Cress (13 page)

Sybil had succeeded. They were going to die.

Cress wrapped her body around Carswell Thorne and buried her face into his hair. At least he would be unconscious through it all. At least he didn’t have to be afraid.

Then, a shudder—a sensation different from the drop—and she heard the brisk sound of nylon ropes and hissing and there it was, the sudden jerk that seemed to pull them back up into the sky. She cried out and gripped Carswell Thorne tighter as her shoulder smacked into the underside of the bed.

The fall became a sinking, and Cress’s sobs turned to relief. She squeezed Thorne’s prone body and sobbed and hyperventilated and sobbed some more.

It took ages for the impact to come and when it did, the jolt knocked Cress into the bed again. The satellite crashed and slid, rolled over and tumbled. They were slipping down something solid, perhaps a hill or mountainside. Cress clenched her teeth against a scream and tried to protect Thorne with one arm while bracing them against the wall with the other. She’d expected water—so much of the Earth’s surface was water—not this solid something they’d hit. The spiraling descent finally halted with a crash that shook the walls around them.

Cress’s lungs burned with the effort to take in what air they could. Every muscle ached from adrenaline and the strain of bracing for impact and the battering her body had taken.

But in her head, the pain was nonexistent.

They were alive.

They were on Earth and they were alive.

A grateful, shocked cry fell out of her and she embraced Thorne, crying happily into the crook of his neck, but the joy receded when he did not hold her back. She’d almost forgotten the sight of him hitting his head on the bed’s frame, the way his body was thrown across the floor, how he’d slumped unnaturally in the corner and made no sound or movement as she’d hauled him beneath the bed.

She pried herself away from him. She was covered in sweat and her hair had tangled around them both, binding them almost as securely as Sybil’s knotted sheets had.

“Carswell?” she hissed. It was strange to say his name aloud, like she hadn’t yet earned the familiarity. She licked her lips and her voice cracked the second time. “Mr. Thorne?” Her fingers pressed against his throat. Relief—his heartbeat was strong. She hadn’t been sure during the fall whether he was breathing, but now with the world quiet and still, she could make out wheezing air coming from his mouth.

Maybe he had a concussion. Cress had read about people getting concussions when they hit their heads. She couldn’t remember what happened to them, but she knew it was bad.

“Wake up. Please. We’re alive. We made it.” She placed a palm on his cheek, surprised to find roughness there, nothing at all like her own smooth face.

Facial hair. It made sense, and yet somehow she’d never worked the sensation of prickly facial hair into her fantasies. She would amend that after this.

She shook her head, ashamed to be thinking of something like that when Carswell Thorne was hurt right before her and she couldn’t do any—

He twitched.

Cress gasped and attempted to cushion his head in case he jerked around too much. “Mr. Thorne? Wake up. We’re all right. Please wake up.”

A low, painful moan, and his breaths began to even out.

Cress pushed her hair out of her face. It fought against her, clinging to her sweat-dampened skin. Long strands of it were pinned beneath their bodies.

He groaned again.

“C-Carswell?”

His elbow lurched, like he was trying to lift his hand, but his wrists were still bound between them. His lashes fluttered. “Wha—huh?”

“It’s all right. I’m here. We’re safe.”

Thorne dragged his tongue around his lips, then shut his eyes again. “Thorne,” he grunted. “Most people call me Thorne. Or Captain.”

Her heart lifted. “Of course, Tho—Captain. Are you in pain?”

He shifted uncomfortably, discovering that his hands were still tied. “I feel like my brain’s about to leak out through my ears, but otherwise, I feel great.”

Cress inspected the back of his head with her fingers. There was no dampness, so at least he wasn’t bleeding. “You hit your head pretty hard.”

He grunted and tried to wriggle his hands out of the knotted blanket.

“Hold on, there was that knife…” She trailed off, scouring the clutter and debris around them.

“It fell off the bed,” said Thorne.

“Yes, I saw it … there!” She spotted the knife handle lodged beneath a fallen screen and went to grab for it, but her hair had gotten so wrapped up around her and Thorne that it yanked her back. She yelped and rubbed at her scalp.

