Page 13 of Lone Wolf

“All the same,” Lyssa drawls, and then flicks her head to the wall. I grind my teeth, but I stand up against it and let her pat me down. “When you go in there, keep your distance. You don’t want her getting hold of you.”

The resentment flares once more. “I might have been lumped in with the newbies, but I amnota newbie,” I can’t stop myself saying. “I know how to deal with this sort of situation. I thought that’s why you wanted me here.”

Lyssa arches one eyebrow. “Keep talking like that, and wewon’twant you here,” she says.

“Give her a break,” Scarlett says. I stare at her. This is the second time today Scarlett Fletcher has surprised me.

Lyssa doesn’t respond to her lover, but I get the feeling they might have adiscussionlater. Scarlett hands me a list ofquestions and I run through them, memorizing them, and hand the list back.

Lyssa flips open the keypad next to the door of the cell and asks, “Ready?”

“Yes,” I say when I realize she’s talking to me.

She enters a five-digit code, her hand carefully over the pad so I can’t see it, and then there’s a three-second wait, a buzz, and the door clunks open, swinging inward.

I head into the cell. The woman doesn’t move.

“Hello,” I say calmly. I lower myself to the floor, sitting cross-legged near the now-closed door, my back straight but my posture deliberately open. Non-threatening, but ready to move in an instant if needed. The viewing slot has shut home again with a metallic click, and although I’m certain there must be cameras in here—probably concealed behind the padding in the upper corners—it does feel like we’re alone. “My name is Ariadne,” I go on. “I was at Grandmother’s house. Did we…” I trail off, because at the sound of my name, the woman has stirred, rolling over and up into a seated position.

“Ariadne,” she says, voice hoarse from disuse, and blinks a few times before her eyes focus on me. “Did they get you, too?”

Shit.

Idoknow this woman. Celine.

She was older, already formed when I arrived at Grandmother’s house. One of the elites, the finished products. She was part of the crew that administered the “corrections” to new arrivals—including me. “Celine. I...haven’t seen you since?—”

“Since I left to take up my position.” She pulls herself up proudly. For a moment, I see what she must have been before—confident, lethal, one of Grandmother’s successes. Her eyes, though hollow with exhaustion, still carry a spark of fanaticism. “I prefer Katy these days. For deep cover. What about you—did you ever earn Grandmother’s trust?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, though I already know. Part of me—the part that will always be Ariadne—preens at the rare memories of Grandmother’s praise. Her hand on my shoulder after I broke another girl’s arm without hesitation.Perfect form, Ariadne. You’re learning.

“Only her most trusted agents were allowed to go out into the field alone,” Celine—Katy—says, as though it’s something I should have known.

“She kept me with her,” I say. “Because I was so good, she wanted me to train the others.” I let my tone head toward bragging, so that later I can tell Scarlett and Lyssa that I was just trying to establish trust, playing a role to extract information.

But the truth is, I still feel pride in that accomplishment, even though I hate Grandmother, hate what she did to me. There’s still a small traitorous part of me that craves her approval, even dead.

And I wonder briefly what Sunny would think if she knew about that part of me, the unending darkness that lives beneath the thick ice crust. She seems to think there’s something different in me. Would she still believe that if she knew how good I was at breaking others?

“Then why are you working with them now?” Katy lifts her chin toward the door, indicating the outside.

“When was the last time you had contact with Grandmother?”

No response. Her face shutters, locking down into a mask I know too well. It’s the face we all wore at Grandmother’s house when we were hiding pain, hiding fear.

“How many other trusted agents did she have in the field? And what were your orders supposed to be if you ever found out she was dead?” I press, going through the list of questions Scarlett told me she needed answers to.

Katy looks away, fixing her gaze at the wall. “Why would I tell you anything? You betrayed Grandmother.”

“She betrayed all of us,” I say sharply. I force myself back to neutral, smoothing my expression. “If you just tell me what you know, you don’t have to live out the rest of your life in here. Things could be different. The Syndicate are going to make me one of their members, and you could also?—”

She laughs. A thin, brittle laugh. “If you think these people are doing anything but using you, you’re a fool.” She shakes her head, with a cynical smile. “Leave me alone. Tell them to hurry up and kill me. If Grandmother’s really dead, I don’t have a purpose anymore.”

With that, she lays down again and pulls the blanket over her head, turning her back to me. The movement is final, dismissive, yet carries a profound hopelessness that resonates somewhere deep inside me. I recognize it—the vertigo of a life built around a singular purpose suddenly rendered meaningless.

I wait a few more minutes, just to see if she’ll relent. And as I wait, I think about what I would have done at Grandmother’s house to get Katy spilling her intel. There are ways to makepeople talk. Methods to break the will. Scarlett and Lyssa know that.

They knowIknow that, too.

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