Scarlet

tempted to close the gap between them, even just to rest her head on his shoulder. Instead, she reached out and traced a finger across the tattoo that she could make out in the dimness. He went rigid.
    “Was Ran telling the truth? Do you think they’ll kill you for leaving them?”
    A momentary silence had her pulse pounding in her fingertip against his arm.
    “No,” he said finally. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
    She trailed her finger down a long scar that had once been a gash from wrist to elbow. “I’ll stop worrying when this is all over. When we’re all safely away from them.”
    His eyes flicked to hers, then down to the scar and her fingers resting on his wrist.
    “What’s this scar from?” she asked. “One of the fights?”
    His head shifted, almost imperceptibly. “Stupidity.”
    Chewing her lip, she inched closer and grazed a fainter scar across his temple. “How about this one?”
    He ducked back, forced to lift his head to pull away from her. “That was a bad one,” he said, but didn’t elaborate.
    Scarlet hummed thoughtfully, then dragged her knuckle against the tiniest scar on his lip. “What about—”
    His hand snatched at her, stilling her caresses. His grip was not harsh, but unforgiving all the same. “Please stop,” he said, even as his gaze fell to her lips.
    Scarlet licked them instinctively, saw his eyes grow frantic. “What’s wrong?”
    A heartbeat.
    “Wolf?”
    He didn’t release her.
    Scarlet reached her other hand toward him, brushing her thumb over his knuckles.
    He sucked in a quick breath.
    Her fingers traveled up his arm, along the bandage and its spot of dried blood. He was taut as a bowstring, plastered against the wall. The fingers grasping her hand twitched. “They’re just … they’re what I’m used to,” he said, voice strained.
    “What do you mean?”
    She saw him gulp. No explanation came.
    Leaning forward, she found his jawline. The pronounced cheekbones. His hair, every bit as wild and soft to the touch as it had looked. Finally, he leaned his head into her touch, gently nuzzling her fingers.
    “It came from a fight,” he murmured. “Just another pointless fight. All of them.” His eyes lingered on her lips again.
    She hesitated. When he still didn’t move, Scarlet leaned forward and kissed him. Softly. Just once.
    Barely able to breathe around her hammering heart, Scarlet drew back enough for warm air to slip between them, and Wolf dissolved before her, a resigned sigh brushing against her mouth.
    Then he was pulling her toward him and bundling her up in his arms. Scarlet gasped as Wolf buried one hand into her mess of curls and kissed her back.

 
    BOOK
    Three
    “Oh, Grandmother, what terribly big teeth you have!”

 
    Twenty-Four
    “ Hide. ” Cinder said the word slowly. Tenderly. A breathy plea ending in the soft, careful d. “ Hide. Rampion, hide. Hide, Rampion. Disappear … Fade away … You do not exist.… You cannot be seen.…”
    She was sitting cross-legged on her bunk, in the dark, envisioning the ship that surrounded her. The steel walls, the churning engine, the screws and soldered seals that held everything together, the computer mainframe, the thick glass of the cockpit windows, the closed exit ramp in the cargo bay, the podship dock beneath her feet.
    Then she imagined it invisible.
    Swimming past radars, and the radars remaining silent.
    Dissolving into blackness under the watchful eye of satellite stations.
    Gracefully dancing between all the other ships that cluttered the solar system. Drawing no attention. Not existing.
    Her vertebrae tingled, beginning at the top of her neck and running down to her tailbone. A warmth radiated outward, filling every muscle and every joint, seeping through her fingers and back into her knees. Recirculating.
    She released the air from her lungs, let her muscles release with her breath, and started the chant again. “Hide, Rampion. Rampion, hide. Hide. ”
    “Is it working?”
    Her eyes popped open. In the darkness, all she could see were pinpoints of stars beyond her window. They were on the side of Earth opposite from the sun, leaving the ship cloaked in shadow and the vastness of space.
    Cloaked. Hiding. Invisible.
    “Good question,” she said, turning her attention up toward the ceiling as had already become habit, even though she knew it was ridiculous. Iko was not some spot on the ceiling, was not even the speakers that projected her chipper voice. She