Page 5 of Lone Wolf (Red Rivals)
CHAPTER 5
Ariadne
I’m alone in the training room and practicing my forms when Scarlett walks in and heads straight to me. I stop and wipe down my wet brow, hands on my hips as I wait for her to reach me. My breathing is steady, controlled. Always controlled, especially when I’m in the presence of Scarlett Fletcher. Old habits from Grandmother’s house—never show weakness.
Scarlett used to be someone I hated. Not as much as I hated Lyssa, but Grandmother encouraged us to see each other as opponents. We were made to fight each other, again and again, until blood was drawn, until bones were broken. The strongest survived. The weakest didn’t.
I don’t hate her these days, or at least not with the same force. But given that I murdered her brother, I’m pretty sure Scarlett hates me. After all, she beat me to within an inch of my life once in Grandmother’s house. I respected her for that. If anything, that was the day I stopped hating her quite as much as I had. There’s a purity in honest violence.
She doesn’t look like she plans to attack me right now, but I’m still on guard as she approaches. Scarlett doesn’t speak to me unless she has to, and that’s fine by me. We’ve established our boundaries, like wolves from rival packs forced to share territory.
“Sarah,” she says. “How are you?”
“I prefer Ariadne,” I say before I can stop myself. But ever since I said it to that little pest Sunny Santiago, it felt right . I’m not poor Sarah . Never was.
Scarlett’s hazel eyes turn even more guarded than usual. “I thought your therapist said it would be better to try to reclaim your old name?”
“And I thought therapy was supposed to be private. I guess we both have some adjustments to make to our expectations.”
She flushes slightly. “Of course your sessions are private,” she says. “But when Dr. Khatri spoke to us about how we could support you, that was one of the comments that she made. Anyway—I’m not here to argue about your name.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Am I finally getting a job?” I can’t keep the eagerness from my voice, though I try. Weeks of training with recruits who will never reach my level has been mind-numbing. I need purpose, challenge, something to prove my worth to the Syndicate.
“Of a kind. The woman Lyssa and I brought back from Las Vegas—she says her name is Katy.” She watches me closely. “Did you know her at Grandmother’s house?”
“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 I did know 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 to do here. 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 stomping me into 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 a trap ?
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 determined to 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’ll have to 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.
“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 am not a 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 we won’t want 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 a discussion later. Scarlett hands me a list of questions 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.
I do know 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 make people talk. Methods to break the will. Scarlett and Lyssa know that.
They know I know that, too.
Is that why they brought me here? To see if I would resort to those methods? Another test within a test.
So at last, I just rise to my feet and say sweetly, “I’ll come back another time, Katy. I hope you’ll consider talking to me then.”
I hear the clunk of the door lock opening once more, and I back out of the room, keeping Katy in view the whole time, never turning my back on her.
Inside, though? I’m seething.
“You actually got her to say something,” Lyssa says, surprise coloring her voice. “More than Scarlett or I have done. Decent work.” The praise should feel like victory, but somehow feels hollow in the wake of Katy’s warning.
“I meant what I said in there—I want to come back and see her again. She just needs some time to get used to talking.” I wait, heart beating faster and faster, until Scarlett nods.
“I agree. Ariadne should come back.” My name sounds wrong in Scarlett’s mouth, lacking the recognition it carried in Katy’s voice, or the casual acceptance it had in Sunny’s. “At least Katy seems inclined to say something to her. But right now—” she turns to me “—you need to come with us and tell us every damn thing you know about her.”
I barely know a thing. Katy was in a cohort well ahead of me—I remember her only because she was part of the regular beating crew in the beginning. Her hand striking my face, her kick in my ribs, her voice whispering This is kindness, Ariadne. This is what prepares you for the world . Then she disappeared. One day there, the next gone without explanation.
I’d assumed she was dead.
But I nod eagerly, the perfect student, the perfect soldier. “Yes. Let’s go and talk. I’ll tell you everything I can remember.”
But as we head back toward the main body of the house, I can’t help replaying that thin laugh in my head.
If you think these people are doing anything but using you, you’re a fool.