The Lunar Chronicles 2
Marissa Meyer
Scarlet is driving a delivery ship when she gets a comm from the Toulouse Law Enforcement Department of Missing Persons. She immediately pulls over to check her port. They sent her a printed message saying they don’t have enough evidence to suspect anything violent happened to her grandma, Michelle. They are ruling it a suicide or runaway and closing the case. Scarlet is furious. She tries to break her port screen and throws it to the passenger side when she fails. She arrives at Gille’s tavern and throws tomatoes at the trash compactor to feel better. Gilles catches her and says he will take it from what he owes her for the delivery. Scarlet starts to load the vegetables into the cold storage room. Emilie asks about Scarlet’s grandma, but Scarlet says they haven’t found anything. She goes back out to the ship and think about how suddenly her grandma was gone with her ID chip left on the counter.
After everything is unloaded, Scarlet goes to settle the bill with Gilles. He tells her to take a plate of food to the first booth and he would have payment ready when she got back. She takes the food to the shy street fighter Emilie told her about. She convinces him to try the tomatoes he put aside. Cinder’s capture at the Emperor’s palace in New Beijing comes on the port screen. A few drunk patrons start making crude comments so Scarlet unplugs the net-screen they are watching. One drunk, Roland, tells Scarlet she is crazy just like her grandma. Scarlet attacks him over the bar. The fighter holds Roland by the throat and tells him to apologize to Scarlet. Gilles comes in to see what is going on. He kicks out the fighter who offers to pay for all the damage, but Gilles just wants him out. Scarlet threatens to not deliver to Gilles, but he points out there are plenty of other farms in France and he only bought from theirs because of her grandmother.
Scarlet starts to load the order back into her ship when Gilles stops her and says he doesn’t want to close his account with her. She leaves the produce and gets his sign off for the order. The street fighter is out by her ship and asks if he can buy more tomatoes because he is still hungry. She says she has plenty and tosses him one and a few carrots. He asks if he can work for her as a farm hand because the fights aren’t a steady career. She asks his name and he says they call him Wolf at the fights. Scarlet tells him to go to Toulouse or Paris to find work before she leaves him.
Thorne is in his cell using a port screen he has borrowed from one of the guards when Cinder drops through the roof. She realizes her plans were wrong and she ends up in the wrong cell. She takes the vid-cable from the port to fix the vid-screen in her head and then works on getting out of the prison. Thorne asks her about her escape plan when she is out. She tells him she will take the most direct route out of the city. Thorne tells her he has space ship that could get them out of the city quickly. Cinder asks him to be quiet so she can get them out. She starts to sweat and he asks if she is okay. She asks him to leave her alone and he does as he admires her beauty.
Scarlet thinks about her grandma while she feeds the chickens on the farm. She notices a light on in the house on the second floor: her grandma’s. She rushes up to the room to find her absentee dad going through his mom’s things. He is drunk and rambling about his mom hiding something. Scarlet patches up the burns on his arms from where he was tortured to get information from his mother. He says the men had tattoos of letters and numbers. Scarlet realizes Wolf must have been one of them and tells her dad to comm the police if she isn’t back in three hours. She is going to the abandoned Morel Farm where Wolf said he was staying.
Cinder feels bad for having used her bioelectricity on Thorne. She looks up his file while she works and finds he is an American (formerly in the armed services) with several charges against him in multiple countries. As they start to make their way through the hole in the wall, Cinder uses the knife in her hand to remove Thorne’s ID chip. They make their way into an air duct and Cinder uses blueprints on her net screen to get them to an opening above a storm drain. Three men arrive to deliver supplies. Cinder crushes a security camera and they get out onto the delivery truck’s top. Cinder uses her glamour to have the deliver men turn around and hum to themselves. Cinder and Thorne get themselves into the storm drain and find a filthy concrete tunnel. They make their way through it.
Kai hasn’t been sleeping well so he is in his office trying to complete paperwork. His mind keeps drifting off to Cinder. He wonders why she was made into a cyborg. The part he is really upset about is how Cinder is Lunar. He doesn’t know when she used her glamour on him. Torin and Chairman Huy come to tell him Cinder and Thorne have escaped. He tells them to do whatever they must to recover them and secretly hopes they never do.
