Page 12 of Lone Wolf

“The name isn’t familiar.”

“I guess she might’ve been called something else there—because she reacted to your name. Well…to the name ‘Ariadne.’”

“Maybe I do know her,” I say with a shrug, though my interest sharpens. “It’s not like I’ve seen her since she was brought back. Does Lyssa remember her from her time with Grandmother?”

“No.” She hesitates, just a moment, and then says, “I want you to talk to Katy.”

My eyebrows hike up despite myself. I’m surprised—pleased, too, but surprised more than everything. This is the first real task I’ve been given, the first thing that suggests they might actually trust me with something important. “You think she’ll listen to me?”

Scarlett gives a little sigh. “Well, she sure as hell won’t open up to me. Or Lyssa, for that matter. But I don’t want to give up on her. I know it’s a lot to ask?—”

“I’ll do it,” I say quickly, before she can change her mind.

I was too eager. Scarlett gives me a long look, as though she’s wondering if there’s some long play going on, and I don’t blame her.

“Maybe Ididknow her,” I point out. “If you give me a look at her, I’ll tell you if I remember her. And I’ll speak to her—I’ll say whatever you want me to. Just give me something todohere. I’m getting sick of stomping other recruits into the ground in ten seconds flat.”

Except one recruit in particular, who somehow managed to last almost a full minute against me yesterday. The thought slides through my mind unbidden, unwelcome, but persistent. But I should’ve kept my thoughts to myself. Scarlett is just going to say something like,You never got tired of stompingmeinto the ground at Grandmother’s house.

But she doesn’t. She just shrugs. “I guess if anyone can get through to her, it would be you. Go clean up and then meet me at the cells.”

She gives me a curt nod, then turns and leaves. The Syndicate definitely has something big happening soon, and this is a test—another one.

And I don’t fail tests.

I shower as fast as I can, dress, and jog through the hallways to the secure wing. Everyone still calls this area “the cells” even though I’ve heard that the previous cells were underground and held a much different atmosphere. In the new mansion, they’re more like padded cells in a hospital ward, the kind where I thought I might end up myself for a while.

The temperature seems to drop as I move away from the living quarters and training spaces into the more sterile, institutional heart of the house’s secure wing. Fluorescent lights replace natural sunlight, casting everything in a yellow glow. There are guards posted at the reinforced door to the entry of the secure wing, but they seem to be expecting me, taking my weapons without comment and then waving me through the door.

It’s so easy, in fact, that my excitement gives way to wariness.

What if this isn’t a test? What if it’s atrap?

What if I’m going to end up in one of these cells and this was just a way to get me here quietly?

But as I pass through the door, I see Scarlett waiting for me at the end of the corridor. There are doors coming off on either side, but none of them are our target. We head through another reinforced security door opened with a panel that requires Scarlett’s palm print pressed against it.

If this is a trap, I’ll have to fight my way out. But Scarlett’s troubled air seems more focused on where we’re going than on me. I glance in an open door as we pass a cell. They don’t even have beds. The walls are all padded—the floors soft enough to sleep on, and when Scarlett stops in front of one and opens the viewing slot in the heavy steel door for me to look in, I see that the woman they’re keeping in there is huddled up on the floor under a blanket.

“Do you know her?” Scarlett asks me.

“She has her back to us,” I point out, trying not to sound like I think Scarlett’s a moron. I’m acutely aware that my future here depends on how I handle this interaction. But Scarlett isn’t watching the woman, I realize.

She’s watching me.

Lyssa silently appears from the far corner and strolls toward us, but I can tell by the way Scarlett doesn’t react that she was expecting her lover. “Any luck?” Lyssa asks.

“We just got here.” Scarlett knocks on the reinforced glass window, as though trying to get a reaction from a caged wild animal.

The woman in the cell doesn’t move.

“She won’t talk to us,” Lyssa tells me. “Personally I think we should kill her and have done with it, but Scarlett is determinedto see if we can pull her back from wherever she’s gone in her mind.” She and Scarlett exchange a glance, a conversation passing between them. “You sure you want to do this?”

Lyssa is speaking to Scarlett—but isn’t it me she should be asking that? But I keep quiet. This is the most interesting thing that has happened at the Syndicate since I’ve arrived, and if I succeed where they’ve failed, they’llhaveto recognize my skills.

“We’re all out of options,” Scarlett points out. She turns to me. “Any weapons you didn’t turn over to the guards?”

“No,” I say, and try hard not to sound annoyed. “I’m not supposed to carry concealed weapons in Elysium and I don’t.” I follow the rules meticulously, hoping it will eventually earn me the trust I need.

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