Scarlet

been looking for you.”
    He leaped for her. Cinder pulled back, unable to scream.
    The female officer jumped between them, facing Cinder, her arms spread out wide in protection. Her face completely, entirely blank. Her lifeless eyes peered down at Cinder, even as the man howled with rage and grabbed her from behind. He wrapped one arm around her head, yanking her back and sinking his fangs into her throat.
    She didn’t scream. Didn’t fight.
    A bloodied gurgle erupted from her mouth.
    A gun fired.
    The crazed man roared and picked up the officer, swinging her around like a dog would a toy and tossing her halfway across the tavern. She crumpled to the ground as another shot rang out, catching the man in the shoulder. Bellowing, he whipped forward, snatching the gun away from the remaining officer with one hand. He swiped with the other, his fingers curled into a claw that left four red gashes on the officer’s face.
    Heart hammering, Cinder gaped down at the woman as the life drained out of her eyes. Her gasps stuck in her throat. Her heart was pounding so hard it was sure to break out of her chest. White spots specked her vision. She couldn’t breathe.
    “ Cinder! ”
    She searched the room, dazed, and found Thorne scrambling out from behind a toppled table with his hands still latched behind his back. He collapsed to his knees beside the bench.
    “Come on, the cuffs!”
    Her lungs burned. Her eyes stung. She was hyperventilating.
    “I—I killed her—” she stammered.
    “ What? ”
    “I killed—she was—”
    “This is not the time to go crazy, Cinder!”
    “You don’t understand. It was me. I—”
    Thorne threw himself at her, his forehead hitting hers so hard she yelped and fell back onto the bench.
    “Pull yourself together and help me unlock these things!”
    She grabbed on to the table and hauled herself back up. Head aching, she blinked at Thorne, then at the officer who lay slumped against the wall, neck dangling at an odd angle.
    Her brain struggling to grasp on to reality, she lurched forward, dragging Thorne with her through the toppled chairs. Crouching beside the first fallen officer, she grabbed his arm and held up his wrist. Thorne twisted his hands toward her and the cuffs blinked and fell open.
    Cinder dropped the limp hand and stood. She bolted for the door—but something grabbed her ponytail and hauled her backward. She cried out, falling onto a table. Glass bottles shattered beneath her, water and alcohol soaking into the back of her shirt.
    The crazed man hovered over her, leering. Blood was dripping out from his lips and his bullet wounds but he hardly seemed to notice.
    Cinder tried to scramble backward, but she slipped—a shard of glass slicing through her palm. She gasped.
    “I would ask what brought you to little Rieux, France, but I think I already know.” He smiled, but it was haunting and unnatural with the jutting canines slicked with blood. “So sad for you that we found the old lady first, and now my pack has you both. I wonder what my reward will be when I bring your leftover pieces to my queen in a plastic box.”
    Thorne roared and heaved a chair upward, breaking it over the man’s back.
    The man spun around and Cinder used the distraction to roll off the table. She collapsed to the floor, looking up just as the man buried his teeth in Thorne’s arm. A scream.
    “ Thorne! ”
    The man pulled away, chin dripping with blood, and let Thorne collapse to his knees.
    His eyes glinted. “Your turn.”
    He took two sauntering steps toward her. Cinder upended the table, creating a blockade between them, but he kicked it aside with a laugh.
    Standing, she raised her hand and fired a tranquilizer dart into his chest.
    He snarled and yanked the dart out like a minor annoyance.
    Cinder backed away. Tripping over a fallen chair, she cried out and collapsed backward onto the warm, unmoving body of the officer who had managed to get off two useless bullets.
    The man grinned sickeningly, then paused again, paling. His cruel smile vanished and, with one more step, he crashed face-first on the ground.
    Cinder stared, stomach in knots, at his still form amid the wreckage.
    When he didn’t move, she dared to glance at the dead officer whose blood was leaking onto her collarbone. Rolling off him, she grabbed the gun that had been tossed onto the floor and shoved herself back to her feet.
    She seized Thorne’s elbow and stuffed the gun into his hand. He moaned in pain but