Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,17
which of them was sick, but she quickly realized that neither of them could be. The androids would have taken them immediately. They wouldn’t be protecting their breath. The entire building would be on lockdown.
She noticed a small bandage on Adri’s elbow. They’d already been tested.
Cinder shifted her messenger bag, setting it on the ground, but kept the magbelt.
Adri cleared her throat and lowered the cloth to her sternum. She looked like a skeleton in the pale lighting, mealy skin and jutting bones. Without makeup, dark circles swelled beneath her bloodshot eyes. She’d been crying, but now her lips were set in a stiff line.
“I received a comm an hour ago,” she said once the silence had congealed in the room. “It informed me that Peony was picked up in the Taihang District junkyard and taken—” Her voice broke. She dropped her gaze, and when she looked up again, her eyes were flashing. “But you know that already, don’t you?”
Cinder shifted, trying not to look at the med-droids.
Without waiting for Cinder’s answer, Adri said, “Iko, you can begin disposing of Peony’s things. Anything she wore in the past week can go into waste collection—but take it to the alley yourself, I don’t want it clogging up the chutes. I suppose everything else can be sold at the market.” Her voice was sharp and steady, as if this list had been repeating in her head from the moment she’d received the news.
“Yes, Linh-ji,” said Iko, wheeling back into the hallway. Cinder stayed, frozen, both hands clutching the magbelt like a shield. Though the android was incapable of ignoring Adri’s commands, it was clear from her slowness that she didn’t want to leave Cinder alone so long as the med-droids were watching with their hollow yellow sensors.
“Why,” said Adri, wringing the washcloth, “was my youngest daughter at the Taihang District junkyard this evening?”
Cinder drew the magbelt against her, lining it up from shoulder to toe. Made of the same steel as her hand and equally tarnished, it felt like an extension of her. “She came with me to look for a magbelt.” She drew in a heavy breath. Her tongue felt swollen, her throat closing in. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I saw the spots, and I called the emergency hover. I didn’t know what to do.”
Tears puddled in Adri’s eyes, briefly, before she blinked them away. She dropped her head, staring down at the twisted cloth. Her body sagged against the mantel. “I wasn’t sure that you would come back here, Cinder. I expected to receive another comm at any minute, telling me that my ward had also been taken.” Adri pulled her shoulders back, lifting her gaze. The weakness passed, her dark eyes hardened. “These med-droids tested Pearl and myself. The plague has not yet spread to either of us.”
Cinder started to nod, relieved, but Adri continued. “Tell me, Cinder. If Pearl and I are not carrying the disease, where did Peony get it from?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But you did know about the outbreak in the market today.”
Cinder’s lips parted. Of course. The cloths. The med-droids. They thought she was infected.
“I don’t understand you, Cinder. How could you be so selfish?”
She jerked her head, no. “They tested me too, at the junkyard. I don’t have it. I don’t know where she got it from.” She held out her arm, showing the bruise blooming on her inner elbow. “They can check again if they want to.”
One of the med-droids showed its first sign of life, shining the light at the small red spot where the needle had pricked her. But they didn’t move, and Adri didn’t encourage them. Instead, she turned her attention to a small framed portscreen on the mantel, shuffling through pictures of Pearl and Peony in their childhood. Pictures at their old house, the one with the garden. Pictures with Adri, before she’d lost her smile. Pictures with their father.
“I’m so sorry,” said Cinder. “I love her too.”
Adri squeezed the frame. “Don’t insult me,” she said, sliding the frame closer to her. “Do your kind even know what love is? Can you feel anything at all, or is it just…programmed?”
She was talking to herself, but the words stung. Cinder risked a glance at Pearl, who was still sitting on the sofa with her face half-hidden behind her knees, but she was no longer holding the washcloth to her face. When she saw Cinder looking at her, she turned her gaze to the floor.