Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,115

wall with such force that the netscreen shook and threatened to crash to the floor. Cinder gasped, clamping both hands over Wolf’s wrist as he held her suspended by her throat, feet dangling off the ground. The warnings on her retina display were instantaneous—rising pulse and adrenaline and temperature and irregular breathing and—

“You think I want that?” he growled. “For them to keep her, alive? You don’t know what they’ll do to her—but I do.” In another instant, the fury softened, buried beneath terror and misery. “Scarlet…”

He released her and Cinder collapsed to the ground, rubbing her neck. Over the tumult in her thoughts, she heard Wolf turn and run, his footsteps crashing across the floor, down the hallway toward Dr. Erland’s room.

When they stopped, there was a short silence that filled up the entire hotel. And then howling.

Horrible, painful, wretched howling that sank into Cinder’s bones and made her stomach turn.

“Wonderful,” Dr. Erland drawled. “I’m glad to see you were so much more prepared this time.”

Hissing around the pain, Cinder used the wall to pull herself to her feet, and glanced around at her friends, her allies. Cress was still hiding behind Thorne, her eyes now wide with shock. Jacin was fingering the handle of his knife. Dr. Erland, with his messy gray hair and glasses perched at the end of his nose, could not have looked any less impressed.

“You all go ahead,” she said. Her throat stung. “Load up the ship. Make sure Iko is ready to go.”

Another long, heartbreaking howl shook the hotel, and Cinder steadied herself as well as she could. “I’ll get Wolf.”

Forty-One

Cress followed the guard down the hotel steps. Thorne was behind her, one hand on her shoulder and the other gripping his cane. She warned him about the last step as she turned down the dark hallway. Dr. Erland was in the back, already wheezing with the exertion of carrying his prized lab equipment down the stairs.

It was difficult for Cress to focus. She wasn’t even sure where they were going. The ship, did Cinder say? At the time, Cress had been filled with horror at seeing the Lunar operative snap. His howls were still bouncing off her eardrums.

The guard shoved open the hotel door and they all scrambled down onto the rough, sand-covered road. Two steps later, he froze, thrusting his arms out to catch Cress, Thorne, and the doctor as they crashed into him.

Whimpering, Cress shriveled against Thorne and scanned the road.

Dozens of men and women dressed in the official uniform of the Commonwealth military had them surrounded, with guns raised. They filled up the roads and the spaces between buildings, peered down from rooftops and around rust-covered podships.

“Cress?” Thorne whispered, as tension prickled on the stifling air.

“Military,” she murmured. “A lot of them.” Her gaze landed on a girl with blue hair, and instant hatred blossomed inside her chest. “What is she doing here?”

“What? Who?”

“That—that girl from the last town.”

Thorne tilted his head. “That’s Darla. The escort-droid? Why are you and Cinder so confused about this?”

Her eyes widened. She was an escort-droid?

The girl was watching them without emotion, sandwiched between two soldiers with her hands hanging limp at her sides. “I am sorry, Master,” she said, her voice carrying through the silence. “I would have warned you, but that would be illegal, and my programming prevents me from breaking human laws.”

“Yeah, that’s going to be the first thing we fix,” said Thorne, before whispering to Cress, “I had to find one heck of a legal loophole to get her to help me steal that car.”

A voice boomed and it took Cress a moment to spot the man holding a portscreen and amplifier to his mouth. “You are all under arrest for the harboring and assisting of wanted fugitives. Get down on your stomachs and put your hands on your heads and no one will be hurt.”

Trembling, Cress waited to see what the guard would do. The gun he’d taken from Thorne was still tucked into his belt, but his hands were full of the doctor’s stuff.

“We have you surrounded,” the man continued, when no one moved. “There is nowhere to run. Get down, now.”

The guard moved first, lowering himself to his knees and setting down the bag of medical supplies and the strange machine, before settling into the dirt.

Gulping, Cress followed suit, sinking down to the hard ground. Thorne dropped down beside her.

“Stars above,” she heard the doctor moan, grumbling as he joined them on the ground. “I’m too old