Dmitri Erland.
The Lunar doctor who had been on the letumosis research team. The doctor who had helped Cinder escape from prison. The doctor who was, perhaps, the second most-wanted fugitive on Earth, even more so than Thorne.
She knew it was him even before she’d pulled up his picture. This was why the old man had struck her as familiar. She had seen him before.
But … wasn’t he supposed to be on their side?
She was so engrossed with her unanswered questions that she didn’t hear the subtle creaking of the bed until a hand grabbed her.
Thirty-Nine
Cress squeaked as she was spun around. She found herself staring into a face that was both handsome and murderous, his eyes glowing in the light of the netscreen.
“Who are you?”
Her instinct was to scream, but she smothered it, choking off the noise until it was little more than a whimper. “I-I’m sorry for intruding,” she said. “I needed a netscreen. M-my friend is in danger and I needed to send a comm and—I’m so sorry, I promise I didn’t steal anything. P-please don’t call for the doctor. Please.”
He seemed to have stopped listening to her, instead sending his steely gaze around the room. He released her arm, but remained tense and defensive. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he had bandages around his torso that covered him almost as much as a shirt would have. “Where are we? What happened?” His words were staggered and slurred.
He grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut, and when he opened them again it seemed that he couldn’t quite focus on anything.
That’s when Cress’s attention caught on something more terrifying than his faded scars and intimidating muscles.
He had a tattoo on his arm. It was too dark to read it, but Cress knew instantly what it was. She’d seen them in countless videos and photographs and documentaries hastily cobbled together. He was a Lunar special operative. One of the queen’s mutants.
Visions of men digging their claws into their victims’ chests, locking their jaws around exposed throats, howling at the moon, curled and crawled through her head.
This time, she couldn’t temper the instinct. She screamed.
He grabbed her and forced her jaw shut with his enormous hands. She sobbed, trembling. She was about to die. Her body would pose no more resistance to him than a twig.
He snarled and she could make out the sharp points of his teeth.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” he said, his breath hot on her face. “You turned me into this, and I will kill you before I become another experiment. Do you understand me?”
Tears began to work their way out of her lashes. Her jaw was aching where he held her, but she was more afraid of what would happen when he let go. Did he think she worked for the doctor? Could it be that he was just one more victim sold off to the old man? He was Lunar, so they had that much in common. If she could convince him that they were allies, maybe she could get away long enough to run. But could these monsters even be reasoned with?
“Do you understand me?”
Her lashes fluttered, and the door behind him opened.
His moves were fast and fluid and Cress’s head spun as the man turned and pulled her in front of him, plastering her against his chest. He stumbled, as if the sudden movement had made him dizzy, but caught himself as light spilled into the room. A silhouette stood in the doorway—not the old man, but a guard. A Lunar guard.
Cress’s eyes widened with recognition. Sybil’s guard. The pilot in Sybil’s podship, who could have saved her but didn’t.
The wolf operative hissed. Cress would have collapsed if his grip hadn’t been so firm.
Sybil had found her. Sybil was here.
Her tears began to spill over. She was trapped. She was dead.
“Take one step and I’ll snap her neck!”
The guard said nothing. Cress wasn’t sure he’d even heard the threat. His eyebrows were raised as he surveyed the scene, and he seemed to recognize her. But rather than look victorious, he seemed merely stunned.
“What have—Scarlet?” The words were almost incomprehensible beneath a growl. “Where’s Scarlet?”
“Aren’t you that hacker?” said the guard, still staring at Cress.
The operative’s grip tightened. “You have five seconds to tell me where she is, or this girl is dead, and you’re next.”
“I’m not with them,” Cress choked. “He-he doesn’t care about me.”
The guard raised his hands in a placating gesture. Cress wondered where Mistress Sybil was.
When the operative’s hold didn’t loosen, it occurred to her that both of these men worked for the Lunar queen. Why would they be threatening each other?
“Just relax,” said the guard. “Let me get Cinder or the doctor. They can explain.”
The operative flinched. “Cinder?”
“She’s out in the ship.” His gaze dipped again to Cress. “Where did you come from?”
She gulped, her head ringing with the same question the operative had posed.
Cinder?
“What is going on here?”
She shuddered at the doctor’s voice, stronger than it had been during his negotiations with Jina. Then footsteps. The guard stepped aside to let the doctor into the room, still dark but for the corridor light. Cress couldn’t help but feel a sting of pride to see that she’d left a mark on his jaw.
Though lots of good her newfound courage had done her in the end.
The doctor froze and took in the scene. “Oh, stars,” he muttered. “Of all the bad timings…”
Though the sight of him reignited Cress’s hatred, she also remembered that this was not just some cruel old man who traded for Lunar slaves. This was the man who had helped Cinder escape.
Her head spun.
“Let her go,” said the doctor, speaking gently. “We are not your enemies. That girl is not your enemy. Please, allow me to explain.”
Wolf pulled an arm away from her, dragging a hand down his face. He swayed for a moment before recovering his balance. “I’ve been here before,” he muttered. “Cinder … Africa?”
Loud thumping on the distant staircase intruded on his confusion. Then there was yelling and Cress thought she heard her name, and the voice—
“Cress!”
She cried out, forgetting about the vise-like grip around her, except that it kept her from launching herself toward him. “Captain!”
“CRESS!”
The doctor and the guard both spun around as the footsteps barreled down the hall and they all watched as Captain Thorne, blindfolded, ran right past the door.
“Captain! I’m in here!”
The footsteps stopped and reversed and he ran back until his cane smacked the door frame. He froze, panting, one hand braced on the jamb. He had a furious bruise across one side of his face, though it was largely hidden by the bandanna. “Cress? Are you all right?”
Her relief didn’t last. “Captain! To your left there’s a Lunar guard and on your right is a doctor who’s running tests on Lunars and I’m being held by one of Levana’s wolf hybrids and please be careful!”
Thorne took a step back into the hallway and pulled a gun from his waistband. He spent a moment swiveling the barrel of the gun in each direction, but nobody moved to attack him.
With some surprise, Cress realized that the operative’s grip had weakened.
“Er…” Thorne furrowed his brow, aiming the gun somewhere near the window. “Could you describe all those threats again because I feel like I missed something.”
“Thorne?”
He pointed the gun toward Wolf, and Cress between them. “Who said that? Who are you? Have you hurt her? Because I swear if you hurt her—”
The Lunar guard reached forward and plucked the gun out of his hand.
“Hey!” Furious, Thorne raised his cane, but the guard easily blocked the blow with his forearm, then took the cane away too. Thorne raised his fists.
“That’s enough!” yelled the doctor. “No one is hurt and no one is going to get hurt!”
Snarling, Thorne turned to face him. “That’s what you think, wolf man … doctor … wait, Cress, which one is this?”
“I am Dr. Dmitri Erland and I am a friend of Linh Cinder’s. You might know me as the man who helped her escape from New Beijing Prison.”