Scarlet

skin.
    She heard Wolf inhale, saw his hands spread out in the beam of the portscreen. “You’re right, I lied to you about not knowing why they took your grandmother. But you aren’t the mission that Ran was talking about.”
    She tilted the port upward, shining it into his face. Wolf flinched, but didn’t look away.
    “But it has something to do with my grandmother.”
    “It has everything to do with your grandmother.”
    She bit down hard on her lower lip, trying to still the tide of rage rising inside her.
    “I’m sorry. I knew that if I told you, you wouldn’t trust me. I know I should have anyway, but … I couldn’t.”
    The hand holding her port began to shake. “Tell me everything. ”
    There was a long pause.
    A sickeningly long pause.
    “You’re going to despise me,” he murmured. His chest sank in, trying to make himself small again, like he had in the alleyway, in the headlights of her ship.
    Scarlet pressed her hands so hard onto her hips, her bones began to ache.
    “Ran and I were both in the pack sent to retrieve your grandmother.”
    Scarlet’s stomach curdled. The pack sent to retrieve her.
    “I wasn’t with them when she was taken,” he added quickly. “As soon as we arrived in Rieux, I saw my chance to escape. I knew I could disappear there without the grid of the city to find me. So I took it. That was the morning she was taken.” He crossed his arms, like he was protecting himself from her hatred. “I could have stopped them. I was stronger than all of them—I could have kept it from happening. I could have warned her, or you. But I didn’t. I just ran.”
    Scarlet’s eyes started to burn. Inhaling sharply, she turned her back on him, tilting her head up toward the black sky to keep the sudden tears in without having to swipe at them. She waited until she was sure she could speak before pivoting back toward him. “That’s when you started going to the fights?”
    “And the tavern,” he said with a nod.
    “And then what? You felt guilty, so you thought you’d follow me around for a while, maybe help out on the farm, like that would make up for it?”
    He winced. “Of course not. I knew that getting mixed up with you would be suicide, that eventually they would find me if I didn’t leave Rieux, but I … but you…” He seemed frustrated with the words that wouldn’t come. “I couldn’t just leave.”
    Scarlet heard the crunch of plastic and forced her grip to loosen on the portscreen. “Why did they take her? What do they want with her?”
    He opened his mouth, but was silent.
    Scarlet raised both eyebrows. Her pulse was thundering. “Well?”
    “They’re trying to find Princess Selene.”
    The ringing in her ears made her think for a moment she hadn’t heard him correctly. “They’re trying to find who ?”
    “The Lunar Princess Selene.”
    She drew back. It occurred to her that maybe Wolf was playing some kind of cruel joke, but his expression was too serious, too horrified. “ What? ”
    He started to sway uncomfortably from foot to foot. “They’ve been searching for the princess for years, and they believe your grandmother has information on her whereabouts.”
    Scarlet squinted at him, baffled, sure she misunderstood. Sure he must be mistaken. But Wolf’s attention held her, penetrating and sure.
    “Why would my grandmother—” She shook her head. “The Lunar princess is dead!”
    “There’s evidence that she survived the fire, and that someone rescued her and brought her to Earth,” said Wolf. “And, Scarlet…”
    “What?”
    “Are you sure your grandma doesn’t know anything?”
    Her jaw hung for so long her tongue turned dry and sticky in her mouth. “She’s a farmer ! She’s lived in France her whole life. How would she know anything?”
    “She was in the military before she was a farmer. She traveled then.”
    “That was over twenty years ago. How long has the princess been missing? Ten, fifteen years? That doesn’t even make sense.”
    “You can’t discount it.”
    “Sure I can!”
    “What if she does know something?”
    She frowned, but her disbelief faded upon seeing Wolf’s growing desperation.
    “Scarlet,” he said, “Ran said that the assignment had been called off—he could only have meant the search for the princess. I can’t imagine why, after so many years … but if it’s true, then it may mean they have no more use of your grandmother.”
    A pang in her stomach. “So they would let her