8. Scarlett

My feet poundagainst the pavement as I race through dimly-lit back alleyways. Heart thundering, I weave between grimy dumpsters and piles of discarded refuse, desperate to put distance between me…

And Lyssa.

Those cold brown eyes, filled with a terrifying blend of amusement and irritation as she pinned me down…

I should have killed her as soon as I got her back into the apartment tonight. Hell, I should have killed her last night, stuck her full of that syringe when she wasn’t looking and watched her die in agony then and there. Instead I just snuck a tracker into the gash on her arm and sewed it in.

Something has been holding me back.

Is she right? Am I just a silly little girl playing at being an assassin? It’s not like I haven’t thought that myself sometimes. And I know I’m not like her, not someone for whom evil has become mundane.

I have a flash of her body, all that toned muscle and all those scars, pressed up against mine?—

No. That’s got nothing to do with anything.

Shaking my head to dispel the treacherous thoughts, I force myself to focus on escape. Up ahead, the harsh glare of streetlights beckons from the main road. I need to ditch this area before Lyssa hits the streets hunting for me.

A burly man crossing the sidewalk is talking on his phone. He doesn’t see me coming until it’s too late. I barrel into him, snatching the phone from his hand mid-conversation.

“Hey! What the fu?—”

I don’t stick around to hear the rest, sprinting away as his curses echo behind me. With trembling fingers, I hang up on his conversation and punch in the secure number I have drilled into my mind.

“Extraction. Now.” I hiss the words, my breath ragged from more than just exertion. There’s a brief pause before Ariadne’s smooth alto crackles through the line.

“Location?”

I rattle off the cross-streets, praying she’ll be swift and knowing there’s always a chance she just won’t show up at all. Daring a glance around the corner I just rounded, I see no immediate signs of pursuit. But I know that could change at any moment if I’m not careful. The familiar fear of failure, of disappointing Grandmother, churns in my gut. I try to disappear into the shadows, cursing the bright red top I’m wearing.

At least I chose flats tonight instead of heels.

The sound of a powerful engine shatters the quiet only minutes later. A sleek black Porsche screeches to a halt at the end of the alley, passenger door flung open with impatience.

“Well, well,” Ariadne sneers from behind the wheel. “If it isn’t little Red, running scared from the Big Bad Wolf.”

She looks cool as a cucumber, as always, her caffe-latte colored short hair smooth and sleek, combed back from blue eyes and a face that would be attractive if it wasn’t always filled with disdain whenever she looked at me.

I bite back the urge to snap at her. Ever since I chose to enter Grandmother’s cruel world, Ariadne has hated me. She takes an almost perverse delight in tormenting me—as if she can sense the flickering embers of my former innocent self and wants nothing more than to snuff them out entirely.

“Just drive,” I growl at her.

She complies without further argument, thank God, the Porsche taking off hard enough to press me back in my seat. As we peel away from the curb, I catch a glimpse of someone’s reflection in the side mirror—hair disheveled, eyes wide with fear.

It’s me. My own reflection.

I don’t even recognize myself these days.

The drive to Grandmother’s blurs by in a rush of streetlights. Before long, Ariadne guides the Porsche toward a high-rise building and then into the underground garage, secured behind an unmarked heavy roller door and an encrypted passcode that changes weekly. We can never get complacent—our survival depends on our ability to adapt at a moment’s notice.

That thought has been drummed into me long enough that I don’t even think of it as paranoid anymore.

After parking, we ascend through the bowels of the high-rise in an elevator, emerging at last into the penthouse suite that serves as Grandmother’s inner sanctum. The space is decorated with a decadent touch—priceless artwork adorns the walls, Persian rugs spread across gleaming hardwood floors, and the soft strains of classical music fill the air, at odds with the fog of dread that always seeps into my veins when I come in here.

Grandmother herself cuts an imposing figure in the sitting room, seated in a high-backed winged chair. Her hairs is immaculately coiffed and she wears an elegant burgundy suit, and her eyes remain closed. She doesn’t speak until the final, melancholic notes of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 fade into silence.

“You may report,” she intones at last, and opens her eyes.

Ariadne gives me a shove in the lower back, and I step forward, trying and failing to keep eye contact. I look at the soft pink scarf tucked high around her neck instead.

Grandmother always wears a scarf. At first I thought it might be vanity, hiding a neck that no longer had its youthful firmness, but I know now that the scarves hide a jagged scar. I’ve glimpsed it once, but only once, and she hurried to rearrange the scarf as she felt it shifting.

Today, the scarf is perfectly in place, set off by an ivory cameo at the base.

There’s nothing for it. I have to come clean. “I had a chance to kill the Wolf. And I failed.” The admission is bitter, made all the worse by the unbidden memory of Lyssa pinning me to the bed not half an hour again, her body moving against mine with fierce intensity. “She…she’s better than I anticipated. Stronger. More savage. She moves like…” I shake my head, lost for words. She moves like lightning. It was all I could do to keep my life.

Grandmother studies me, her expression unreadable. “And what do you intend to do about your failure?”

The words tumble out in a breathless rush, driven by a desperate need to prove myself worthy. “More training, please, Grandmother. As much as it takes to match—no, to surpass her skill.” My gaze flicks to Ariadne, who has come up next to Grandmother’s right hand, and regards me with her usual undisguised scorn. I look back to Grandmother, meet her gaze. “I need to improve. Rapidly. You were right, Grandmother, I wasn’t ready. I…I’m sorry.”

