

Scarlet glared. “Exactly.”

“Ryu was my friend.”

Scarlet threw her hands into the air. “What are you going to do, play fetch with them? You are thinking about this all wrong. They are under Levana’s control, or whoever their thaumaturge is. They will do what they’re told, and that will be to eat us.”

“They were young boys forced into a difficult situation. They did not ask for this life, just as your Wolf didn’t ask for it, but they have done what they needed to do to survive. If they are given the opportunity to break their binds of enslavement, I believe they will take it. I believe they will side with us.”

Winter heard a distant, low howl, and shivered. Scarlet didn’t seem to hear it, though, so she said nothing.

“You have no idea whose side they’ll take. They’ve been so messed with, they’ll side with whoever is offering them a bigger piece of steak.” Scarlet hesitated. “What’s wrong? Are you hallucinating right now?”

Winter forced a smile. “Not unless you are a figment of my imagination, but how could I ever be sure one way or the other? So I will go on believing you are real.”

Scarlet looked unimpressed with her logic. “You know what these men become, don’t you? You know they can never be normal again.”

“I would think that you, of all people, would believe in their ability to change. Wolf changed because of his love for you. Why can they not change also?” She started walking again.

“Wolf is—it’s not the same. Winter, I know you’re used to batting your eyelashes at everyone who walks by and expecting them to fall in love with you, but that’s not going to happen here. They are going to laugh at you and mock you and then they are going to—”

“Eat me. Yes. I understand.”

“You don’t seem to be grasping the meaning behind the words. This isn’t a metaphor. I’m talking about huge teeth and digestive systems.”

“Fat and bones and marrow and meat,” Winter sang. “We only wanted a snack to eat.”

Scarlet grunted. “You can be so disturbing.”

Winter hooked her elbow with Scarlet’s. “Don’t be afraid. They will help us.”

Before Scarlet could mount another argument, a peculiar smell assaulted their senses, sharp and pungent. An animal smell, like in the menagerie, but different. Sweat and salt and body odor mingling in the cave’s stale air, along with something rank, like old meat.

“Well,” said Scarlet, “I think we found them.”

A chill crawled down Winter’s neck. Neither of them moved for a long while.

“If we can smell them,” said Scarlet, “they can smell us.”

Winter raised her chin. “I’ll understand if you leave. I can go on without you.”

Scarlet seemed to consider it, but then she shrugged. Her expression was reckless. “I’m beginning to think we’re all going to end up wolf food anyway by the time this is over.”

Facing her, Winter cupped Scarlet’s face in both hands. “It is not like you to talk like that.”

Scarlet clenched her jaw. “They took Wolf and they took Cinder, and as much as I want to see Levana ripped into tiny pieces and fed to her own mutants, I just don’t think we have a whole lot of hope without them.” She gulped, her resentment clouding over. “And I … I don’t want to see this place. He was trained here too, you know. I’m afraid to see what he came from, what he … who he was.”

“He is your Wolf now, and you are his alpha.”

Scarlet laughed. “According to Jacin, you need a pack to be an alpha.”

Jacin. The name brought sunshine and blood and kisses and growls rising to Winter’s skin. She gave it a moment to sink back toward her bones, before she tilted Scarlet’s head down and placed a kiss on the top of her flame-and-fury hair. “I will get you your pack.”

Fifty-Six

They hadn’t gone much farther before they detected noise rumbling through the caverns. Low and thunderous, like a distant train. They came to another fork in the tunnel, and while one path led into further darkness and rock and nothingness, the other ran into a set of iron doors. Hinged into the regolith walls, the doors looked ancient. Their sole ornamentation was a faded label painted on the lower corner of each door—STOREROOM 16, SECTOR LW-12.

A tiny screen had been embedded into the wall beside the doors. It was old and outdated and the text kept flickering. LUNAR REGIMENT 117, PACKS 1009–1020.

The ground and walls thrummed with activity beyond those doors—laughter and shouting and thumping footsteps. For the first time since she’d embarked on this quest, Winter felt a flutter of nervousness in her stomach.

Scarlet glanced at her. “It isn’t too late to go back.”

“I disagree.”

Sighing, Scarlet studied the screen. “Eleven packs, so around a hundred soldiers, give or take.”

Winter hummed, a sound without commitment. A hundred soldiers.

Animals, killers, predators, or so everyone claimed. Had she truly gone mad to think she could change them?

Her eyes began to mist, surprising her. She had not realized that thinking of her own imbalance would sadden her, but the feel of her ribs crushing against her heart was unmistakable.

“Why did you follow me?” she asked, staring at the solid doors. “Knowing what’s wrong with me. Knowing that I’m broken.”

Scarlet scoffed. “That is an excellent question.”

A loud thud was followed by hollers. The walls reverberated around them.

They had not been noticed. Scarlet was right. They could turn around and leave. Winter could admit she was delusional and no one should ever listen to her. She was adept only at making the wrong decisions.