Cress (35 page)

His eyebrows were bunched together, and his mouth tightly pursed. He kept rapidly blinking behind his glasses, like trying to clear away an eyelash, until his gaze fell away from her altogether. There was pity in him. She knew it—she knew this was sympathy he was trying to disguise.

“Please,” she sobbed. “Please let me go. I’m just a shell, and I’m stranded here on Earth, and I haven’t done anything to anyone, and I’m nobody. I’m nobody. Please, just let me go.”

He did not meet her eyes again, even as he stepped forward. She tensed, trying to back away, but Niels held her firm. The doctor’s touch felt papery, but his grip was strong as he took her wrist in one hand.

“Try to relax,” he murmured.

She flinched as the needle dug into her flesh, the same spot where Sybil had taken blood a hundred times. She bit hard on the inside of her cheek, refusing to so much as whimper.

“That was all. Not so awful, was it?” His tone was eerily soft, like he was trying to comfort her.

She felt like a bird who’d had her wings clipped and been thrown into a cage—another filthy, rotting cage.

She’d been in a cage all her life. Somehow, she’d never expected to find one just as awful on Earth.

Earth,
she reminded herself as the doctor plodded back across the groaning floorboards. She was on Earth. Not trapped in a satellite in space. There was a way out of this. Freedom was just out that window, or just down those stairs. She would not be a prisoner again.

The doctor fit the syringe full of her blood into a machine and flipped on a portscreen.

“There now, I will transfer over the funds, and you can be on your way.”

“You’re using a secure connection?” Jina asked, taking a step forward as the doctor tapped in some sort of code word. Cress squinted, watching where his fingers landed, in case she would later need it. It could save time not having to hack it.

“Trust me, Jina, I have more reason than you to keep my transactions hidden from prying eyes.” He studied something on the screen, before saying, more solemnly, “Thank you for bringing her.”

Jina scowled at his balding head. “I hope you’re killing all these Lunars when you’re done with them. We have enough problems with the plague. We don’t need them too.”

His blue eyes flashed and Cress detected a hint of disdain for Jina, but he covered it over with another benign look. “The payment has been transferred. If you would untie the girl before you go.”

Cress kept still as the bindings were taken off her wrists. She whipped her hands away as soon as they were gone and scurried against the nearest wall.

“Lovely doing business with you again,” Jina said. The doctor merely grunted. He was watching Cress from the corner of his eye, trying to stare at her without being obvious.

And then the door closed and Jina and Niels were gone. Cress listened to their feet clopping down the hallway, the only noise in the building.

The doctor rubbed his palms down the front of his shirt, like cleansing them of Jina’s presence. Cress didn’t think he could feel half as filthy as she did, but she stayed as still as the wall, glaring.

“Yes, well,” he said. “It is more awkward with shells, you know. Not so easy to explain.”

She snarled. “You mean, not so easy to brainwash.”

He tilted his head, and the odd look had returned. The one that made her feel like a science experiment under a microscope. “You know that I’m Lunar.”

She didn’t answer.

“I understand you’re frightened. I can’t imagine what sort of mistreatment Jina and her hooligans put you through. But I am not going to hurt you. In fact, I’m doing great things here, things that will change the world, and you can help me.” He paused. “What is your name, child?”

She didn’t answer.

When he moved closer, his hands extended in a show of peace, Cress shoved all her fear down into her gut and used the wall to launch herself at him.

A roar clawed up from her throat and she swung her elbow, as hard as she could, landing a solid hit against his jaw. She heard the snap of his teeth, felt the shock in her bones, and then he was falling backward and landing so hard on the wooden floor that the entire building shook around them.

She didn’t check to see if he was unconscious, or if she’d given him a heart attack, or if he was in any shape to get up and follow her.

She wrenched open the door and ran.

Thirty-Seven

Dr. Erland woke up on the floor of a hot, dusty hotel room, unable for a moment to remember where he was.

This was not the laboratories beside New Beijing Palace, where he’d watched cyborg after cyborg break into red and purple rashes. Where he’d seen the life drain out of their eyes, and cursed the sacrifice of another life, while plotting the next step in his hunt for the only cyborg that mattered.

This was not the labs of Luna, where he’d studied and researched with a singular drive for recognition. Where he’d seen monsters born at the end of his surgical tools. Where he’d watched the brainwaves of young men take on the chaotic, savage patterns of wild animals.

He was not Dr. Dmitri Erland, as he’d been in New Beijing.

He was not Dr. Sage Darnel, as he’d been on Luna.

Or perhaps he was—he couldn’t think, couldn’t remember … didn’t care.

His thoughts kept turning away from himself and his two hateful identities, and swarming back to his wife’s heart-shaped face and honey-blonde hair that became frizzy whenever the ecology department was injecting new humidity into Luna’s controlled atmosphere.

His thoughts were on a screaming baby, four days old and confirmed a shell, as his wife dropped her into the hands of Thaumaturge Mira, with all the coldness and disgust she would have shown a rodent.

The last time he’d seen his little Crescent Moon.

He watched the whirling ceiling fan that did nothing to dispel the desert heat and wondered why, after all these years, his hallucinations had chosen this time to torture him.

This shell girl did not
really
have his wife’s freckles or blonde hair. This shell girl did not have his unfortunate height or his own blue eyes. This shell girl was not his daughter, returned from the dead to haunt him. The illusion was all in his mind.

Perhaps it was fitting. He’d done so many horrible things. The recent attack against Earth was only the culmination of years of his own efforts. It was through his own research that Queen Channary had begun developing her army of wolf hybrids, and through his experiments that Levana was able to see it to its bloody finale.

And then there were all those he’d hurt to find Selene and end Levana’s reign. All those he’d murdered to find Linh Cinder.

