This reaction, too, was one Pearl had seen too often since the ball. Who was this woman to look down on Pearl and her mother? She was nothing but an old widow whose husband had died from a love of drink, and who now sat in her garbage-smelling apartment with a sad collection of ceramic monkeys.
And she thought she was better than Pearl?
The whole world had turned against her.
“So sorry,” Pearl said through her teeth, stomping ahead to her own apartment.
The door was opened slightly, but Pearl didn’t give it any thought until she shoved it open and it banged against the wall.
She froze.
The living room had been torn apart. Even worse than when her mother had been searching for those stupid invitations.
The pictures and plaques had all been shoved off the fireplace mantel, the brand-new netscreen was lying facedown on the floor, and the urn containing Peony’s ashes …
Pearl’s stomach plummeted. The door came back to hit her shoulder.
“Mom?” she said, darting across the hall.
She froze. A scream crawled up her throat but died in a petrified squeak.
He was leaning against the living room’s far wall. Though he had the form of a man, he stood with hunched shoulders and enormous clawed hands. His face had been disfigured into a snout with teeth that jutted between his lips and dark, glassy eyes sunk back in his face.
Pearl whimpered. Instinct prompted her to take a step back, though instinct also told her it was useless.
A hundred horrific stories, from newsfeeds to whispered gossip, filled her head.
The killings were random, people said.
The Lunar monsters could be anywhere at any time. No one could discern any pattern or logic to their strikes. They might swarm a crowded office building one day and kill every soul on the ninth floor, but leave the rest alone. They might kill one child asleep in their bed, but not their brother across the room. They might dismember a man as he dashed from a hover to his front door, then ring the doorbell so a loved one would find him still bleeding on the step.
The terror of it was in the randomness. The brutality and the senseless way they chose their victims, while leaving so many witnesses to spread the fear.
No one was safe.
No one was ever safe.
But Pearl never thought they would come here, to their inconsequential apartment, in such a crowded city …
And—and the war was in cease-fire. There hadn’t been any attacks in days. Why now? Why her?
A whine squeezed through her throat. The creature smirked and she realized his jaw had been working when she’d come in. Like he’d been helping himself to a snack.
Mom.
Sobbing, she turned to run.
The door slammed shut. A second creature blocked her way.
Pearl collapsed to her knees, sobbing and shaking. “Please. Please.”
“You sure we can’t eat her?” said the one by the door, his words barely discernible beneath a gruff, raspy tone. He grabbed Pearl’s arm and hauled her back to her feet. She screamed and tried to cower away, but his grip was merciless. He peeled the arm away from her body, extending it so he could get a good view of her forearm. “Just a taste? She looks so sweet.”
“Yet smells so sour,” said the other.
Pearl, through her hysteria, smelled it too. There was warm dampness between her legs. She wailed and her legs gave out again, leaving her to dangle from the monster’s hold.
“Mistress said to bring them unharmed. You want to take a nibble, go ahead. Her wrath, your head.”
The one holding Pearl pressed his wet nose against her elbow and sniffed longingly. Then he let the arm fall and scooped Pearl over one shoulder. “Not worth it,” he said with a growl.
“I agree.” The second beast came closer and pinched Pearl’s face in his massive, hairy hand. “But maybe we’ll get to sample her when they’re done.”
Thirty-Five
“There’s the guardhouse,” said Thorne, crouched in an alleyway between Iko and Wolf. For the hundredth time since they’d left Maha’s house, he checked his pocket for the cylinder containing Cress’s message.
“I had higher expectations,” said Iko.
Just like everything in this sector, the guardhouse was drab and covered in dust. It was also made of stone and lacking windows, which made it one of the more impenetrable buildings Thorne had seen. One uniformed guard stood watch at the door, a rifle laid across his arms and a helmet and dust mask obscuring his face.
Inside would be weaponry, dome maintenance equipment, a cell to hold lawbreakers before sending them for trial in Artemisia, and a small control center for accessing the dome’s power grid and security system. Most important, this was where the receiver-transmitter was housed that connected this sector to the government-run broadcasting network.
“How much time do we have?” he asked.
“Estimated two minutes, fourteen seconds until the next patrol guard comes into view,” said Iko.
“Wolf, you’re up.”
There was a flash of razor-sharp teeth before Wolf straightened and strolled out from the alley. Thorne and Iko ducked out of sight.
A harsh voice ordered, “Stop and identify yourself.”
“Special Operative Alpha Kesley. I’m here on orders from Thaumaturge Jael to check your weapons inventory.”
“You’re special op? What are you doing out—” A gasp was followed by a short scuffle and thump. Thorne braced himself for the blare of a gunshot, but it never came. When silence reigned, he and Iko peered around the corner again.
Wolf was already dragging the guard’s unconscious form to the door and holding his fingertips against the screen. Thorne and Iko rushed to join him just as the door popped open. They dragged the guard inside.
The interior of the guardhouse wasn’t much of an improvement over the exterior. Slightly less dusty, but still dim and uncomfortable. In this main room, a large desk took up most of the space, separating them from two barred doors in the back wall.
Thorne wasted no time in ripping off the itchy linen shirt he’d been wearing to fit in with the miners. Squatting beside the guard, he started unbuttoning the uniform’s shirt. Though the guard was a bit stockier than he was, it looked like it would fit.
“I don’t suppose you need help with that?” Iko said, sounding too hopeful as she watched Thorne work the guard’s limp arms out of his sleeves.
Thorne paused to glare at her and, remembering the cylinder, dug it out and pressed it into her fist. “You get to work.”
Iko gave him a quick salute and threw herself behind the desk. Soon, Thorne could hear her lighthearted humming as she found the universal port and inserted the cylinder. A screen pinged, and Iko proclaimed proudly, “Code word: Captain is King!”
Thorne’s lips twitched as he tugged the guard’s shirt over his head.
“It worked! I’m in!” said Iko. “Uploading the program now.”
Wolf helped Thorne tie on the awkward shoulder armor.
“Just about done and … that’s it. Selecting sectors to receive altered programming, and uploading Cinder’s video into the holding queue … Wow, Cress couldn’t have made this any easier.”
Thorne grunted, not wanting to hear how great of a job Cress had done in helping them from afar. He wished she would have just sent herself.