Letting out a slow breath, she pried open her eyes again. How was she supposed to get a mid-crisis wolf operative, a blind man, and an elderly doctor past all those soldiers without getting anyone killed?
She doubted the girl would be much help. Cress didn’t strike Cinder as the bold, risk-taking type, and Cinder doubted she’d had much experience fighting her way out of situations like this.
She could abandon her friends and make a run for it herself. She could try to control Wolf and use him as a weapon, but even he couldn’t take on that many soldiers at once, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. She could try to brainwash the soldiers so they would let them pass, but she’d have to abandon Wolf if he didn’t come willingly.
Outside, the officer repeated his commands again and again, like a robot.
Squaring her shoulders, she returned to Wolf in the hallway. “Wolf,” she said, stooping beside him, “I need you to help me out here.”
He shifted enough to peer at her over his arm. His green eyes looked dull and faded.
“Wolf, please. We need to get to the ship, and there are a lot of people with guns out there. Come on—what would Scarlet want you to do?”
His fingers curled, nails digging into his thighs. Still, he said nothing, made no move to get up.
The officer’s voice boomed again. You are under arrest. Come out with your hands on your head. We have you surrounded.
“Fine. You leave me no choice.” Standing, she forced her shoulders to relax. The world shifted around her as she flipped off the panic and desperation and reached out instead for the energy crackling around Wolf.
Except this time it wasn’t crackling. Not like usual.
This time, it was like controlling a corpse.
* * *
They stepped into the doorway together.
At least sixty guns pointed at them that she could see—no doubt more hidden behind buildings and vehicles.
Jacin, Thorne, Dr. Erland, and Cress were all lying on the ground.
Two streets separated them from the ship.
She kept feeding lies to Wolf like medicine from a drip. Scarlet will be fine. We will find her. We will save her. But, first, we have to get out of this mess. We have to get to the ship.
From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers twitch, but she didn’t know whether he was acknowledging that there was still hope out there, or whether he was just ticked at her for using him like this. Turning him into a puppet, just like the thaumaturge that had turned him into a monster.
Standing on the hotel step, with sixty guns trained on her, Cinder realized she was no better than that thaumaturge. This really was war, and she really was in the middle of it.
If she had to make sacrifices, she would.
What did that make her, anyway? A real criminal? A real threat?
A real Lunar?
“Put your hands on your head and walk away from the building. Do not make any sudden movements. We are authorized to kill if necessary.”
Cinder coerced Wolf to stay beside her. They walked in unison. The dusty air clouded around them, sticking to her skin. A dull ache was spreading through her head, but it wasn’t anywhere near as difficult to control Wolf as it used to be. In fact, how easy it was made her sick. He wasn’t even trying to fight her.
“About time,” Thorne muttered as she passed.
“Cinder—save yourself,” hissed Dr. Erland.
She tried her best not to move her lips as she spoke. “Can you glamour them?”
“Stop right there!”
She obeyed.
“On your knees, now. Keep your hands up.”
“Only a few,” said Dr. Erland. “Maybe together…”
She shook her head. “I’ve got Wolf. On top of that … I can control one Earthen, maybe two.”
She clenched her teeth. Despite what the doctor had said, she couldn’t just save herself. It wasn’t only loyalty and friendship that made every fiber of her body rebel against the notion that she could abandon them all.
It was the knowledge that without them, she was useless. She needed them to stop the wedding and rescue Kai. She needed them to get her to Luna. She needed them to help her save the world.
“Jacin? Can you control any of them?”
“Yeah, right.” She could practically hear his eyes roll. “The only way through this is to fight.”
Thorne grunted. “In that case, has anyone seen my gun?”
“I’ve got it,” said Jacin.
“Can I have it back?”
“Nope.”
“I order you to stop talking!” the man bellowed. “I see any more lips move and that person gets a bullet in their head, understand? Get down!”
Cinder made a point to glare at the man as she took another step forward.
Like dominoes pushed over, she heard the unlatching of sixty safety mechanisms around her.
Cress whimpered. Thorne’s hand fumbled around until it was gripping hers.
“I have six tranquilizers,” Cinder said. “Let’s hope it’s enough.”
“It won’t be,” muttered Jacin.
“This is your last warning—”
Cinder tilted her chin up, fixing her gaze on the man. Beside her, Wolf lowered himself into a fighting position, his fingers curled and ready, all at Cinder’s urging. For the first time, she felt a spike of new emotion from him. Hatred, she thought. For her.
She ignored it.
“This is your first warning,” she said.
Holding Wolf at the ready, she pinpointed one of the Earthen soldiers who was standing at the front of the line and plucked out her willpower. The young woman swiveled and pointed her gun at the man who was evidently in charge. The woman’s eyes widened in shock as they took in her own rebellious hands.
Around her, six more soldiers changed targets, aiming at their own comrades, and Cinder knew they were under Dr. Erland’s control.
And that was all they had. Seven Earthen soldiers at their disposal. Jacin’s gun. Wolf’s fury.
It would be a bloodbath.
“Stand down and let us pass,” Cinder said, “and no one will get hurt.”
The man narrowed his eyes at her, making a point not to look at his own peer now holding him at gunpoint. “You can’t win this.”
“I didn’t say we could,” said Cinder. “But we can do a lot of damage trying.”
She opened the tip of her finger, loading a tranquilizer from the cartridge in her palm, just as a wave of dizziness crashed over her. Her strength was waning. She couldn’t hold on to Wolf much longer. If she dropped her control and he snapped again … she didn’t know what he would do. Become comatose all over again, or go on a rampage, or turn his anger on her and the rest of their friends?
Beside her, Wolf growled.
“Actually, we can win,” said a female voice.
Cinder tensed. There was a pulse in the air. A ripple of uncertainty. The man with the portscreen swiveled around as silhouettes began to emerge from around the buildings, creeping down alleyways, materializing in windows and doorways.
Men and women, young and old. Dressed in their tattered jeans and loose cotton shirts, their head scarves and cotton hats, their tennis shoes and boots.
Cinder gulped, recognizing almost all of them from her brief stay in Farafrah. Those who had brought her food. Those who had helped paint the ship. Those who had doodled cyborg designs on their bodies.
Her heart lifted for a moment, and then plummeted down into her gut.
This would not end well.
“This is a matter of international security,” said the man. “You are all ordered to return to your homes. Anyone who defies this order will be held in contempt of justice by the laws of the Earthen Union.”
“So hold us in contempt. After you let them pass.”
Cinder squinted into the glare of the sun, looking for the source of the voice. She spotted the woman from the medical shop. The Lunar whose son had killed himself rather than join Levana’s guard.