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.
Some of the soldiers diverted their guns, pivoting away from Cinder and aiming into the crowd, but the man with the amplifier held up an arm. “These people are wanted criminals! We do not wish to use lethal force to apprehend them, but we will if necessary. I urge you to stand down and return to your homes.”
His threat was followed by a standstill, though the few civilian faces Cinder could see didn’t appear frightened. Only determined.
“These people are our friends,” said the shopkeeper. “They came here seeking sanctuary, and we’re not going to let you come in and take them.”
What were they thinking? What could they possibly do? They may have outnumbered the soldiers, but they were unarmed and untrained. If they got in the way, they would be slaughtered.
“You’re not giving me a choice,” said the man, his knuckles tightening around the portscreen. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face.
The shopkeeper’s tone took on a new venom. “You have no idea what it’s like to not be given a choice.”
Her fingers twitched, a gesture virtually unnoticeable, but the effect passed like a shock wave through the crowd. Cinder flinched. Looking around, she saw that many of the townspeople looked suddenly strained, their brows furrowed, their limbs trembling.
And all around them, the soldiers began to shift. Redirecting their aim, as those controlled by Cinder and Dr. Erland had, until every soldier was targeting his own neighbor, until every soldier had a gun aimed at his own head.
Their stunned eyes filled first with disbelief, and then terror.
Only the leader was left standing in the middle, gaping at his own troop.
“That’s what it’s like,” said the woman. “To have your own body used against you. To know that your brain has become a traitor. We came to Earth to get away from that, but we’re all lost if Levana gets her way. Now, I don’t know if this young lady can stop her, but it seems she’s the only one worth putting any faith into right now, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
Cinder cried out suddenly, pain splitting her skull. Her hold on Wolf and the female soldier snapped. Her knees buckled, but there was an arm suddenly around her waist, holding her up.
Panting from the mental exertion, she peered up into Wolf’s face. His eyes were bright green again. Normal.
“Wolf…”
He peeled his gaze away, as a gun clattered to the ground. Cinder jumped. The woman she had been controlling was gaping around at her comrades, trembling. Not knowing where to look. Not knowing what to do. She nervously raised her hands in surrender.
Red with anger, the man with the portscreen lowered the amplifier. He faced Cinder again, his eyes filled with hatred. Then he tossed his portscreen to the ground.
Thorne swiveled his head from side to side. “Uh, could someone explain to me—”
“Later,” said Cinder, letting her weight sink against Wolf. “Get up. It’s time for us to go.”
“No arguments here,” said Thorne, as he and the others clambered to their feet. “But does someone think they could grab my escort-droid? I kind of went through a lot to get her, and—”
“Thorne.”
Cinder felt light-headed and weak as they weaved their way through the stalemate. It felt like walking through a maze of stone sculptures—stone sculptures who carried big guns and followed them with their eyes, writhing inside with fury and distrust. Cinder tried to meet the gazes of the townspeople, but many of them had their own eyes shut tight and were shaking from concentration. They couldn’t hold the soldiers forever.
Only the obvious Earthens met her look and nodded with scared, fleeting smiles. Not a fear of their Lunar neighbors, she thought, but a fear of what would happen if Levana took control of Earth. What would happen if Lunars ruled everything. What would happen if Cinder failed.
Jacin grabbed the escort-droid’s wrist and pulled her along after them.
“That woman was right,” Wolf said when they’d broken away from the crowd, and the Rampion—their freedom—rose up from the streets in front of them. “There’s nothing worse than your own body being used against you.”
Cinder stumbled, but Wolf caught her and dragged her a few steps before she found her balance again. “I’m sorry, Wolf. But I had to. I couldn’t leave you there.”
“I know. I understand.” Reaching out, he grabbed a sack out of the doctor’s hand, lessening his load as they hurried toward the ship. “But it doesn’t change the fact that no one should have that sort of power.”
Forty-Two
The Lunar boy couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and yet Scarlet was certain that she would wring his neck like a chicken if she ever got the chance. He was, without a doubt, the most horrible child that ever lived. She couldn’t help thinking that if all Lunar children were like this, their whole society was doomed and Cinder would be better off letting them destroy themselves.
Scarlet didn’t know how, exactly, she had ended up the property of Venerable Annotel and his wife and the little monster they’d raised. Maybe it was favoritism from the crown, or maybe they’d purchased her, like an Earthen family might purchase a new android. Either way, for seven days, she had been the new toy. The new pet. The new test subject.
Because at eight years old, young Master Charleson was learning how to control his Lunar gift. Evidently, Earthens were great fun to practice on, and Master Charleson had a very sick sense of humor.
Chained from a collar around her neck to a bolt in the floor, Scarlet was being kept in what she figured was the boy’s playroom. An enormous netscreen took up one wall and countless virtual reality machines and sports-tech had been abandoned in the corners, out of her reach.
His practice sessions were agony. Since she’d come to the Annotel household, Scarlet had had long-legged spiders crawl up her nose. Snakes as long as her arm wriggle their way through her belly button and wind their bodies around her spine. Centipedes burrow into her ear canals and creep around the inside of her skull before emerging on her tongue.
Scarlet had screamed. She had thrashed. She had gouged her own fingernails into her stomach and blown her nose until it bled in an effort to get the trespassers out.
And all the while, Master Charleson had laughed and laughed and laughed.
It was all in her head, of course. She knew that. She even knew it when she was roughly banging her head on the floor to try to knock out the spiders and centipedes. But it didn’t matter. Her body was convinced, her brain was convinced. Her rational mind was overcome.
She hated that little boy. Hated him.
She also hated that she was starting to be afraid of him.
“Charleson.”
His mother appeared in the doorway, temporarily rescuing Scarlet from his most recent infatuation—squinty-eyed ground moles, with their fat bodies and enormous reptilian claws. One had been gnawing at her toes while its talons shredded the sole of her foot.
The illusion and the pain vanished, but the horror lingered. The rawness of her throat. The damp salt on her face. Scarlet rolled onto her side, sobbing in the middle of the playroom floor, grateful that the boy couldn’t maintain the brainwashing while he was distracted.
Scarlet paid no heed to the conversation until Charleson began to yell, and she forced open her swollen eyes. The boy was throwing a tantrum. His mother was talking in a soothing voice, trying to appease him. Promising something. Charleson, it seemed, was not appeased. A minute later, he stomped out of the room and Scarlet heard a door slam.