Scarlet

Thirty-Nine

Hunkering down over her grandmother, Scarlet turned toward the hallway. Old wires hummed overhead and pale light flooded the cell. The door still stood open, the bars casting skeletal shadows along the floor.

Her eyes adjusted slowly. She held her breath, listening, but the footsteps had stopped. Still, someone was there. Someone was coming.

Her grandmother’s bandaged hand slipped into hers and she turned back. Her gut clamped. Streaks of dried blood were on the weathered face, her hair was tangled and matted. She was little more than a wasted skeleton now, though her brown eyes were still strong, still vibrant. Still filled with more love than was kept in all the rest of the world.

“Run,” she whispered.

Scarlet shook her head. “I’m not leaving you.”

“This is not your fight. Run, Scarlet. Now.”

Footsteps again, growing closer.

Clenching her jaw, Scarlet pulled herself onto shaking legs and faced the door. Her heart was galloping, waiting as the steps grew louder.

Maybe it was Wolf.

Come to help her, to help them.

She was dizzy from the fluttering of her pulse, unable to believe that she wanted to see him again, after everything he’d done to her.

But he’d given her the chip. And he was strong, strong enough to carry her grandmother. If it was Wolf, returned for her, they’d be saved …

She saw the shadow cross the floor before the man stepped into the threshold.

It was Ran, and he was smiling.

Scarlet gulped and solidified her knees, determined not to show her fear. But there was something different about Ran now. His eyes were no longer merely ruthless—now they were hungry, peering at Scarlet like she was a treat, one he’d been looking forward to for a long time.

“Ah, little fox. And just how did you get out of your cell?”

A shudder ripped through her.

“Leave my granddaughter alone.” Her grandmother’s raspy voice had gained an ounce of strength. She stirred, trying to sit up.

Scarlet dropped beside her, squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “Grand-mère—no, don’t.”

“I remember you.” Michelle stared at Ran. “You were with the ones who came for me.”

“Grand-mère—”

Ran chuckled. “A sharp memory you have for such an ancient thing.”

“Don’t worry about him, Scarlet,” said Michelle. “He is only the omega. He must have been left behind, because he is too weak to join the battle.”

Ran snarled, baring his jutting canines, and Scarlet shrank back.

“I stayed behind,” he growled, “because I have unfinished business here.” His eyes flashed, practically glowing. There was nothing but hatred inside them—fiery and unrestrained.

Scarlet shifted so that her body better covered her grandmother.

“You are nothing,” Michelle said, her lashes dipping from exhaustion. Terror clutched at Scarlet’s heart. “Nothing but a puppet for that thaumaturge. They’ve taken away your gift and turned you all into monsters, but even with all the strength, all the senses, all the bloodlust—you remain the lowest of your peers, and you always will be.”

Scarlet’s mind whirred. Wanting the conversation to end, wanting her grandmother to stop goading him—knowing it made no difference. There was murder on Ran’s face.

A rough laugh burst out of him. His hands gripped the doorjamb to either side, entirely blocking the exit. “You’re wrong, you old hag. You know so much—you must know what becomes of a pack member who kills his alpha?” He didn’t wait for her response. “He takes his alpha’s place.” His cheeks dimpled. “And I’ve found that my brother, my alpha, has a weakness.” His words slipped off as his attention found Scarlet again.

“You are a naive young man.” Her grandmother coughed. “You are weak. You will never be more than a lowly omega. Even I can see that.”

Scarlet hissed. She could see the fury building inside Ran, feel the anger rolling off him. “Grand-mère!”

Then it became obvious, what her grandmother was trying to do.

“No! She doesn’t mean it.” She despised herself for pleading, but couldn’t care. “She’s old, she’s delirious! Just leave her—”

Fuming into the cell, Ran snatched Scarlet up by her hair and pried her away from her grandmother.

She shrieked, clawing at his forearm, but he tossed her back into the corner. “No!”

Her grandma screamed in pain as Ran lifted her by the throat. In a blink she was pinned against the wall, too weak to flail, to fight, to put up any resistance.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Scarlet scrambled up and jumped onto Ran’s back, locking her elbows around his neck, squeezing with all her might. When Ran didn’t even flinch, she clawed at him, aiming for his eye sockets.

Ran howled and dropped her grandmother into a heap, then flung Scarlet off his back. She collapsed against the wall, but she barely felt the impact, her attention falling on her grandmother’s limp, bandaged form.

“Grand-mère!”

Their gazes met and she could see, in an instant, that her grandmother would not be moving again. Her dry lips managed to stammer—“Ru…” But nothing followed. Her eyes lingered open, eerily empty.

Scarlet shoved herself off the wall, but Ran was there first, his massive form crouching over her grandmother’s body, scooping one hand beneath her back so that her head fell heavily onto the hard floor.

Like a starved animal having brought down his first kill, Ran leaned over and clamped his jaws over Michelle’s neck.

Scarlet screamed and fell backward. The world spun with the sight of blood and Ran crouched on all fours.

Her grandmother’s accusation echoed back to her. They’ve turned you all into monsters.

Still in shock, she forced her face away and rolled onto her side. Her stomach heaved, but there was nothing inside her but bile and saliva. She tasted iron and acid and blood and realized she’d bitten her tongue when Ran had thrown her at the wall, but there was no pain. Only hollowness and horror and a dark cloud creeping over her.

She was not here. This was not happening.

