Winter

Seventy-Two

They both froze.

Jaw tightening, Thorne whispered, “To be continued?”

She nodded, having some difficulty trying to remember where they were.

Thorne spun back to the door, his body shielding Cress from whoever had entered. Peering around his elbow, she caught sight of a palace guard outlined in the hallway’s light.

The guard was scowling as he raised a device to his mouth. “It’s just a couple of guests,” he said, his voice gruff. He nudged his chin toward Thorne and Cress. “I need to ask you to move along. All corridors and public spaces need to be cleared prior to the start of the ceremony.”

Clearing his throat, Thorne tugged down his jacket and adjusted his bow tie. “So sorry. I guess we just … got carried away.”

Cress plucked a fern leaf off Thorne’s sleeve. Heat singed her cheeks, but it was only part from mortification, and mostly from the lingering feel of his arms, his kisses, the hazy reality of the past few minutes.

“We’ll just be moving along, then.” Thorne grabbed the bug-antenna hat that had ended up on the floor and handed it to Cress, then helped her back down to the floor.

Her shaking hands fumbled to strap the antennae back onto her head.

“Thanks for letting us borrow the place,” Thorne said to the guard, winking, as they scooted into the hallway. Only once the guard was behind them did he show the slightest crack in his composure, releasing a slow breath. “Try to act natural.”

The words echoed in Cress’s head for a long moment before she could make sense of them. Act natural? Act natural? When her legs were made of noodles and her heart was about to pound right out of her chest and he’d said that he loved her, at least, in a sense. What did it even mean to act natural in the first place? When had she ever in her life known how to act natural?

So she started to laugh. A stifled snort, first. Then a rush of giggles crawling up her throat, until she was half falling over herself in an effort to walk straight. The laughter nearly choked her.

Thorne kept an arm locked around her waist. “Not quite what I had in mind,” he muttered, “but sort of charming all the same.”

“I’m sorry.” She gasped out the words, coughed a little, and tried to mold her face into natural, but another giggle fit was rumbling her stomach, spasming in her chest. She buckled over again.

“Um. Cress. You’re adorable, but I need you to focus for a second. We’re lucky that guard didn’t recognize either of us, but if he—”

“Hey! Stop!”

Thorne cursed.

Cress’s laughter was doused with panic.

“Run!”

She did, gripping Thorne’s hand. Around one corner, then another. He led them to an inconspicuous alcove with a small door and shoved her through—into the servants’ halls.

“Left!” he ordered, yanking the door shut and grabbing a service tray that had been left in the corridor. He wedged it into place while Cress ran, past pallets of supplies and maintenance equipment, storage cabinets and broken sculptures. Thorne caught up to her easily. He had pulled the handgun from inside his jacket. “Still have that chip?”

She pressed a hand against her bodice, detecting the small chip with Cinder’s video tucked against her skin. She nodded, running too hard to speak.

“Good.”

Without warning, Thorne slammed into Cress, pushing them both behind an enormous wheel of electrical cording. She hit the wall hard, panting.

“Two corridors back there was an elevator,” he said. “Find a place to hide, then get to the security center. I’ll draw them off and circle back around to find you.”

Cress started to shake her head. “No. You can’t leave me, not again. I can’t do this without you.”

“Sure you can. It won’t be as much fun, but you’ll figure it out.”

Footsteps thundered in the distance. She squeaked.

“I’ll find you,” Thorne whispered. He pressed a hasty kiss against her mouth, wrapping her hand around something heavy and warm. “Be heroic.”

He took off running again, just as she heard the footsteps catching up.

“There!” someone yelled.

Thorne disappeared around a corner.

Cress stared at the gun he’d given her. This small contraption, so solid in her grip, terrified her more than the guards. She ached to put it down on the floor and step away.

Instead, she flattened herself against the electrical cording and pried her finger from the trigger, where it had landed instinctively. Just like a computer, she told herself. Computers only do what you tell them to do. The gun will only fire if you pull the trigger.

It wasn’t particularly comforting.

Two guards ran past, not even glancing in her direction.

She considered staying where she was, out in the open as it may be. She was shaking from head to toe and every fiber of her body told her that to move would be to get caught.

But logic told her that her body was lying. They would come back. They would send reinforcements. She would be seen.

Distant gunshots made her jump, spurring her into action. The shots were followed by grunts and the sounds of a struggle.

Cress pushed herself out of the corner and turned back in the direction she and Thorne had come from. Two corridors back, he’d said. An elevator.

She went quietly this time, pressing her free hand into the stitch in her side. She passed one corridor and heard more footsteps, but couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from. She froze, scanned her surroundings, and yanked open one of the storage cabinets.

Rolls of decorative fabric were stood on end, many of them taller than she was, and all of them lush and glistening in metallics and jewel tones.

Cress climbed inside, squeezing her body into the space created from the fabric bolts that had toppled to one side. Pulling the door shut, she set the gun on the cabinet’s floor. She was very careful to aim it away from her.

The footsteps grew louder and she was sure she’d been seen, but no one yelled.

Until—

“Stop!”

Another gunshot, this one followed by an instantaneous grunt and a body crashing onto the floor. It sounded close. Cress squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her chin onto her knees. Not Thorne. Please not Thorne.

A heavy sigh was followed by a soothing male voice. “All this over a pesky Earthen? You guards are pathetic.”

Cress pressed her hands against her mouth to keep any sounds from escaping. She stared into the darkness, attempting to shallow her breathing, though she worried she might pass out if she didn’t get more air soon.

Someone groaned. Not far away from where she was hiding.

“He is definitely one of the cyborg’s allies. The question is, what are you doing in the palace?”

A beat, then Thorne’s voice. “Just kissing my girl,” he said, wheezing a little. Cress scrunched up her whole face and buried it against her knees, choking back a sob. “I didn’t realize that was a … a capital offense around here.”

The man sounded unamused. “Where is the girl you were with?”

“I think you scared her off.”

Another sigh. “We don’t have time for this. Put him in a holding cell—we’ll deal with him after the coronation. I’m sure he’ll make a delightful Earthen pet for one of the families. And keep looking for that girl—alert me the moment you find her. Increase security around the great hall. They’re plotting something, and Her Majesty will kill us all if the ceremony is interrupted.”

There was a thud and another grunt. Cress flinched, her head filling with all the things they could have done to Thorne to cause that grunt—all the things they could still do to him.

She bit her lip until she tasted blood, the pain alone keeping her from crying as she listened to them drag him away.