Scarlet takes her ship out to the old Morel farm to find that is where the fights are being held. She calls the police to inform them. She sticks out as she walks through the large crowd. She finds Wolf and accuses him of being one of the men who took her grandma and tortured her dad. She has her gun out and everyone is starring at them. He says it was not him despite the tattoo. he is called to the stage to fight an undefeated champion named Hunter who towers over Wolf. Wolf beats Hunter and is about to break his neck. He stops when he sees Scarlet and runs into the woods. The police arrive and most people scatter. Scarlet makes her way back to her ship and hears a chilling howl in the distance.
Cinder and Thorne make their way through the storm drain and into the sewer. They have to cross a river of sewage and continue on towards Beihai Park. Cinder leads them out and Thorne takes them to a warehouse. Thorne can’t enter because he doesn’t have his ID chip anymore. The warehouse owner, Alak, shows up as Cinder is about to disable the lock. He tells them they can’t take the ship. Cinder’s vision goes white as she is in pain. Alak is knocked out when she is done. They drag him into his office and find Thorne’s stolen ship. Cinder is impressed with the size of the Rampion, but it won’t open at Throne’s command. She tells him to keep trying while she uses a hatch to crawl through to the engine room. She hooks herself into the ship to give it power.
The ship opens to admit Thorne, but takes a minute to close the hatch. The military men start shooting at them. Thorne makes his way to the control room and starts up the ship. Cinder tells him through a speaker that he will have to fly manually. The Rampion is shot at while Thorne opens the warehouse ceiling and manages a shaky take off. He gets them out of Earth’s atmosphere and into orbit. When Cinder doesn’t respond to him, he goes to the engine room to find her unconscious. He drags her over to the pod ship charger and plugs it into her head. She wakes up angry he went into her control panel, but glad he was thinking quickly.
After a sleepless night, Scarlet has breakfast and tries researching Wolf’s tattoo. When she doesn’t find anything, she researches wolves and reads about pack dynamics (alphas, betas, and omegas). Wolf shows up at her door so Scarlet runs for the shotgun. Wolf explains he wants to help her find her grandmother because he is pretty sure he knows who took her. Scarlet realizes he is her only lead and decides to let him in and listen to him even though she still doesn’t trust him.
Scarlet leads Wolf into the kitchen and slices up bread and tomatoes for him. Wolf doesn’t know why the Order of the Pack took her grandma. He tells her he was just an errand boy for the gang with plans on changing the world. He guesses it has something to do with her previously being a military pilot. Scarlet plans to find them despite Wolf’s warning ti would be suicide. There is a slam and Scarlet runs outside after her dad.
There is a crash from the hangar and Scarlet rushes to it thinking her dad is going to steal her ship. She finds him tearing apart the cabinets and tool boxes still looking for whatever his mother hid. Scarlet tires to hold him down, but Wolf is the one who restrains him and helps her up. Wolf agrees to help Scarlet find her grandma and tells her the Pack is headquartered in Paris. She tells him they will have eight hours on the train ride to figure out what they are going to do (because he dad broke her ship window). Wolf wonders if her father might be right about her grandma hiding something. Scarlet insists they have no secrets.
Torin and Chairman Huy show Kai security footage from the prison. It shows Dr. Erland glamouring the guard to see Cinder with a large bag. Kai is starting to wonder if there is a conspiracy. Levana storms into Kai’s office insisting Kai helped Cinder escape. She has taken away his ability to talk, so Kai waits patiently for her to finish ranting. He tries to assure her they are doing everything they can and updating their prisons. She says she is going back to Luna and gives him three days to send her Cinder or she will send her own army. After she leaves, Kai sends everyone away so he can think.
Cinder showers and finds some clean clothes to wear. As she is drying off her cyborg parts, she pulls out the three chips she keeps in her calf compartment. Thorne asks her why she has them. Cinder realizes she can use Iko’s personality chip as an auto-control system for the ship. She makes an adapter and plugs it in. Iko is confused about being a ship and not knowing what happened while she was disabled. After Thorne convinces her she is a beautiful ship, Cinder gets ready to fill her in.