A ghost of a smile plays across Grandmother’s mouth, so fleeting I wonder if I imagined it. With a slight nod, she accepts my apology, and then crooks a finger for Ariadne to come forward. “Scarlett is owed a lesson in humility, it seems. Ariadne, you will attend to her…deficiencies.”

I can tell Ariadne is happy with the outcome of my meeting with Grandmother as we make our way in silence to the training room, an immense, cutting-edge facility spanning an entire floor of the high-rise. As we wrap our hands for the melee session ahead, she smiles at me.

It’s not a nice smile.

“You have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy hurting you,” she tells me.

I meet her challenging stare head-on, unflinching even as flashes of the pain Ariadne’s training has put me through rise unbidden. “Bring it on.”

Because the truth is, no matter how vicious she might be, Ariadne is nothing compared to Lyssa. The raw power combined with the unexpected moves the Wolf made…it was like nothing I’ve faced before, not even Ariadne at her worst.

If I hope to best Lyssa and avenge Adam, I’ll need to be remade. Starting now, with Ariadne’s cruel onslaught.

We square off in the center of the padded training area, fingers curled into fists, bodies coiled and ready to strike. There are a few other trainees in Grandmother’s house, all women, and there are countless male guards who seem to melt into the walls whenever I look at them. But Ariadne and I are alone here and now, and for a moment, there’s only the sound of our breathing.

Then Ariadne lunges without warning, wiry power honed to a razor’s edge. I sway back, deflecting her first two blows, but she’s relentless. Fists and feet rain down until finally, inevitably, she slips through my defenses.

The impact of her knuckles against my solar plexus knocks the breath from me in a strangled gasp. I hit the mat hard, stunned, only my hard-won instincts saving me from Ariadne’s vicious follow-up stomp. Rolling sideways, I sweep her legs at the last instant, sending her crashing down alongside me.

We grapple there amid the sweat-soaked mats, all barriers of poise and restraint abandoned in our violent tango. Our bodies strain and thrash together, my breath coming in ragged gasps of exertion until?—

There. An opening. I seize it without hesitation, flipping Ariadne to her back and straddling her hips, just like Lyssa did to me. My forearm draws back, ready to slam home into that hatefully perfect face, to wipe the arrogance from her eyes for good.

“Enough.”

The single word, spoken with Grandmother’s customary quiet authority, halts me mid-strike. We both freeze, panting raggedly on the mat. Only then do I realize Grandmother has been watching from the rear gallery this entire time, observing with the dispassionate interest of an instructor evaluating her students.

She doesn’t do this often.

It’s a privilege to have her here.

Chest heaving, I withdraw from my dominant position over Ariadne and rise on shaky legs to bow my head as Grandmother walks forward, each tick of her heels on the floor a countdown to explosion.

“Disappointing, both of you,” she murmurs, tutting softly as she circles us. “I had hoped to see something more interesting from you, Scarlett, given your encounter with the Wolf. And as for you, Ariadne—you don’t use your emotion to advantage when you fight Scarlett. That’s how she bested you—by tapping into her rage.”

I suppose rage is an emotion.

Ariadne scrambles to her feet as Grandmother halts before her. “Be better. I weary of these childish squabbles. They do not become you. Now leave us.”

Ariadne shoots me one last glare before stalking away, clutching a towel to staunch the trickle of blood from a split lip.

I don’t know what comes over me, but I can’t resist calling after her. “You’re getting soft, Ariadne. Better find your edge before the Wolf?—”

That’s as far as I get before Grandmother’s slap catches me completely by surprise, whipping my head to the side with stunning force. I taste iron, feel it blossoming along the seam of my mouth. Stunned and wary, I meet her dispassionate gaze.

“When you address Ariadne, you will do so respectfully.” Each precisely enunciated word is a masterclass in cold menace. “She is lowering herself when she trains you. You have nothing to offer her, no way to challenge her or help her hone her skills. The least you can do is be grateful.”

I nod, barely trusting my voice, the torrent of vitriol I want to unleash. Grandmother look at me for a long moment before continuing in that same soft, implacable tone. “But that said, you did overcome her for a moment just now. You are improving.”

My eyes flick up sharply at that. “Thank you, Grand?—”

She cuts me off with a slender hand raised in silence. “You’ve merely confirmed that you have the capacity to become what is required. The question is…do you have the resolve?”

I still can’t keep my damn mouth shut. “I’ve killed for you many times over. Doesn’t that show my resolve?”

“Killing by surprise or deception is one thing. Now that the Wolf knows you’re coming, she’ll be on her guard. You need to toughen up, girl. If you wish to oppose her…no, if you wish to defeat her, to enact true justice…” She’s so close now that I want to back up, but I stay there, let her think she’s intimidating me. “…then you must embrace the howling void inside you. Become it utterly.”

Who am I kidding? She does intimidate me. “Yes, Grandmother.”

“I’ll call Ariadne back now,” she says. “You have work to do. Don’t you?”

“Yes, Grandmother.” She leaves me there, and while I wait for Ariadne to return, I catch sight of another trainee, battered and bruised?—

Oh. It’s only my reflection in the mirrored walls.

Who am I becoming?