Stars Above (The Lunar Chronicles #4.5)(4)

It worked. No one sat next to her, and she exhaled in relief as the train rose on its magnets again.

Unzipping the top pocket of her pack, she pulled out her portscreen and stuck a pair of wireless headphones into her ears. Maybe some music would help her forget about what she was doing.

She had left Paris. She was never going back again. She was going to live with her grand-mère and no one could stop her.

She wondered if her father had even realized she was gone yet. Probably not. He was probably still drunk and unconscious.

She shut her eyes and tried to relax as the music blasted into her ears, but it was no use. She was hyperaware of the movements of the train, the chatting of passengers, the announcements of upcoming stops. She was waiting for the chime of her portscreen—a comm from her father demanding to know where she was. Or a nervous, worried comm, begging her to come home. Or even a missing child alert from the police.

She listened to the entire album and no alerts came.

She watched the cities come and go, the fields and vineyards disappear over the hills, the sun sink toward the horizon, and no alerts came.

The car became more crowded as time passed. A man in a suit eventually sat next to her and her whole body tensed, but he didn’t try to talk or ask any questions. He busied himself reading a newsfeed on his port and eventually dozed off, but Scarlet had heard enough stories about bag snatchers and child-nappings that she dared not let down her guard.

The album started over. The notice board at the front of the car announced that the next stop was Toulouse, and an entirely new bout of nerves writhed in her stomach. She had to wake the man up to get past him, and he startled and said something about almost missing his stop again. He laughed. Scarlet ducked past him without meeting his gaze, clutching the straps of her backpack.

“Hey, kid.”

She clomped down the steps to the platform.

“Kid!”

She quickened her pace, panic and adrenaline rushing through her veins. She looked around for someone who would help her if she needed it. Someone in uniform or an android or—

“Kid, wait!” A hand landed on Scarlet’s shoulder and she spun around, ready to scream.

It was the man in the suit. “You left this on the bench,” he said, holding out her water bottle.

Her pulse immediately subsided and she grabbed the bottle away without a thank-you. Turning, she jogged across the platform and up the escalators. She felt embarrassed for her overreaction, but still unnerved. She was alone and no one knew where she was or that she was even missing. She doubted she would feel safe until she reached her grandmother’s house, and even then she’d have to persuade Grand-mère to let her stay.

She found an empty taxi hover and climbed inside, giving her grandmother’s address. The screen asked her to approve the cost of travel, and the price blinking at her made her stomach drop. It would almost deplete her savings.

Swallowing hard, she scanned her wrist and approved the payment.

*

Michelle had been caring for the princess for almost two years, and the regular ministrations had become second nature. Just another chore to check off her daily list. Feed the animals. Gather the eggs. Milk the cow. Check the princess’s diagnostics and adjust the tank’s fluid levels as needed.

The child was growing. She would have been five years old now—was five years old, Michelle reminded herself. Even after all these months it was hard not to think of the girl as a corpse she kept locked up beneath her hangar.

She wasn’t a corpse, but she wasn’t exactly alive, either. The machines did everything for her. Breathed. Pumped blood. Sent electrical signals to her brain. Logan had told her it was important to keep her brain stimulated so that when she awoke she wouldn’t still have the mind of a three-year-old. Supposedly she was being fed knowledge and even life experiences as she lay there, unmoving. Michelle didn’t understand how it worked. She couldn’t imagine how this child could sleep for her entire life and then be expected to become a queen upon her return to society.

But that would be Logan’s job, whenever he returned. There were years still before anyone would know who this child was going to become.

Michelle finished recording Selene’s vital statistics and flipped off the generator-powered lights. The bomb shelter, which had been converted into a makeshift hospital room and scientific laboratory, remained lit by the pale blue light from the suspension tank. Michelle clipped her portscreen to her belt and climbed the ladder to the hangar above. She grabbed one of the storage crates that she shuffled between the hangar and the barn—a useful excuse in case anyone ever saw her coming and going. The bomb shelter and its occupant were a secret, a dangerous one, and she could never allow herself to lose caution.

This was the direction of her thoughts when she stepped onto the gravel drive and saw the taxi hover waiting there. She wasn’t expecting visitors. She never had visitors to expect.

She squared her shoulders and settled the crate on one hip. The pebbles crunched beneath her feet. She glanced into the hover’s windows as she passed, but it was empty, and no one was waiting on the porch, either.

Setting down the crate, Michelle grabbed the only weapon she passed—a pair of rusted gardening shears—and shoved open her front door.

She froze.

Scarlet was sitting on the bottom step of the foyer’s staircase, a backpack tucked under her legs. She was bundled up in the same wool coat that Michelle remembered from the Louvre photos, but now it was fraying at the shoulder seams and looked two sizes too small for a growing girl.