He opened his eyes again, frowning. “I don’t remember being tied together before.”

“I’m sorry, my hair gets everywhere sometimes and … if you could just … here, roll this way.”

She grabbed his elbow and nudged him onto his side. With a scowl, he complied, allowing her enough movement to reach the knife handle.

“Are you sure it’s over—” Thorne started, but she had already draped herself over his side and was sawing through the blanket. “Oh. You have a good memory.”

“Hm?” she murmured, focused on the sharp blade. It frayed easily and Thorne sighed with relief as it fell away. He rubbed his wrists, then reached toward his head. When the tangles of Cress’s hair tried to hold him back, he tugged harder.

Cress yelped and crashed into Thorne’s chest. He didn’t seem to notice as his fingers found the back of his scalp. “Ow,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“This bump is going to last awhile. Here, feel this.”

“What?”

He fished around for her hand, then brought it to the back of his head. “I have a huge bump back here. No wonder I have such a headache.”

He did, indeed, have an impressive bump on his scalp, but Cress could think only of the softness of his hair and the way she was practically lying on top of him. She blushed.

“Yes. Right. You should probably, um…”

She had no idea what he should probably do.

Kiss her, she thought. Isn’t that what people did after they survived thrilling, near-death experiences together? She was sure it wasn’t an appropriate suggestion, but this close, it was all she could think about. She yearned to lean in closer, to press her nose into the fabric of his shirt and inhale deeply, but she didn’t want him thinking she was odd. Or guessing the truth, that this moment, filled with injuries and her destroyed satellite and being separated from his friends, was the most perfect moment of her entire life.

His brow creased and he picked at a lock of hair that had tightened around his bicep. “We need to do something about this hair.”

“Right. Right!” She shifted away, her scalp screaming as her hair was trapped beneath them. She started to untangle the strands, gently, one by one.

“Maybe it would help if we turned on the lights.”

She paused. “The lights?”

“Are they voice activated? If the computer system went down in the fall … spades, it must be the middle of the night. Is there a portscreen or something we can turn on, at least?”

Cress cocked her head. “I … I don’t understand.”

For the briefest moment, he seemed annoyed. “It would help if we could
see.
”

His eyes were open, but he was looking blankly past Cress’s shoulder. He pried away some strands of hair that had gotten twisted around his wrist, then waved his hand in front of his face. “This is the blackest night I’ve ever seen. We must be somewhere rural … is it a new moon tonight?” His scowl deepened, and she could tell he was trying to remember where Earth was in its moon cycle. “That doesn’t seem right. Must be really overcast.”

“Captain? It’s … it isn’t dark. I can see just fine.”

He frowned in confusion and, after a moment, worry. His jaw flexed. “Please tell me you’re practicing your sarcasm.”

“My sarcasm? Why would I do that?”

Shaking his head, he squeezed his eyes tight together. Opened them again. Blinked rapidly.

Cursed.

Pressing her lips, Cress held her fingers in front of him. Waved them back and forth. There was no reaction.

“What happened?” he said. “The last thing I remember is trying to get under the bed.”

“You hit your head on the bed frame, and I dragged you under here. And then we landed. A little rocky, but … that’s all. You just hit your head.”

“And that can cause
blindness
?”

“It might be some sort of brain trauma. Maybe it’s only temporary. Maybe … maybe you’re in shock?”

He settled his head on the floor. A heavy silence closed around them.

Cress chewed on her lip.

Finally, he spoke again, and his voice had taken on a determined edge. “We need to do something about this hair. Where did that knife go?”

Before she could question the logic behind giving a knife to a blind man, she had set it into his palm. Thorne reached behind her with his other hand and gathered a fistful of her hair. The touch sent a delicious tingle down her spine.

“Sorry, but it grows back,” he said, not sounding at all apologetic. He began sawing through the tangles, one handful at a time. Grab, cut, release. Cress held perfectly still. Not because she was afraid of being cut—the knife was steady in his hand, despite the blindness, and Thorne kept the blade angled carefully away from her neck. But because it was Thorne. It was
Captain Carswell Thorne,
running his hands through her hair, his rough jaw mere inches away from her lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.

