Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,36
bright with astonishment. Cinder was amazed at how quickly her emotions switched from bitter to relieved. For a time, she’d thought she would never see Iko again.
The momentary joy faded when Adri bustled into the hallway behind her. “Cinder, stop.”
Though tempted to ignore her, Cinder did stop and turn back to face her guardian.
They stared at each other, Adri’s jaw working as she stumbled over her surprise. She looked old. Years older than she had before.
“I will be contacting the research facility to check your story and make sure you aren’t lying about this,” she said. “If you did something…if you ruined this one chance I had to help my daughter—” The anger in Adri’s voice broke, then rose into shrill yelling. Cinder could hear her burying tears beneath her words. “You cannot be that useless!” She pulled her shoulders back, gripping the doorjamb.
“What else do you want me to do?” Cinder yelled back, flailing her hands. “Fine, contact the researchers! I didn’t do anything wrong. I went there, they ran some tests, and they didn’t want me. I’m so sorry if they didn’t ship me home in a cardboard box, if that’s what you were hoping for.”
Adri pulled her lips taut. “Your position in this household has not changed, and I do not appreciate being spoken to in such a disrespectful manner by the orphan that I accepted into my home.”
“Really?” said Cinder. “Would you like me to list all the things I didn’t appreciate being done to me today? I’ve had needles poked at me and prongs stuck in my head and poisonous microbes—” She caught herself, not wanting Adri to know the truth. Her true value. “Honestly, I don’t care so much what you do and don’t appreciate right now. You’re the one who betrayed me, when I’ve never done anything to you.”
“That is enough. You know very well what you’ve done to me. To this family.”
“Garan’s death wasn’t my fault.” She turned her head away, angry white spots flecking in her vision.
“Fine,” said Adri, her voice losing none of its superiority. “So you’ve returned. Welcome home, Cinder. But so long as you continue to live in my home, you will continue to obey my orders. Do you understand?”
Cinder planted her cyborg hand against the wall, fingers splayed out, grounding herself. “Obey your orders. Right. Like, ‘Do the chores, Cinder. Get a job so I can pay my bills, Cinder. Go play lab rat for these deranged scientists, Cinder.’ Yes, I understand you perfectly.” She glanced back over her shoulder, but Iko had ducked back into the kitchen. “As I’m sure you will understand that I just lost half a day of perfectly good work hours, and I’d better borrow your Serv9.2 to get caught up. You don’t mind, do you?” Without waiting for a response, she stormed back to her closet of a bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
She stood with her back against the door until the warning text on her retina had gone away and her hands stopped shaking. When she opened her eyes, she found that the old netscreen, the one Adri had shoved off the wall, had been heaped on the pile of blankets she called a bed. Bits of plastic had spilled over onto her pillow.
She hadn’t noticed if Adri had already bought them a new one or if the living room wall was empty.
Sighing, she changed her clothes, eager to be rid of the smell of antiseptic that lingered on them. She shoved the spare plastic pieces into her toolbox and tucked the screen beneath one arm before venturing back out into the apartment. Iko hadn’t moved, half-hidden in the kitchen doorway. Cinder cocked her head toward the front of the apartment, and the android followed.
She did not look into the living room as she passed, but she thought she heard the strangled sound of Prince Kai dying from Pearl’s game.
They had barely stepped out into the main corridor—fairly quiet for once with the neighbor children off at school—when Iko wrapped her gangly arms around Cinder’s legs. “How is this possible? I was sure you’d be killed. What happened?”
Cinder handed the toolbox to the robot and headed for the elevators. “I’ll tell you everything, but we have work to do.” She waited until they were alone and on their way to the basement before filling Iko in on all that had happened, leaving out only the part about Prince Kai coming in and finding her unconscious on the floor.