He’d been too optimistic to think he could repay those debts now. He’d tried hard to duplicate the antidote Levana had given to Emperor Kaito. He’d had to try, and for his pains—more sacrifices. More blood samples. More experiments, though now he was forced to find true volunteers, when the traffickers couldn’t bring him new blood on their own.

He had discovered, back in New Beijing when he’d studied the antidote brought by Queen Levana, that Lunar shells held the secret. The same genetic mutation that made them immune to the Lunar tampering of bioelectricity could be used to create antibodies that would fight off and defeat the disease.

And so he’d begun gathering shells and their blood and their DNA. Using them, just as he’d used the young men who would become mindless soldiers for the queen. Just as he’d used the cyborgs who were too often unwilling candidates of the letumosis experimentation.

Of course his brain would do this to him. Of course his insanity would reach such a depth that the hallucinations would return to him the only thing he had ever cared for, and they would twist reality so that she became just another one of his victims.

Just another person bought and discarded.

Just another blood sample.

Just another lab rat who hated him.

His little Crescent Moon.

Over his head, his portscreen dinged on his laboratory shelf.

It took more energy than he thought he had to pull himself to his feet, groaning as he used the age-polished bedpost for leverage.

He took his time, avoiding the truth, partly because he didn’t know what he wanted the truth to be. A hallucination he could deal with. He could write it off and continue with his work.

But if it was her …

He could not lose her one more time.

He passed the open closet and pushed aside the window blinds, glancing out onto the street. He could see the curve of the ship two streets away, reflecting the sunlight as dusk set in. He should get this over with before Cinder came to check on her Wolf friend. He had not had any subjects sold to him since she’d been here, and he did not think she would understand. She had such a tough time understanding the sacrifices that had to be made for the good of all. She, who should understand better than anyone.

Sighing, he paced back to the small lab setup and the girl’s blood sample. He picked up the portscreen and clicked on the report generated from the test. He felt woozy as he scanned the data culled from her DNA.

Lunar.

Shell.

H
EIGHT
,
FULLY
GROWN
: 153.48
CENTIMETERS

M
ARTIN
-S
CHULTZ
SCALE
IRIS
PIGMENTATION
: 3

M
ELANIN
PRODUCTION
: 28/100,
WITH
LOCALIZED
CONCENTRATED
MELANIN
TO
FACE
/
EPHELIS

Her physical statistics were followed by a list of potential diseases and genetic weaknesses, with suggestions for treatments and preventions.

It did not tell him what he needed to know until he steeled himself and linked her chart to his own, a chart that he had practically memorized for as many times as he had taken his own blood for experimentation.

He sat down on the edge of the bed while the computer ran through the charts, comparing and contrasting more than 40,000 genes.

He found himself hoping that the hallucination was true and she was not his daughter. That his daughter had been killed by Sybil Mira, as he’d been led to believe so many years ago.

Because if it
was
her, she would despise him.

And he would agree with her.

She was gone already, he was sure. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but he doubted she would stay close. He had already lost that little ghost. Twice, now.

The portscreen finished running the comparison.

Match found.

Paternity confirmed.

He took off his spectacles and set them on the desk and exhaled a long, trembling breath.

His Crescent Moon was alive.

Thirty-Eight

Cress held her breath and listened—listened so hard it was giving her a headache—but all she heard was silence. Her left leg was beginning to cramp from being curled into such an awkward position, but she dared not move for fear she would bump something and alert the old man to her location.

She hadn’t run from the hotel. Though she’d been tempted, she’d known that Jina and the others could still be out there, and running into them would put her right back where she’d started. Instead, she’d ducked into the third room down the long, slender corridor, surprised to find the door unlocked and the room abandoned. It had the same setup as the doctor’s room: bed, closet, desk, but to her chagrin it was missing a netscreen. If she hadn’t been so desperate to find a hiding spot, she would have wept.

She’d ended up in the closet. It was empty, with a bar for hanging clothes situated below a single shelf. Cress had used all her strength to clamber up onto that shelf, propelling up the closet’s side walls with both feet, before squeezing her way into the tiny alcove. She’d used her toes to pull the door shut. For once, she was glad of her small size, and she figured that if he found her she’d at least have the leverage from being so high up. She wished she would have thought to grab some sort of weapon.

But her hope was that there would be no need for it. She suspected that when he woke up, he would think she’d run out into the town and he would go searching for her, which should give her ample time to get back to that netscreen and contact Thorne at their last hotel.

She had lain there for hours, waiting and listening. Though it was uncomfortable, it kind of reminded her of sleeping beneath the bed in the satellite during those long hours when Luna could be seen through her windows. She’d always felt safe then, and the memory brought a strange sense of protection, even now.

After a while, she began to wonder whether she’d killed the man. The guilt that sparked in her chest made her angry. She had nothing to feel guilty about. She’d been defending herself, and he was a Lunar-trafficking monster.

Not long after she’d had this thought, she heard shuffling, so quiet it could have been a mouse in the walls. It was followed by a couple of thumps and a groan. Her body seized up again, her right shoulder aching from the way she was lying on it.

This had been a mistake. She should have run when she’d had the chance. Or she should have used the time that he was unconscious to tap into his netscreen. In hindsight, she’d had plenty of time, but now it was too late and he was awake and he would find her and—

She squeezed her eyes shut until white specks flickered in the darkness.

Her plan had not failed yet. He could still go outside in search of her. He could still leave the building.

She waited.

And waited.

Breathing in and breathing out. Filling herself with hot, stifling air. Her pulse skipped at every sound, every muffled scrape, every wooden thump, trying to create a picture in her mind of what was happening in the room at the end of the hall.

He never left his room. He didn’t come to look for her at all.