“We’re splitting up,” said Cinder.
Iko wrapped an arm around Cinder’s waist. “Only temporarily.”
“It’s our best hope for coordinating an attack,” said Thorne, “and getting as many people in front of that palace as possible, which is the whole point, isn’t it? Strength in numbers?”
Cinder’s heart was galloping again, but she managed a nod. She was studying the holograph again when an anomaly caught her eye. “What’s wrong with that sector?” she asked, pointing to one that was tinged red on the map.
Cress spun the holograph and brought the sector into focus. “LW-12, lumber and wood manufacturing. Quarantined?”
“Like a disease quarantine?” Cinder asked.
“That’s all we need,” Thorne muttered.
But Jacin was shaking his head. “It’s been a long time since we had an outbreak of any sort of disease on Luna. There aren’t many environmental influences that we can’t control.” He crossed his arms. “We do have measures in place in case something happens, though. With the domes confined like they are, it wouldn’t take much to take down a whole community if a disease was bad enough.”
“Could it be letumosis?” Iko asked, a tinge of fear vibrating in her voice.
“That’s an Earthen disease,” said Jacin. “We’ve never had any cases here.”
“It’s not just an Earthen disease,” said Cinder. “Not anymore. Dr. Erland discovered a mutated strain in Africa, remember? Lunars may not be immune anymore, and…” She gulped. “And a whole lot of Earthens just arrived on Luna. Anyone could be a carrier. One of the diplomats, or even one of us. We might not even know it.”
Jacin gestured to the holograph. “Have any of you gone into a lumber sector lately?”
Cinder pressed her lips.
“That’s what I thought. I doubt any of your political friends have, either. It’s probably a coincidence.”
“Actually,” said Cress, pulling her wide-eyed gaze away from her portscreen, “one of us has been there.” She input a new command, transferring the feed she was watching up to the holograph.
It was a collection of the queen’s surveillance videos, all labeled LW-12. They were dark and grainy, but as Cinder’s eyes adjusted she could see rows of trees in the outside shots and wood-paneled walls on the interiors. She focused on one of the more crowded feeds, which appeared to be inside a medical building, although it was nothing like the sleek, shiny laboratories of New Beijing.
There were so many people, taking up what few beds there were while others curled against walls or collapsed in corners.
Stepping closer to the image, Jacin enlarged one of the feeds, zooming in on a rash of blue-and-red rings across one patient’s throat, then to the bloodstained pillow beneath another patient’s head.
“It does look like letumosis,” Cinder said, gut spasming with instinctive fear.
“Are those what I think they are?” asked Iko, pointing.
“Lunar soldiers,” Cress confirmed, enlarging one of the outside feeds that showed dozens of mutant men standing among the citizens. Many seemed caught up in a fervent conversation. Cinder had never seen them when they weren’t in attack mode, and if it wasn’t for their deformed faces, they would have looked just like, well, really big, scary men.
Then she spotted someone who was even more shocking than the mutants. A girl with red hair and a hooded sweatshirt and hands settled stubbornly on her hips. “Scarlet!”
Very much alive and very much unafraid of the predators surrounding her. In fact, as she watched, Scarlet seemed to be bossing them around, pointing her finger toward the main doors of the clinic. Half a dozen of the soldiers nodded at her and left.
“I don’t compute,” said Iko.
Thorne laughed, as jovial as Cinder felt. “What’s to compute? They did say they were going to build an army.”
“Yes, but Scarlet wasn’t with us in the desert. How could she be a carrier of the new strain of the disease?”
Cinder started. “You’re right. She could have … picked it up from one of us?”
“None of you are sick.”
She had no answer. She wished Dr. Erland was here, but he had died from the same disease he’d been trying to eradicate.
“What’s that they’re carrying out of the clinic?” asked Thorne.
Jacin crossed his arms. “A suspended-animation tank.”
Four soldiers had the tank hefted between them, while others propped open the main doors of the med-clinic for them to pass through. Outside, hundreds of civilians had gathered—those who weren’t already sick. The soldiers pushed them back to make room for the tank.
Jacin inhaled sharply and stepped up beside the holograph, bringing the feed into focus. He paused. Scrolled back. Zoomed in closer.
“Oh, no,” Cinder whispered. Another familiar face was encapsulated beneath the tank’s glass lid. Princess Winter.
Sixty-Six
There were no mirrors in the lab, not even in the tiled room with the sterilizing shower Wolf had been taken to in order to wash the sticky gel out of his hair. He didn’t need a mirror, though, to know what they’d done. He could see the difference in his bone structure when he looked at his hands and feet. He could feel the difference in his protruding mouth, his enlarged teeth, his malformed jaw. They’d altered his facial bone structure, making way for the row of implanted canine teeth. There was a new curvature to his shoulders and an awkward flex of his feet, which looked more like paws now, made for running and bounding at great speeds. His hands were enormous, now fixed with reinforced, claw-shaped fingernails.
He could even smell it inside himself. New chemicals and hormones pumping through his veins. Testosterone. Adrenaline. Pheromones. He wondered when the new fur would start sprouting over his skin, completing the transformation.
He was miserable. He was everything he had never wanted to be.
He was also starving.
A uniform had been left for him, similar to the uniform he’d worn as a special operative. A formality for his role at the coronation. Most of the bioengineered soldiers received far less distinguished clothing, being more animal than man.
And now he was one of them. He tried to temper his disgust. After all, who was he to pass judgment on his brothers?
Yet his emotions continued to fluctuate. Furious and burning one moment. Devastated and full of self-loathing the next.
This was his fate. This had always been his fate. He couldn’t imagine how he had ever thought differently. Had he honestly believed he could be better? That he deserved more? He was destined to kill and eat and destroy. That was all he was entitled to.
Suddenly, his nose twitched.
Food.
Saliva rolled onto his tongue and he wicked it against his sharp teeth. Something in his stomach roiled, angry at its own hollowness.
He shuddered, remembering this hunger from back when he had first begun training as an operative. He had both craved and hated the slabs of barely cooked meat they were presented, and the way they had to fight for their own piece, confirming the pack’s pecking order in the process. Even then, the hunger had not been this bad.
He swallowed, hard, and finished dressing.
His body had begun to shake when he opened the door and the aroma of the food burst in his nostrils. He was almost panting.