Lunar Chronicles #4 Winter - Page 134

Wolf. Ze’ev. Her alpha mate.

Thinking of him cut a hole in her chest, so she wouldn’t. She would believe he was alive, because he had to be alive.

“We have to head to the surface anyway,” said Strom. “These lava tubes don’t connect to the maglev tracks. Or—they do, but it will take us too far out of the way. Better to head up to the nearest sector and infiltrate the tunnels that way.”

“Which sector is that?” asked Scarlet.

“LW-12,” someone said. “Lumber and wood production. Dangerous work, lots of injuries. Doubt they’d be too sympathetic to Her Majesty.”

“We might have luck obtaining weaponry there too,” said another.

“How far is it?” asked Scarlet.

“This used to be the storeroom for LW-12.” Strom pointed at the ceiling. “It’s right over our heads.”

*   *   *

Once they were back in the caves, it took fewer than ten minutes before a man was prying open a metal door that led to a thin stairwell. It seemed like an endless amount of stairs. The confined s.p.a.ce quickly become stifling and hot.

“Scarlet-friend?”

Winter’s fragile voice set Scarlet on edge. Pausing, she glanced down the steps and saw the princess using the ancient rail on the wall to pull herself forward as much as her legs were pushing her. Her breathing was labored, and not from the climb.

“What’s wrong?”

“I am a girl made up of ice and snow,” whispered the princess. Her eyes unfocused.

Cursing, Scarlet scrambled around a group of soldiers to get to the princess. Everyone came to a stop, and Scarlet felt oddly touched at the concern she saw in a few of the soldiers’ eyes.

Leave it to Winter to make a bunch of s.a.d.i.s.tic, hot-headed predators get all swoony over her. Though Scarlet didn’t like to think that what she and Wolf had was built on Wolf’s animal instincts, she couldn’t help but wonder if the same sort of instincts were at play here. Now that they’d persuaded these men to join their cause, were they shifting away from predator-killers to predator-protectors? Perhaps they’d lived with violence and darkness for so long, a single crack in their armor was all it took to have them craving something more meaningful.

Or maybe it was just Winter, who could make a rock fall in love with her if she smiled at it the right way.

“Are you hallucinating?” Scarlet asked, pressing a hand to Winter’s brow, although she wasn’t sure what she was looking to find there. “You don’t feel cold. Can you walk? Are you still breathing?”

Winter’s gaze dropped downward. “My feet are encased in ice cubes.”

“Your feet are fine. Try to walk.”

With an absurd amount of effort, Winter hauled herself onto the next step. She paused again, gasping for breath.

Scarlet sighed. “Fine. You’re a girl of ice and snow. Can somebody help her?”

The nearest soldier took Winter’s wrist and pulled her arm across his shoulders, so she could use his body as a support to climb the stairs. Soon, he was carrying her.

They made it to the top, emerging into a steel holding tank that would have been used to keep in the artificial atmosphere while the domes were under construction. Then they were outside.

Or, as outside as one could ever be on Luna, which Scarlet felt was a sad representation.

“Is this supposed to be a forest?” she muttered, taking in the short, skinny trees in their perfect rows. Through the trunks in the distance she could see a vast area that had been recently cleared for timber, and to the other side, acres of young saplings.

Straight ahead, in the direct center of the dome, she could make out the shape of a water fountain, identical to the one from the mining sector, situated in a clearing among the trees. The gra.s.s looked untended around it.

Alpha Strom took the lead, heading away from the fountain and toward the residences on the perimeter. They could hear people. A lot of people. When they reached the main residential street, Scarlet saw dozens of civilians holding an a.s.sortment of weapons (mostly wooden sticks), standing in neat rows and being guided through a series of attack maneuvers. A barrel-chested, bearded man was walking through the rows, yelling things like, “Parry! Jab! There’s someone behind you!”

Even Scarlet’s untrained eye could see that the people’s movements were jerky and uncoordinated, and the people were a sad lot—most as gaunt and hungry looking as those in the mining sector. Still, it was heartening to know the people were heeding Cinder’s call.

Scarlet had the gut-wrenching thought that they could be sending these people to their deaths, but she shook it off.

A bewildered scream interrupted the training. They’d been spotted.

Scarlet and a hundred mutants emerged from the forest’s shadows. The scream turned into a dozen more and the rows broke apart, pulled back. But the people didn’t run. Instead, as Scarlet and the mountainous soldiers came nearer, the people lifted their weapons, trying to disguise their terror behind feigned courage. Or perhaps this was the truest courage there was.

The people had probably expected something like this. It would not be a surprise that Levana would punish them for this blatant show of rebellion. But a hundred soldiers must have been far beyond their expectations.

True to their word, the soldiers did not attack, just lumbered forward until they stood twenty paces from the first row of citizens.

Scarlet kept going, separating herself from the crowd.

“I know they’re scary looking,” she said, “but we’re not here to hurt you. We’re friends of Princess Selene’s. And you might recognize Her Highness, Princess Winter.”