Wolf is fascinated by the country side. He says he grew up in Paris, but Scarlet wonders why he is so excited over normal thinks, like cows. Their hover takes them to the train station and they wait. Just before the train arrives, Wolf seems to get nervous about the people entering. The train arrives and they get to their privacy room. Wolf still seems to be jittery and avoiding her. Scarlet turns on the net-screen and more about Cinder comes on. Scarlet hasn’t realized she had escaped prison. Wolf tells her he started fighting when he was twelve to avoid being the omega in the pack. HE doesn’t know anything else. Scarlet tries to brighten up his spirits by encouraging him to learn. She feels bad bringing him back to the Pack. She decides to go to the dinning car and invites him along, but he declines.
Scarlet orders an expresso from the bar in the dinning car. A man a little oder than her comes in and orders chocolate milk. She is surprised by it and manipulates him into getting her one. She quickly realizes she has no interest in the man, Ran, and is ashamed she acted like her father. She pays for her drinks bids farewell to Ran, who she notices has his finger nails filed to points. On her way back to the private quarters, scarlet realizes she recognizes Ran from the platform; right about when Wolf got nervous. A voice comes on over the intercom to tell everyone to return to and stay in their private rooms while they are delayed temporarily.
Back in the room, Wolf says Scarlet smells different and asks who she talked to. She tells him it isn’t his business. A droid comes to scan their wrists and take a blood sample. Scarlet realizes the medical emergency is most likely letumosis and they will all be quarantined. They get their things together. Wolf grabs scarlet and they jump out the window. The rain rushes pas them and they try to come up with a plan. Wolf suddenly puts his hand over scarlet’’s mouth and three wolves howl around them. Wolf says they won’t bother them, but tells Scarlet to keep her gun out just in case.
Cinder and Thorne go through some of his cargo. Most of it is worth a fortune and Cinder assumes it is all stolen. Iko tells them they have about 37 hours left before the power cell goes out. Thorne points out it is reentering Earth’s atmosphere that got him caught the first time. Cinder remembers Dr. Erland saying Lunars have a way of doing it undetected. She asks Thorne if he believes Princess Selena is alive. He does, so Cinder tells him they should go to Europe. Wing Commander Michelle Benoit might have more information according to what Cinder heard from Nainsi. Thorne goes to eat and Cinder practices her glamour. She hides her cyborg hand to make it look human. She quickly becomes ashamed and decides she will not be like Queen Levana.
Scarlet and Wolf make their way through the woods as the train’s droids search the tree line. When they are far enough away, she checks her port to see they are still 30 miles from Paris. Wolf says they will jump onto a different train at some point. As they walk, Scarlet asks about his ability to fight different animals. When he smiles, she realizes he has wolf teeth. She doesn’t make a big deal about it and they continue on. Wolf catches them a duck and Scarlet cooks it. She tells Wolf she went to live with her grandma after her mom left because her dad ignored her. Wolf tells her he was taken from his family to become part of the Pack. He has a little brother. Suddenly, Ran appears from the trees.
Wolf offers Ran some of their duck. Scarlet quickly realizes they know each other. She asks to see Ran’s arm and he shows her his tattoo. Ran tells Wolf their mission was cancelled and Ran was sent to get him. Wolf says he is not returning to Jael. They start fighting and it isn’t long before Wolf is almost killing Ran. Scarlet shoots Wolf in the arm to get him to stop. She wants to try to get information from Ran. Wolf explains they won’t get anything out of him; they are trained to withstand torture. Once Wolf convinces her it is pointless, he tells Scarlet they will beat Ran to Paris.
As Wolf finds a place for them to jump onto a train, Scarlet starts to put the pieces of Wolf and Ran’s stories together. Wolf admits he used the mission to capture her grandma as a way to escape. He tells her the Pack’s mission is to find the missing Princess Selene. Her grandma was a pilot of the only diplomatic trip to Luna in the last 50 years. Nine months after their return to Earth, Scarlet’s father was born.
