Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,21

pressed the barrel against his tattoo.

“My dad saw your tattoo, despite your attempts to keep him drugged up. I find it unlikely that there are two identical tattoos like this, and that you happen to show up in my life the same day my dad’s kidnappers let him go after a week of torturing him.”

His eyes momentarily cleared, but the look was followed by a deep frown, accentuating a pale scar on the side of his mouth. “Someone kidnapped your father … and your grandmother,” he said, slowly. “Someone with a tattoo like mine. But they let your father go today?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” she yelled. “Are you really going to try and convince me you had nothing to do with it?”

Wolf peered up toward the stage again and she tightened her grip on his wrist, but he made no move to walk away. “I’ve been at the Rieux Tavern every day for weeks. Any of the waitstaff can vouch for that. And I’ve been here every night. Anyone will tell you so.”

Scarlet scowled. “Sorry if the people around here don’t exactly seem like the trustworthy types.”

“They’re not,” he said. “But they do know me. Watch. You’ll see.”

He tried to slip around her but Scarlet turned with him, her hood slipping back. She dug her nails into his skin. “You’re not leaving until you—” She paused, looking past Wolf at the crowd by the platform.

Everyone was watching them, appreciative looks darting up and down Scarlet’s body.

A man on the platform was leaning against the ropes, smirking. He raised his eyebrows when he saw he’d caught Wolf’s and Scarlet’s attention. “Looks like the wolf has found himself a tender morsel tonight,” he said, his voice magnified by speakers somewhere overhead.

A second man stood on the stage behind him, leering at Scarlet. He was twice the size and a foot taller than the one who had spoken and entirely bald. His hair had been replaced with two rows of bear’s teeth implanted like gaping jaws into his scalp.

“Think I’ll be taking that one home after I’ve destroyed dog-boy’s pretty face!”

The audience laughed at the taunts, making cat calls and whistling to one another. Someone nearby asked Wolf if he was afraid to test his luck.

Unruffled, Wolf turned back to Scarlet. “He’s undefeated,” he said in an explanatory tone. “But so am I.”

Annoyed that he could think for a second she cared, Scarlet sucked in a furious breath. “I already commed the police and they’ll be here any minute. If you just tell me where my grandmother is, you can leave, you can even warn your friends if you want. I won’t shoot you and I won’t tell the police about you. Just—just tell me where she is. Please.”

He peered down at her, calm despite the growing rowdiness of the crowd. They’d started chanting something, the words muffled by the blood flowing through Scarlet’s ears. She thought for a second he was crumbling. He was going to tell her, and she would keep her word long enough to find her grandma and get her away from these monsters who had taken her.

Then she would have his head. Once her grandma was safe at home, she would track him down, and whoever else had helped him, and make them pay for what they’d done.

Perhaps he noticed the darkening bitterness on her face, because he reached for her hand and gently pried up her fingers. On gut instinct she dug the gun into his ribs, though she knew she wasn’t going to shoot. Not without answers.

He didn’t seem worried. Maybe he knew it too.

“I believe your father did see a tattoo like mine.” His head dipped toward her. “But it wasn’t me.”

He pulled away. Scarlet dropped her arm, letting the gun hang limp at her side, and watched the chanting crowd part for him. The onlookers were intimidated, but also amused. Most were smiling and jostling one another. Some were moving through the crowds, scanning wrists, collecting bids.

He may have been undefeated, but it seemed clear that most bets had been placed on his opponent.

She squeezed the gun until the textured metal of the handle left an imprint on her palm.

A tattoo like mine …

What had he meant by that?

He’d only been trying to confuse her, she determined as Wolf launched himself over the stage’s ropes, agile as an acrobat. The coincidence was too much.

No matter. She’d given him a chance, but the police would be here soon and take him into custody.