She stoked the fire. The sparks flew into Scarlet’s eyes, stinging, and she woke up with wetness on her cheeks, her fingers like ice. For a long time she couldn’t sort out what was a dream and what was a memory. Snow, but not so much snow. Her grandmother wanting to send her away, but not when she was a child. A teenager. Thirteen.
Had it been January, or later still in the winter? She struggled to piece together thawing memories. She’d been sent out to milk the cow, a chore she’d despised, and her hands were so numb she was afraid she would squeeze the udders too tight.
Why hadn’t she been in school that day? Was it a weekend? A vacation?
Oh—right. She’d been visiting her father, just come back the day before. She was supposed to stay with him for a full month, but she couldn’t stand it. The drinking, the coming back to the apartment in the middle of the night. Scarlet had taken the train home without telling anyone, surprising her grandmother with her arrival. Rather than happy to see her, her grandmother had been angry that Scarlet hadn’t commed to tell her what was happening. They’d had a fight. Scarlet was still mad at her, milking the cow, fingers freezing.
It was the last time she’d ridden the maglev. The last time she’d seen her father.
She remembered hurrying through her chores, desperate to be finished with them so she could go inside and get warm. It wasn’t until she was rushing back to the house that she saw the hover out front. She’d seen plenty hovers when she lived in the city, but they were rare out in the country, where the farmers preferred larger, faster ships.
She’d sneaked in through the back door and heard her grandmother in the kitchen, and a man, their voices muffled. She inched her way around the staircase, her feet silent on the terra-cotta tiles.
“I can’t imagine what a burden she’s been for you all these years,” said the man in an eastern accent.
Scarlet frowned, sensing the kitchen’s warmth upon her cheeks as she peered through the cracked door. He was at the table, a mug in his hands. He had silk-black hair and a long face. Scarlet had never seen him before.
“She hasn’t been as much trouble as I expected her to be,” said her grandmother, who she couldn’t see. “I’ve almost grown attached to her after all these years. But I must say, I’ll be glad when she’s gone. No more panicking each time an unfamiliar ship flies by.”
Scarlet’s throat constricted.
“You said she’d be ready to go in a week’s time? Can that be so?”
“Logan seems to think so. This device of yours is all we were waiting for. If the procedure goes smoothly it could even be sooner. But you’ll have to be patient with her. She’ll be quite weak, and more than a little bewildered.”
“Understandably so. I can’t imagine what this must be like for her.”
Scarlet clamped a palm over her mouth to smother her breathing.
“You have accommodations set up?”
“Yes, we’re quite prepared. It will take some getting used to for us as well, but I’m sure it will all work out once she’s settled in. I have two girls of my own about her age—twelve and nine. I’m sure they’ll adore each other, and I will treat her as if she were my own.”
“And what about Madame Linh? Is she prepared?”
“Prepared?” The man chuckled, but the sound was rough and uncomfortable. “She could not have been more astounded when I brought up the idea of adopting a third girl, but she’s a good mother. I’m sorry she wasn’t able to come with me, but I wanted to draw as little attention to this trip as possible. Of course, she doesn’t know about the girl. Not … everything.”
Scarlet must have made a sound, because the man suddenly looked up and saw her. He stiffened.
Her grandmother’s chair scratched against the floor and the door swung open. She was furious. Scarlet was furious right back at her.
“Scarlet, you know better than to eavesdrop. Go to your room!”
She wanted to scream, to stomp, to tell her that she couldn’t just send her away like she was nothing, not again—but the words wouldn’t come. They were choked off at the base of her tongue.
So she did as she was told, her feet pounding up the stairs and into her room before her grandma could see the tears.
It wasn’t only realizing that she wasn’t wanted, or that she could be passed off to any stranger that came for her. It was that, after six long years, she’d just begun to feel like she belonged. Like maybe her grandma loved her—more than her mother had, more than her father. Like maybe the two of them were a team.
After that morning, she’d lived in fear for a week. Two weeks. A month.
But the man never came for her, and she and her grandmother never spoke of it again.
“Scarlet?”
The tightening of Wolf’s arm around her waist dragged Scarlet back into the present, into a train car that was slowing down around her. She was curled up like a child with her back against him, and though her eyes were squeezed shut, a few hot tears had escaped, rolled over the bridge of her nose, dripped across her temples. She hastily brushed them away.
Wolf stirred and propped himself up behind her. “Scarlet?” His tone was nervous.