“No,” Cress gasped.
A searing pain sliced through Cinder’s side. She collapsed onto her hands and knees. Flopping onto her back, she pushed herself away, one hand pressed against the wound. Thorne stood over her, gripping the knife. Cress was dangling from his arm in an attempt to pull him away, but he was too strong and she was trying to keep one hand on her stomach wound. Her entire front was already covered in blood.
“I’m sorry,” Thorne sobbed. All signs of his usual confidence were gone. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
Cress bit him then, digging her teeth into the flesh of his hand in an attempt to get him to release the knife. He stifled a scream behind his teeth, but didn’t let go.
Snatching the gun again, Cinder launched herself off the floor, trying to wrestle the knife out of Thorne’s grip. With a grunt, she planted a foot on his chest and kicked, ripping the knife away. He fell back, catching one of the audience chairs between his shoulders. His face barely registered the pain. His actions were becoming less graceful, more stilted.
Maybe because of his injuries, but more likely because Levana was growing too tired to go on controlling him.
Cress collapsed to her knees, clutching her stomach. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. “Cinder…”
Cinder stood over them, the gun in her left hand and the blood-slicked knife in her right, every muscle trembling.
“Stars…”
She whipped her head toward the doorway. Scarlet and Wolf had arrived.
“No. Run! Get out of here!”
Scarlet met her gaze and started to shake her head. “Wha—?”
More weapons. More potential enemies. More people she loved that Levana could take from her. Gritting her teeth, Cinder reached out, trying to lock on to their bioelectricity.
Too late. Wolf could no longer be controlled, and Scarlet was already taken.
Ninety
Cinder glanced toward Levana, who was peering at the newcomers over one of the throne’s carved arms. Then Levana looked at the second gun, lying forgotten near the doorway.
Scarlet gasped as her body lurched forward of its own accord.
Cinder dove for it too, sliding across the slick floor. There were too many weapons, too many threats, and she did not have enough hands.
Instead of grabbing the gun, she shoved it and watched as it went careening past Scarlet, toward the audience’s raised dais. A second later the weight of Scarlet’s body landed on top of her. Scarlet grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back, nearly snapping her neck. Cinder cried in pain and rolled over, shoving Scarlet off her. Maintaining her grip on the gun, she whipped her arm around, sending the back of her metal hand into Scarlet’s temple.
She grimaced at the impact, but it worked. Letting go, Scarlet skidded halfway across the room and lay sprawled across the floor.
The guilt didn’t have time to sink in—when she heard a roar, fear drew her attention back toward Wolf. Snarling, furious. He was already charging toward her.
The gun. The knife. It was Wolf but it wasn’t Wolf and she didn’t have the strength to fight him off, not now, not again …
Cinder scrunched up her face as a drop of sweat slid into her eyes and raised the gun.
But Wolf’s focus was on Scarlet’s fallen body, and when he leaped, he cleared Cinder entirely. She spun around, stunned, as Wolf scooped Scarlet into his arms and cradled her against him.
Wolf, who was a monster, who was one of the queen’s uncontrollable beasts …
He was still Wolf after all.
Gulping, choking, gulping again, Cinder raised herself up. She lost balance and fell onto one knee. “Wolf,” she stammered. “Please … help Cress, and Thorne … Please…”
He raised his head, green eyes burning at first, but then he looked over to where Cress was clutching her stomach, deathly pale. To where Thorne was crumpled against a fallen chair, looking like he wanted to go to Cress but was terrified that his own body couldn’t be trusted if he got close enough.
Wolf gave an understanding nod.
Relieved that, if nothing else, she could trust Wolf to get her friends out of here and start tending to their wounds, Cinder tried again to stand. This time she succeeded. She stumbled toward the throne, gripping the gun in one hand and the knife in the other. When she rounded the dais, she saw Levana on her knees, one hand dug into the folds of her dress while she clung to the back of the throne with the other. Her coronation gown billowed around her, elegant and distinguished, a sharp contrast to her grotesque face. She had given up on trying to use her glamour.
Cinder hated her own mind for labeling the queen as grotesque. She had once been a victim, as Cinder had once been a victim. And how many had labeled Cinder’s own metal limbs as grotesque, unnatural, disgusting?