Page 27 of Lone Wolf

“Do you even know what it is you want?” Katy asks. Her eyes are sharper than they were the last time I saw her, more focused.

The question snags something inside me. What do I want? The answer should be simple: survival. That’s all I’ve ever needed.But now I picture Sunny’s face in my mind, the way her body felt under mine…

“Does it matter?” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Listen, you’re not getting out of here any time soon. But neither am I. I asked to come and talk to you because I just wanted to talk to someone who understands what it waslike.”

“Scarlett and Lyssa both know—why not talk to them?”

“Because they were never true believers. You and I…we really understood her. Grandmother.”

Katy tilts her head to one side. “Something’s happened. What happened to you?”

I keep my face neutral, though my pulse quickens. “I went on my first mission for the Syndicate.”

“You failed?”

“As if. A child could have completed the mission. It was so easy it was humiliating—and the woman they sent me with was so useless she nearly got us caught.” I feel a twinge of guilt as I throw Sunny under the bus, not least because I know Scarlett is listening in. “But I know I’m stuck here,” I go on. “I know they’ll never let me prove myself because theyfearme—they know I’m better than all of them. But I have no other options.”

“And you say all of this quite openly?” she asks. She sounds curious. “They’re listening in. You must know that.”

“They already know what I think about all of this. But they believe they’ll change my mind—just like they think they’ll change yours.” I lean in, drop my voice. “You and I know better though, don’t we?”

Katy observes me for a long moment and then gives a little laugh. “You know,” she says, “you almost had me. And the funniest thing of all is that you’re still just doing what you’re trained to do. You don’t have a mind of your own any more than any of the other fools that work for the Syndicate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look at you,” she says, gesturing vaguely. “You’re playing the role Grandmother designed for you. Cold. Calculating. Weapon, not woman. But something’s cracked in you—and you’re terrified.”

I stand abruptly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I? I know Grandmother’s work when I see it. She took whatever was left of you after her training and buried it under ‘Ariadne.’ And now you’re stuck between—neither one nor the other. A ghost with no purpose.”

With that, she lies down again and turns her back. As I leave the cell, Scarlett motions me aside. “Do you really think all that?” she asks. “What you said to Katy?”

“If you want information, you need to accept that I will play a role—even if it’s not what you want to hear about your precious Syndicate.”

“You were sent on that job with Sunny Santiago for two reasons,” Scarlett tells me. “The first is because Lyssa and I thought you would make a good team—and you did.”

“And what was the second?” I ask when she pauses.

“To see if you could restrain yourself, Ariadne.”

As I look at her now, I see I have made a mistake with Scarlett Fletcher. She is not so easily fooled—she doesn’t trust me at all.

But still I hold her gaze, refusing to be the first to look away. “I’m not the weapon Grandmother tried to make me,” I say finally. “But I’m not whatever you’re trying to turn me into either.”

It’s breakfast time, but I still don’t want to see Sunny or any of the other recruits. I catch a glimpse of her through the dining room doorway as I pass—she’s animated, gesturing wildly as she tells some story to a group of junior members who are hanging on her every word, drawn into her orbit of chaotic energy. They’re laughing, relaxed. One young woman touches Sunny’s arm casually, familiar in a way no one would ever dare touch me.

Something unfamiliar twists in my chest. Not jealousy, obviously. Just something…uncomfortable.

I head to the gym, working out until I’m exhausted, until I think maybe I can finally sleep. Unfortunately, as I’m leaving, I run into another person I’d prefer not to see. “Sarah,” my mother says with a tremulous smile, running after me as I’m walking away from the dining hall. “I hear your mission went well last night.”

“Of course.”

She takes in my face, can no doubt see the exhaustion on my face. The worry in her eyes makes me want to run—or worse, to let her close the gap between us. Both impulses are equally dangerous.

“I thought perhaps getting in on the action would make you happy, my darling, but it doesn’t seem to have made you happy at all. I wish you would talk to me.”

“Why would I talk to you about a mission? It’s confidential.”

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