Cinder’s stomach heaved once before she shut her eyes, tempering the revulsion. She swallowed hard and dared to look at the screen again.
It was the photo of a child.
What was left of a child.
She was wrapped in bandages from her neck to the stump of her left thigh. Her right arm and shoulder were uncovered, showing the skin that was gouged bloody red in spots, bright pink and glossy in others. She had no hair and the burn marks continued up her neck and across her cheek. The left side of her face was swollen and disfigured, only the slit of her eye could be seen, and a line of stitches ran along her earlobe before cutting across to her lips.
Cinder raised trembling fingers to her mouth, smoothing them over the skin. There was no scar, no sign of these wounds. Only some scar tissue around her thigh and wrist, where the prostheses had been attached.
How had they fixed her? How could they possibly fix this?
But it was Thorne who asked the true question.
“Who would do this to a child?”
Goose bumps covered Cinder’s skin. There was no memory of the suffering those burns must have caused her. She couldn’t connect the child with herself.
But Thorne’s question lingered, haunting the cold room.
Queen Levana had done this.
To a child, barely more than a baby.
To her own niece.
And all so she could rule. So she could claim the throne. So she would be queen.
Cinder clenched her fists at her sides, her blood boiling. Thorne was watching her, his expression equally dark.
“We should go talk to Michelle Benoit,” he said, setting down the scalpel.
Cinder blew a strand of hair out of her face. The ghost of her child self lingered in the air here, a victim struggling to stay alive. How many people had helped rescue and protect her, had kept her secrets? How many had risked their lives because they believed hers was worth more? Because they believed she could grow into someone powerful enough to stop Levana.
Nerves scratching at her stomach, she followed Thorne back up into the hanger, making sure to close the hidden door behind them.
As they walked back into the daylight, the house still towered eerily still and silent above a small garden. The Rampion stood enormous and out of place in the fields.
Thorne checked his portscreen, and his voice was tight when he spoke. “She hasn’t moved since we got here.”
He didn’t try to hide his stomping footsteps across the gravel. He pounded on the front door, every strike bouncing around the courtyard. They waited for the telltale footsteps within, but only the sound of chickens scratching in the yard greeted them.
Thorne checked the knob and the door swung open, unlocked.
Stepping into the foyer, Thorne peered up the wood-paneled stairway. To their right was a living room, filled with rugged furniture. To their left a kitchen with a couple dirty plates left at the table. All the lights were off.
“Hello?” Thorne called. “Miss Benoit?”
Cinder called up a netlink and traced the signal to Michelle Benoit’s ID chip. “The signal is coming from upstairs,” she whispered. The stairs groaned beneath the weight of her metal leg. Small screens lined the wall, alternating pictures of a middle-aged woman in a pilot uniform and a girl with flaming red hair. Though chubby and covered in freckles as a child, later pictures showed her quite stunning, and Thorne gave a low “Hello, Scarlet” as they passed.
“Miss Benoit?” Cinder called again. Either the woman was a very deep sleeper, or they were about to stumble across something that Cinder was sure she didn’t want to see. Her hand shook as she pushed open the first door off the stairs, preparing herself not to scream if she spotted a decaying body sprawled across the bed.
But there was no body.
The room was in upheaval just as the hangar had been. Clothes and shoes, trinkets and blankets, but no human being. No corpse.
“Hello?”
Glancing around the room, Cinder spotted the vanity beside the window and her heart fell. She paced to it and picked up the small chip and held it up for Thorne to see.