Wolf tells Scarlet what he knows. She realizes she is part Lunar, but still doesn’t think her grandma knows anything about Princess Selene. She asks about Dr. Tanner (her alleged grandfather) and Wolf tells her he committed suicided in a Commonwealth asylum. She gets on his back as a train approaches. She tells him she doesn’t despise him and kisses his cheek. He jumps onto the car and slips. Scarlet starts to fall, but Wolf catches her and pulls her back up. He checks her to make sure she is okay. She goes to kiss him, and he pulls away. He helps her down into the storage car. When they are settled, Scarlet asks about his scars (one on his neck looks like it came from a scaple). He says they all came from pointless fights. She kisses him.
Cinder tries to use her bioelectric powers to hide the ship, but has no way to know if it is working. Thorne comes to tell her Emperor Kai is holding a press conference. As they watch from the cockpit, Thorne and Iko are surprised to learn the extent of Cinder’s relationship with Kai. Thorne can tell Kai is still into Cinder when the emperor says her being a cyborg is irrelevant. Thorne tells Cinder that Michelle Benoit has a granddaughter with no hospital records. He thinks she might be the Lunar princess.
Scarlet dreams about her grandmother talking to a man about him and his wife, Madame Lihn, adopting a girl. Scarlet thought her grandmother was sending her away, but now she realizes it was Princess Selene they were talking about. She tells Wolf about it, but he doesn’t want to know. He tries to talk her out of trading herself for her grandma’s freedom. She tells Wolf he doesn’t have to go with her, but he says he will do what he has to do; just like her.
Scarlet and Wolf hide among the storage containers at the paris station until they are able to cross to the platform with out drawing too much attention. They make their way through Paris and into the destruction from the Third Word War. Wolf points out all the members of the Pack that are watching them. He gives her a last chance to run away together. She know she couldn’t live with herself if she left her grandma. Wolf apologizes before they enter the allegedly abandoned opera house where the Pack lives.
Scarlet starts to call out to get the pack’s attention. A lunar thaumaturge, Jael, appears to greet them. Wolf, whose called Alpha Kesley, tells Jael what Scarlet knows but doubts its usefulness. Jael tells him their priorities have shifted away from Selene. He admits he sent another Lunar Special Operative (what the letters on their tattoos stand for) to kill Scarlet’s father. Two more come to take scarlet to a room they prepared for her. Wolf takes her gun.
Adri and Pearl come to see Emperor Kai with new information. Adri thinks the girl was on the news for being in the quarantine and breaking a med droid was also Cinder. She shows him the footage from when she sent the police to retrieve her. Cinder shouts about something belonging with her family. Adri thinks it is Peony’s ID chip and they can locate Cinder by tracking it. Kai is disgusted with Adri’s attitude and hopes she is wrong.
After being kept in a dressing room that has been converted into a jail cell cell, a guard comes to take Scarlet to her grandma. She is taken to a private balcony over the old stage. Scarlet runs to her grandma and the guard leaves them. Grand-mere says she shouldn’t have come. They are no longer looking for the Princess. They are studying her to find out why she is immune to their manipulations. She then melts away and becomes Ran. Jael appears from behind a the door. They are trying to find out why her grandma is immune and Scarlet and her father are not.
Wolf (AKA Ze’ev) makes his way to Jael and sees Ran on the way. Ran apologizes for interrupting his role and explains he wasn’t sure it was all an act. Wolf smells Scarlet on his brother. He continues to find Jael in his office. Jael tells him their mission has changed and they will attack Earth the next day. He wants Wolf to lead the attack on Paris. Wolf asks about the change in plans. Jael explains the situation with Cinder and her ability to resist the queen (even though she isn’t a shell) was the final straw against the Commonwealth and their refusals for peace. Wolf accepts the position and is given a box of ID chips from Paris quarantine to be cleaned and reprogramed for new recruits.
Cinder and Thorne arrive at the Benoit farm. Cinder immediately recognizes the hangar and makes her way there with Thorne following. Cinder goes through the mess to find a hidden door that leads down into an earthen basement. Thorne follows her down. They find operating equipment and a suspended animation tank. Cinder realizes this is where she was hidden.