Stomach burning from trying to push up food that wasn’t there, she crawled toward the far wall, putting as much distance between her and Ran as she could. Ran and her grandmother.

Her hand fell into the streak of light from the hallway. Her skin was sickly pale. She was trembling.

Run.

Lifting her head, she could see the start of a stairwell at the end of the hallway. Beside it, a painted sign long since faded. TO STAGE.

Run.

Her brain struggled to find the meaning of the words. TO STAGE. Stage. Stage.

Her grandmother’s last words.

Run!

Reaching forward, she wrapped her fingers around the bars of the cell and used them as leverage. Straining to pull herself up. To stand. To push forward, into the hallway, into the light.

Her legs felt nonexistent at first as she hobbled to the bottom of the stairs, but as she climbed, she found strength in them. She pushed forward. She ran.

A closed door loomed at the top of the stairs, an old wooden door not even equipped with an ID scanner. It creaked when she shoved it open.

Then footsteps below, coming for her.

Scarlet emerged backstage. Old pillars stood clustered together to her right and a maze of fake stone walls and painted trees filled the shadows to her left. The door slammed behind her and she ran into the wooden forest, grabbing a wrought-iron candelabra.

She lifted it in both hands and waited, feet braced.

Ran burst through the door, chin covered in blood.

Scarlet swung as hard as she could. A roar was wrenched out of her as the iron bar collided with Ran’s skull.

He cried out and stumbled back into the curtain. He tripped on the fabric and fell backward.

Scarlet thrust the candelabra at him, not sure she had the strength to heft it again. She heard fabric ripping, but she was already gone, dodging between the set pieces, scanning the creaking wooden floorboards as she lunged over coiled dusty power cords and toppled spotlights. She stumbled onto the stage, the empty expanse of wooden floorboards and trapdoors, and half jumped, half fell into the phantom orchestra. Ignoring a jolt of pain that burned across her knee, she shoved the music stands aside and bolted into the auditorium.

Footsteps thumped across the stage behind her. Inhumanly fast.

The rows of empty chairs flashed by and all she could see was the door looming ahead.

He grabbed her hood.

She let him pull her back, used the momentum to swing around and aim her knee for his groin.

He let out a cry of pain and staggered.

Scarlet darted through the crumbling marble arches, past the cherubs with their broken arms, past the shattered chandeliers and broken tile floors. She flew down the marble stairs, focusing on the huge doors that would lead to the street. If only she could get out of there. Into public. Into the real world.

As she hit the lobby floor, the silhouette of another man moved across the exit.

Her feet skidded to a stop, landing her in the square of pale sunlight from the hole in the ceiling.

Pivoting, she ran for the other staircase, the stairs that went back down to the depths of the opera house.

Above, a door slammed shut, and there were footsteps pounding and she couldn’t tell if it was one set of footsteps or two.

Sweat coated the back of her shirt. Her legs ached, her burst of adrenaline fading.

She rounded a corner and barreled into darkness. The main room had once been used for important guests of the opera house and a series of doors and hallways led to every corner of the sublevel. Scarlet knew the halls to the right would take her back to the prison cells, so she veered left. A drained fountain basin filled the space between the two stairways that led to the upper level. The bronze statue of a half-dressed maiden lingered in an alcove atop a pedestal, one of the few statues that seemed to have survived so many years of neglect.

Scarlet ran for the opposite staircase, wondering if going back up to the lobby would be suicide—and yet knowing that to be trapped down here was no alternative.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and her foot hit the low ledge of the fountain. She stumbled, crying out.

Ran was on her before she hit the ground.

Fingernails dug into her shoulder, flipping her onto her back amid the tiny broken tiles of the dry basin. She peered up into his glowing eyes, the eyes of a madman, of a murderer, and she remembered Wolf onstage at the street fight.

Fear clamped her throat shut, strangling a scream.

He gripped her shirt and lifted her from the ground. She grabbed his wrists, but was too petrified to fight as he brought her face toward his. Scarlet nearly gagged on the stench of his breath, like rotten meat and blood—so much blood—her grandmother—

“If it wasn’t such a repulsive thought, I might take advantage of you here, now that we’re all alone,” he said, and Scarlet shuddered. “Just to see the look on my brother’s face when I told him about it.” With a roar, he threw her at the statue.

Her back collided with the bronze pedestal and pain exploded through her head, knocking the wind from her. She collapsed to the ground, grasping her chest, trying to draw air back into her lungs.

Ran crouched before her, ready to spring. His tongue swiped out over his canines, coating them with strings of saliva.

Her stomach lurched. She kicked at the ground in an attempt to push herself into the small space between the statue and the wall. To disappear. To hide.

He sprang.

She cowered against the wall, but the impact didn’t come.

Scarlet heard a battle cry, followed by a heavy thud. Snarling.

She lowered her trembling arms. In the center of the cavern, two forms tangled with each other. Jaws snapping. Blood dripping over taut muscles.

Eyesight blurring, she managed to ease in a breath, glad to feel her chest expand. Reaching overhead, she gripped the statue and tried to pull herself up, but the muscles in her back screamed at her.

Clenching her jaw, she worked on tucking her legs under her and battled against the pain until she could stand, panting and sweating against the bronze goddess.

If she could just get away before the brawl was over—

Ran pulled the other man into a headlock. The opponent’s glowing emerald eyes pierced Scarlet, for one heart-stopping moment, before he flipped Ran over his head.

The ground vibrated from the impact, but Scarlet barely felt it.

Wolf.

It was Wolf.