Scarlet

chance of crossing paths with a new train. But the maglev tracks remained silent. Scarlet’s portscreen light was enough to see by for a time, but she worried about killing the battery and knew they should probably stop soon.
    Wolf was no longer looking back every few minutes and Scarlet suspected he’d known they were being followed all along.
    Wolf stopped suddenly and Scarlet’s heart leaped, for a moment sure he’d heard wolves again. “Here. This will work.” He peered upward at a log that had fallen across the embankments on either side of them, creating a bridge over the tracks. “What do you think?”
    Scarlet followed him through the waist-high brush. “I thought maybe you were kidding before. You really think you can jump onto a moving train from there?”
    He nodded.
    “Without breaking a leg?”
    “Or anything else.”
    He met her speculative look with a hint of arrogance.
    She shrugged. “Anything to be out of these woods.”
    The ledge was a few feet over her head, but she clambered up with little trouble, grasping onto roots and jutting rocks. She heard a hiss from below and turned to see a shot of pain cross Wolf’s face as he hauled himself up after her. She held her breath, feeling guilty, as he dusted off his hands.
    “Let me see,” she said, grasping Wolf’s forearm and holding up her portscreen to shine a light on the bandage. No blood had leaked through yet. “I really am sorry about shooting you.”
    “Are you?”
    Her touch lingered as it reached the end of the bandage, checking that it was still securely tied. “What does that mean?”
    “I suspect you would shoot me all over again if you thought it would help your grandmother.”
    She blinked up at him, almost surprised to discover how close they were standing. “I would,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be sorry about it afterward.”
    “I’m just glad you didn’t take my advice and shoot me in the head,” he said, his teeth showing in the portscreen’s brightness. His fingers barely fluttered across her sweater’s pocket, making her jump.
    Then his fingers were gone and Wolf was squinting against the bright light of the portscreen.
    “Sorry,” Scarlet stammered, angling it toward the ground.
    Wolf moved around her, pressing on the fallen log with his foot. “It appears trustworthy.”
    Scarlet discovered a strange irony in his choice of words. “Wolf,” she said, testing the way her voice echoed in the forest’s emptiness. He stiffened, though he didn’t turn around. “When you first told me about leaving the pack, I thought maybe it had been months, or even years, but Ran made it sound like you’d just left.”
    One hand came up to ruffle his hair as he turned back toward her.
    “Wolf?”
    “It’s been three weeks,” he whispered. Then, “Less than three weeks.”
    She sucked in a breath, held it, released it all at once. “About the time my grandmother disappeared.”
    He ducked his head, unable to meet her gaze.
    Scarlet shivered. “You told me that you were a nobody, barely more than an errand boy. But Ran called you an ‘alpha.’ Isn’t that a pretty high rank?”
    She saw his chest rise with a slow, tense breath.
    “And now you tell me that you left them around the same time my grandmother was kidnapped.”
    He rubbed absently at the tattoo, still saying nothing. Scarlet waited, blood beginning to simmer, until he dared to look at her. The portscreen cast a wash of bluish white light at their feet, but it did little to illuminate him. In the dark, she could see only the vaguest outline of his cheekbones and jaw, his hair like a clump of pine needles sticking out from his scalp.
    “You told me that you had no idea why they would take my grandmother. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
    “Scarlet—”
    “So what was true? Did you really leave them or is this all some story to get me to—” Gasping, she stumbled back. Her thoughts turned, a cascade of doubts and questions rushing through them. “Am I the mission that Ran was talking about? The one that was supposedly canceled?”
    “No—”
    “And after my dad warned me about this! He said one of you would come for me and there you were, and I even knew you were one of them. I knew I couldn’t trust you and still I let myself believe—”
    “Scarlet, stop. ”
    She wrapped her fist around her hood’s cords, tightening them against her throat. Her heart was pulsating now, blood running hot beneath her