Scarlet

As Scarlet leads Wolf into the house, he notices “six glossy red tomatoes” (121) on the kitchen counter, and she begrudgingly feeds him. Wolf admits that he “lost control” at the fight the night before and that it’s “been a long time” (121) since that happened. He tells Scarlet that his tattoo, LSOP962, stands for “Loyal Soldier to the Order of the Pack [...] Member 962” (123) and that he was once a member of a gang more commonly known as the Wolves. He calls it “the biggest mistake [he] [has] ever made” (123) and swears that he is no longer associated with them. He guesses that they took Scarlet’s grandmother because she used to be a military pilot, and they might want to pull government secrets out of her. Scarlet wants to know how to find the Wolves, and when Wolf insists that it’s too dangerous to seek them out, Scarlet yells that she doesn’t care: She will do anything to find her grandmother. Suddenly, she hears her father running out of the house. She tries to follow him outside, but “the drive [is] already empty” (126).

Scarlet and Wolf find her father in her ship’s hangar, frantically searching through the supplies. He cries out that “there’s something here” (128) that the Wolves want, and he won’t stop until he finds it. He attacks Scarlet’s ship, but Wolf stops him. Scarlet’s father becomes hysterical when he realizes that Wolf is “one of them,” and he begs for “more time” (130). Wolf finds a transmitter on Scarlet’s father, and he guesses that the Wolves have been tracking her father and “listening in on everything” (131).

Wolf smashes the transmitter, and Scarlet’s father admits he knew he was wearing it when he spoke to Scarlet the night before. Scarlet realizes that her father put her life in danger because she could have said or done something to make the Wolves come after her. She orders her father to leave the farm, and Wolf offers to “help get [her] grandmother back” (134). He says the Wolves are “headquartered in Paris” (134), so they should head there. Scarlet wants to leave immediately, and when Wolf suggests that there might really be something hidden on the farm that the Wolves want, Scarlet insists that she and her grandmother “don’t keep secrets” (135).

Kai listens as Huy and Torrin report that Cinder and Thorne have escaped, and they are having trouble tracking them. However, they share security footage from New Beijing Prison that shows Dr. Erland using his Lunar glamour on the guards to sneak supplies to Cinder. Kai is amazed to learn that yet another person he trusted is Lunar. Suddenly, Queen Levana barges in and accuses Kai of “let[ting] [Cinder] escape” (142). She claims that Kai must have “assist[ed] her escape” to “humiliate [Levana]” (142), but Kai assures her that New Beijing Prison is “unequipped to keep a prisoner who is both cyborg and Lunar” (144). He tells her that he is doing everything in his power to find Cinder, and Levana warns him that she will “burn [his] country to the ground looking for [Cinder] if [she] must” (145). Once alone, Kai becomes overwhelmed and thinks that he “[isn’t] ready” (146) to be the emperor. He realizes that he has to put aside his feelings for Cinder, and she must be found “before millions [are] murdered in her place” (147).

On the Rampion, Cinder takes three computer chips out of her prosthetic leg. The first is “a Lunar chip” that “Levana had ordered to be installed in Nainsi, Kai’s android” to “gather confidential information” (150). The second is the personality chip from Iko, Cinder’s stepmother’s android. The third is the ID chip of Cinder’s younger stepsister Peony, who “died almost two weeks ago” (151). She tells Thorne that she stopped the government androids from taking Peony’s ID chip, and he wonders why the government would “program androids to harvest ID chips” (152). Suddenly, Cinder realizes she has the perfect spot for Iko’s personality chip: the Rampion itself. Iko’s voice bursts through the ship, and although the android is horrified to find that she has become a spaceship, Cinder explains that they “need a new auto-control system” (153) for the ship, and Iko can do the job until they find a more permanent solution.

Scarlet and Wolf take a hover to the maglev station in Toulouse. While waiting for the train, Wolf is on edge and nervous about his surroundings. They board the train and start watching news coverage of the New Beijing ball and Cinder’s mishap on the stairs. Scarlet fumes as she listens to people laughing at the Lunar girl and comments, “That poor girl’s going to be executed, and everyone’s just making jokes about her” (164). Wolf points out that Cinder allegedly attacked Levana and Emperor Kai, and Scarlet shoots back that people shouldn’t judge Cinder or anyone else “without trying to understand them first” (165). Wolf tells Scarlet that he started fighting when he was 12, right after he joined the pack, and he had to fight to avoid becoming an omega. Scarlet reminds Wolf that he isn’t a member of the pack anymore and doesn’t have to fight anymore. Scarlet excuses herself to go to the dining car, but when she invites Wolf to join her, he stays back, and she notices that he acts like he “narrowly avoided a trap” (169).