As they look around the room, they are shocked. Cinder turns on the screen and an image shows Michelle Benoit was implanted with a prototype chip to keep Lunars from controlling her. Cinder then has the screen show Princess Selene and they are both taken back by the image of the burnt toddler. Cinder realizes she didn’t loose her memories of her childhood; she never had them to begin with. They go to find Michelle, but only find her removed ID chip in her bedroom. As they come back down the stairs, a girl with blonde curls (Emilie) comes in the door. She faints at the sight of them.
Thorne puts the girl on the couch. He wants to question her, but Cinder thinks they should leave before she wakes up. The girl wakes up and it is Scarlet’s friend Emilie. She is terrified of Cinder, so Cinder leaves Thorne to talk to her. When Emilie won’t calm down, Cinder uses bioelectric manipulations to calm Emilie down. She tells them what she knows and Michelle’s disappearance and how Scarlet left chasing a lead. Thorne asks about a parts store to repair his ship.
Wolf comes to see Scarlet in her cell. She immediately attacks him, but the effort is futile. He tries to tell her that he meant his apologies, but never meant to hurt her. She continues to scream at him. His demeanor changes and the guard watches. Wolf kisses her and uses his tongue to pass her something. He warns her to wait until morning and then he leaves her cell. Scarlet takes an ID chip out of her mouth.
Cinder doesn’t feel guilty about using her Lunar power on Emilie and that worries her. They land in town and go into a shop to find a new power cell. A man in the aisle seems to pay too much attention to her as she tries to disguise Thorne and herself. She convinces the clerk to let them pay with a gold wrist port watch. As they are leaving, Iko sends her a message that the police are checking out the ship. There are more by the hover ship Cinder and Thorne used to get into town. Thorne has them duck into a tavern. Cinder continues her chant to keep people from recognizing them. One man stares until she meets his eyes. The police come in shortly after and seem confused when they get to Cinder. They ask if she is Peony.
Memories of Peony flood Cinder’s mind and the stress starts to overheat her system. She breathes to calm herself down while Thorne is cuffed and a police officer tells her to get out of the booth. Cinder makes her way out while tricking the officers into letting them go. The man that starred at her earlier turns wolf-like and starts attacking the officers to get her. Cinder feels responsible when one dies because she used her to protect herself. Thorne has to headbutt her to get her attention. She uses another officer’s wrist to unlock Thorne’s handcuffs and they start to run for the ship with a gun and the power cell. When the wolf-like man follows, stating he will take her to his queen, Cinder uses a tranquilizer dart from her cyborg hand. The man from the part store also comes out to attack and howls. Cinder shoots him as well, but they hear other hows not too far away. They run for the ship.
Thorne drives the pod ship as quickly as possible back to the field where they left the Rampion. After they land, Thorne removes the tracker Iko tells him the police left. Cinder replaces the old power cell. She tosses Peony’s ID chip into the field. Thorne takes off and then they dress his wound from where the man hit him. Cinder feels horrible about using the police officer to protect herself in her panic. Thorne tries to convince her it wasn’t her fault. Iko guesses what happened and tells them the same thing is going on all around the world.
Scarlet hears the howls from her cell like wild animals have overrun the city. She calls out to the guards but doesn’t get an answer. She realizes she is left alone and grabs the chip Wolf gave her. she uses it to open the door and finds her grandma six cells down. Grand-mere is so badly hurt that she can’t move. She tells Scarlet that she must get out and tell Cinder that she is Princess Selene. There are only two others that know this: Logan and Garan. Scarlet asks about Logan and Grand-mere says he is a good man. Scarlet doesn’t have the heart to tell her he died. She vows to stay with her grandma until morning.
Ran comes into the cell claiming he stayed behind so that he can take advantage of his brother’s weakness and replace his as Alpha. Michelle goads him on until he attacks her. She uses her last breath to tell Scarlet to run. Scarlet does eventually stop out of her stupor and starts to run away. She is able to evade Ran for a while, but he ends up throwing her into a statue over an empty fountain in the lobby. Wolf collides with him and they start to fight.
