Wolf shook his head, but she detected a clouding in his eyes. “He told us what he wanted us—me—to know. Or to believe. I wouldn’t put stock in any of it.”
“How can you be sure?”
His fingers started up again—clench, release, clench. “I know Ran. He would do anything to improve his standing. By tracking me down and forcing me to return—or even showing proof that he’d fought me and won—he hoped to do just that. As for the assignment I’d been a part of when I left … they wouldn’t cancel it. It was too important to them.”
“What about my grandmother?”
He shook off a troubled frown. “Right. We should keep moving.” He tested the strength in his injured arm before using it to push himself to his feet. The fire had burned down to smoldering coals and soon he had stamped them out, ignoring the duck breast that had shriveled up into a chunk of coal.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Scarlet, staying put on the shore. “Shouldn’t we at least try to question him?”
“Scarlet, listen to me. Does he know something that would help? Yes, probably. But he won’t give it to us. Unless you plan on torturing it out of him, and even then there’s nothing you could do that would frighten him more than what the pack will do if he talks. We already know where your grandmother is. Dealing with him is a waste of time.”
“What if we brought him with us and offered him as a trade?” she suggested, watching as Wolf reloaded their bag.
Wolf laughed. “A trade? For an omega?” He gestured at Ran. “He’s worth nothing.” Though his temper could be heard just beneath the surface, Scarlet was glad that the temporary insanity was gone from his eyes.
“He’ll go back to them,” she said, “and tell them you’re with me.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Slinging the pack over his shoulder, Wolf spared a final scornful look at his brother. “We’ll get there before he does.”
Twenty-Two
Night crept up fast. The forest leaned in toward them, a solid wall of shadows beneath the dim spotlight of a waning moon. They’d passed only one junction and continued wordlessly north. Seeing another set of tracks combining with theirs had given Scarlet a beat of hope—at least now there was a chance of crossing paths with a new train. But the maglev tracks remained silent. Scarlet’s portscreen light was enough to see by for a time, but she worried about killing the battery and knew they should probably stop soon.
Wolf was no longer looking back every few minutes and Scarlet suspected he’d known they were being followed all along.
Wolf stopped suddenly and Scarlet’s heart leaped, for a moment sure he’d heard wolves again. “Here. This will work.” He peered upward at a log that had fallen across the embankments on either side of them, creating a bridge over the tracks. “What do you think?”
Scarlet followed him through the waist-high brush. “I thought maybe you were kidding before. You really think you can jump onto a moving train from there?”
He nodded.
“Without breaking a leg?”
“Or anything else.”
He met her speculative look with a hint of arrogance.
She shrugged. “Anything to be out of these woods.”
The ledge was a few feet over her head, but she clambered up with little trouble, grasping onto roots and jutting rocks. She heard a hiss from below and turned to see a shot of pain cross Wolf’s face as he hauled himself up after her. She held her breath, feeling guilty, as he dusted off his hands.
“Let me see,” she said, grasping Wolf’s forearm and holding up her portscreen to shine a light on the bandage. No blood had leaked through yet. “I really am sorry about shooting you.”
“Are you?”
Her touch lingered as it reached the end of the bandage, checking that it was still securely tied. “What does that mean?”
“I suspect you would shoot me all over again if you thought it would help your grandmother.”
She blinked up at him, almost surprised to discover how close they were standing. “I would,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be sorry about it afterward.”
“I’m just glad you didn’t take my advice and shoot me in the head,” he said, his teeth showing in the portscreen’s brightness. His fingers barely fluttered across her sweater’s pocket, making her jump.
Then his fingers were gone and Wolf was squinting against the bright light of the portscreen.
“Sorry,” Scarlet stammered, angling it toward the ground.
Wolf moved around her, pressing on the fallen log with his foot. “It appears trustworthy.”
Scarlet discovered a strange irony in his choice of words. “Wolf,” she said, testing the way her voice echoed in the forest’s emptiness. He stiffened, though he didn’t turn around. “When you first told me about leaving the pack, I thought maybe it had been months, or even years, but Ran made it sound like you’d just left.”
One hand came up to ruffle his hair as he turned back toward her.
“Wolf?”
“It’s been three weeks,” he whispered. Then, “Less than three weeks.”
She sucked in a breath, held it, released it all at once. “About the time my grandmother disappeared.”
He ducked his head, unable to meet her gaze.
Scarlet shivered. “You told me that you were a nobody, barely more than an errand boy. But Ran called you an ‘alpha.’ Isn’t that a pretty high rank?”
She saw his chest rise with a slow, tense breath.
“And now you tell me that you left them around the same time my grandmother was kidnapped.”
He rubbed absently at the tattoo, still saying nothing. Scarlet waited, blood beginning to simmer, until he dared to look at her. The portscreen cast a wash of bluish white light at their feet, but it did little to illuminate him. In the dark, she could see only the vaguest outline of his cheekbones and jaw, his hair like a clump of pine needles sticking out from his scalp.
“You told me that you had no idea why they would take my grandmother. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“Scarlet—”
“So what was true? Did you really leave them or is this all some story to get me to—” Gasping, she stumbled back. Her thoughts turned, a cascade of doubts and questions rushing through them. “Am I the mission that Ran was talking about? The one that was supposedly canceled?”
“No—”
“And after my dad warned me about this! He said one of you would come for me and there you were, and I even knew you were one of them. I knew I couldn’t trust you and still I let myself believe—”
“Scarlet, stop.”
She wrapped her fist around her hood’s cords, tightening them against her throat. Her heart was pulsating now, blood running hot beneath her skin.
She heard Wolf inhale, saw his hands spread out in the beam of the portscreen. “You’re right, I lied to you about not knowing why they took your grandmother. But you aren’t the mission that Ran was talking about.”
She tilted the port upward, shining it into his face. Wolf flinched, but didn’t look away.
“But it has something to do with my grandmother.”
“It has everything to do with your grandmother.”
She bit down hard on her lower lip, trying to still the tide of rage rising inside her.
“I’m sorry. I knew that if I told you, you wouldn’t trust me. I know I should have anyway, but … I couldn’t.”
The hand holding her port began to shake. “Tell me everything.”
There was a long pause.