By the time he was brushing feather-soft fingers along her neck, checking for any strands he’d missed, she was dizzy with euphoria.

He found a missed lock of hair by her left ear and cut it away. “I think that’s it.” He tucked the knife under his leg so he would know where to find it and buried his hands into the short, impossibly light hair, working out the remaining tangles. A satisfied grin stretched over his face. “Maybe a little jagged on the ends, but much better.”

Cress reached for the back of her neck, amazed at the sensation of bare skin, still damp from sweat, and short-cropped hair that had a subtle wave to it now that all the weight was gone. She scratched her fingernails along her scalp, riveted by the pleasure of such a foreign sensation. It felt as though twenty pounds had been cut from her head. Tightness was fading from muscles that she hadn’t even realized was there.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, brushing away the locks of hair that still clung to him.

“And I’m really sorry … about the blindness.”

“Not your fault.”

“It is kind of my fault. If I hadn’t asked you to come rescue me, and if I had—”

“It’s
not
your fault,” he said again, his tone cutting off her argument. “You sound like Cinder. She always blames herself for the stupidest things. The war is her fault. Scarlet’s grandmother is her fault. I bet she’d take responsibility for the plague too, if she could.”

Picking up the knife, he shimmied out from beneath the bed, pushing his arms out in a wide circle to nudge away any debris before pulling himself up onto the edge of the mattress. His progress was slow, like he didn’t trust himself to move more than a few inches at a time. Cress followed and stood up beside him, shuffling some of the debris around with her bare toes. One hand stayed buried in her hair.

“The point is, that witch tried to kill us, but we survived,” said Thorne. “And we’ll find a way to contact the Rampion, and they’ll come get us, and we’ll be
fine.
”

He said it like he was trying to convince himself, but Cress didn’t need any convincing. He was right. They were alive, and they were together, and they would be fine.

“I just need a moment to think,” said Thorne. “Figure out what we’re going to do.”

Cress nodded and rocked back on her heels. For a long time, Thorne seemed to be deep in thought, his hands clasped in his lap. After a minute, Cress realized they were shaking.

Finally, Thorne tilted his head toward her, though his unfocused eyes were on the wall. He took in a deep breath, let it out, then smiled.

“Let’s begin again, with some proper introductions. Did I hear your name was Crescent?”

“Just Cress, please.”

He extended a hand toward her. When she gave him hers, he tugged her closer, bent his head, and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. Cress stiffened and swooned, her knees threatening to buckle beneath her.

“Captain Carswell Thorne, at your service.”

Fourteen

Cinder followed the progression of the Rampion on her retina display, watching breathlessly as they entered Earth’s atmosphere over northern Africa and careened toward Farafrah, a small oasis that had once been a trading post for caravans traveling between the central African provinces and the Mediterranean Sea. It had fallen into poverty since the plague had first struck a decade ago, sending the trade caravans farther east.

She didn’t leave Wolf’s side. She dressed the wounds as well as she could using the bandages and ointments the guard had thrown down from the ship’s upper level. She had already had to change the bandages once, and still the blood soaked through. His face was pale and clammy, his heartbeat growing weaker, each breath a struggle.

Please, please, let Dr. Erland be there.

So far, the guard, at least, had proven trustworthy. He had flown straight and fast—very fast, to Cinder’s relief. It was a risk entering Earth’s orbit, but a necessary one. She only hoped this oasis would be the safe haven the doctor had believed it to be.

“Cinder,” said Iko, “the Lunar is asking where he should land.”

She shuddered. She’d been expecting the question. It would be safest, and most prudent, to land outside the town, out in the ruthless desert. But she could never carry Wolf and they didn’t have the luxury of being prudent.

“Tell him to land on the main road. On the map it looks like there’s only one—a town square of sorts. And tell him not to worry about being stealthy.”

If they couldn’t hide, then she would draw as much attention as possible. Maybe if they made enough of a spectacle it would draw Dr. Erland out from wherever he was hiding. She had to hope that any civilians would be so distracted by their brazenness, they wouldn’t bother alerting the police until it was too late.