Scarlet watches as Wolf fights Ran. He repeats several times that she is his. Ran accepts that Wolf has made his choice and attacks. They fight until Wolf ends up with his teeth in Ran’s neck. Scarlet runs outside and sees a woman run into an alley. She tries to follow, but then another member of the Pack catches the woman. Wolf catches up with Scarlet. She tries to talk him out of hurting her, but he says someone is in his head. Something shoots into Wolf’s neck and he collapses onto her.
Cinder and Thorne come to get Scarlet and heave Wolf off of her. Cinder asks about Michelle and Scarlet tells her she died. They try to get her to leave and Scarlet refuses to go without Wolf. After Scarlet explains he saved her life, they all start to carry him to the ship. Cinder uses her tranquilizer darts to slow their attackers. They send Scarlet to pilot the ship while they continue to carry Wolf. Scarlet works the controls from muscle memory and meets Iko. When she goes back to check on the others, they are surrounded by Lunar operatives led by the thaumaturge, Jael.
Thorne pulls out a gun, but Jael quickly makes him turn it on Cinder. She uses her last dart to knock him out. Cinder’s system allows her to detect and stop the bioelectric manipulation used against her. As the Lunar Operative starts to grab Cinder, Scarlet and Iko drive the ship’s ramp into them. It hits Jael and he holds onto the open ram. Cinder takes Thorne’s gun and shoots Jael in the leg. She manipulates one of the operatives into carrying Thorne and Wolf onto the ship. Cinder is about to pass out when Scarlet comes and shoots Jael in the chest. Cinder takes the gun and gets on board. Scarlet directs Iko to get them away.
Kai is on a conference with the rest of the world’s leaders as they watch the destruction in major cities. England’s Prime Minister points out there was also an attack in a small farm town in R..., France. Chairman Huy comes to give news of Cinder and Kai ends the conference. They almost had her in R..., but the queen’s men killed the officers. Kai sends everyone away and comms Queen Levana. He begs her to stop the attacks. Admitting he can’t give her Cinder, he offers an alliance by marriage and the Commonwealth knowing it is the only option he has. She accepts.
After a moment to breath, Cinder goes to the med bay to get supplies to patch everyone up. Thorne and Wolf both wake up. While Scarlet cuts out her and Wolf’s ID chips, Cinder turns on the net-screen to see the news of the attacks. Emperor Kai has an emergency press conference to announce he will marry Queen Levana on the next full moon in order to remove her troops from Earth. Cinder throws a fit and Scarlet points out it is her fault for hiding. Cinder explains she only just learned who she really is. Wolf asks about her abilities and Scarlet points out she controlled an operative. Wolf explains even the most talented thaumaturges cannot control more than fifteen even with modifications. A normal Lunar wouldn’t be able to control even one. He offers to let her practice on him. Cinder storms away frustrated and not knowing what to do.
Queen Levana watches new operatives being trained on Luna. Sybil comes to tell her the operatives on Earth are back to concealment and estimate sixty of them died. One was Jael. Levana tells her to let his pack go rather than retrieving them. She is nervous because she knows she can’t control them all. When Sybil congratulates her on her engagement, Levana feels the stone band on her finger she still wears but keeps hidden.
After hours of crying, Scarlet goes to the galley and finds Wolf trying to open a can of tomatoes. She introduces him to a can opener and a few other vegetables. He apologizes and explains he had to appear loyal to plead her case and try to get Jael to let her go. He got the chip when he learned Jael was planning to torture her. He came back to get her and Michelle when he found Ran attacking her. Scarlet points out his wolf instincts to protect the Alpha female may have been stronger than Jael’s control over him. Wolf tells her she is the only one for him and he will spend his life protecting her.
Cinder is playing with the d-comm chip when Iko chimes in. Cinder asks how she is adjusting and her fear of letting people down reflects Cinder’s own feelings. She knows she cannot let Kai marry and be killed by Levana. She is going to let Wolf train her, find Dr. Erland and the girl that programmed the chip, and then stop hiding.