This idea has been stuck in my head since last summer. I wanted to try writing an au that doesn't focus on romance necessarily, because that's what stumps me. (um..hence why I haven't updated 'Still Breathing' in a year...) but I haven't been inspired to write for The Lunar Chronicles lately and this is my attempt to fix that. All the characters will be included in this, and all the canon ships too. It'll be very confusing at times but hopefully further chapters will clear it all up and I won't just fuck up an attempt at writing suspense/mystery/whatever the fuck this actually qualifies as. I don't want to delve deeper without giving away anything, so here's chapter one, ft. Cinder, Kai, Thorne, Scarlet, and Cress. (everyone else is introduced in later chapters!)
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The chalk outline on the sidewalk is grimy and faded, its once bright white color dimmed by yesterday's rain and the excess water sloshes over the narrow sidewalk into filthy sewage gutters below. Frayed yellow caution tape, torn apart by last night's storm, no longer poses as a barrier to the curious early-morning jogging passerby or even for the body that was once traced into that outline.
Linh Cinder rubs her prosthetic hand deeper into its home of a fleece-lined glove, though it's an odd feeling to not be able to feel warmth- or, to feel the same flesh connection that she'd once had. Her black sweatshirt dwarfs her skinny frame and sways in the bitterly cold wind, a few stray strands of dirty brown hair slipping over her forehead and brushing her nose. She's crouched by the outline, and, essentially, her own crime scene, her other hand, the flesh one, also in a glove, pressed against the gritty sidewalk.
Behind her, Carswell Thorne shifts from foot to foot anxiously, hands pressed deep into the pockets of a pair of ratty denim jeans he considers a fashion faux pas but there's also what he considers a terribly cheap grey hoodie on his torso that he claims is damaging his supposedly sensitive skin, but. As shifty lowlifes went, Thorne is (in his own mind) the cream of the crop because he makes enough money to afford designer garb and seems to think that Dolce & Gabbana are his personal best friends. Oh, but the term 'con man' doesn't really suit him. He can always get you what you want for a price and it's usually expensive yet he delivers.
Even faking a death.
"I'm a shit person," Thorne informs Cinder when he finally speaks up rather than continue mumbling under his breath about the cold weather, "But I wouldn't actually kill anyone. You know that, right? Just so we're clear."
Cinder doesn't respond right away. The breeze that makes tree leaves dance above her reaches her face but she doesn't register the chill due to how transfixed she is on the place where she almost died. In retrospect, she didn't really pay Thorne to fake her death. He faked it himself, but he still expects compensation, which is shitty, but, she supposes that she does owe him her life due to his mixed morals or actual compassion seeping in.
"My sister," Cinder finally says. "She thinks I'm-"
"She thinks you're dead," Thorne finishes, and shivers, adding one last grumble about the state of the weather that befalls them at five in the morning before adding, "Sorry. But, the less people who know about you, the better. You can't contact her again."
Cinder doesn't cry often, and she can count on one hand the amount of times she'd actually done so. Yet, thinking of the anguish Peony must be in, imagining how Peony's sweet little face will crumble and how her lithe tiny body will shake with sobs, Cinder's eyes swell with tears. Cinder has only been awake for two hours since the long surgery that left her with new body parts and she wishes, oh, how she wishes she could tie up her loose ends rather than run away, but she can't. She needs to run to save herself and to start anew, because the people that wanted her dead almost succeeded.
"I know a girl who can help you," Thorne pipes up, pacing again, throwing a glare at the moon as if it's to blame for his own predicament. "She usually helps me out with code sixes. She can keep you off the radar. Kind of a safe haven, catch my drift? She can start you over. New place, new you. That kind of thing."
Cinder eyes Thorne. "Code sixes?"
"You're not the only one who needs to run away from their past," Thorne informs Cinder, glancing around warily, even though there's nobody that's incriminating nearby, or actually, there's no one nearby at all, not even any of the aforementioned hypothetical joggers that don't actually exist or go jogging in the worst part of town. "And, you're not even the only code six I'm sending her way, either. So let's get a move on before she thinks I've flaked, because, quite frankly, she's scary."
Cinder stands up, but she keeps staring at the spot where a coroner pronounced her dead and where the paramedics were carrying her towards the ambulance where she assumed would take her to a morgue but instead took her to a house, a house where a man performed a surgery on her and spoke to her in a gentle tone but if only Cinder could conjure his image, because all she imagines are bits and pieces of a smile and then she wakes up to find Carswell Thorne who tells her he's singlehandedly saved her life, which, she doesn't believe, so.
"Do you know who hired you?" Cinder asks, voice growing low, and for the second time that night tears come up, though they're more frustrated than anything. "To- dispose of me?"
Thorne looks away from Cinder when he speaks. "I don't believe in client confidentiality, sweetheart, but, I don't actually know. The person I talked to only communicated through an untraceable burner phone, with a modified voice. I have no idea why they were trying to kill you, and I was just the guy they hired to make you disappear."
"But I didn't die." Cinder is confused. "I didn't die. Why were the police here, why did they make this a murder, who is the person that-?"
"It was all part of the client's plan," Thorne apologetically looks uncomfortable about talking about the ordeal. "I don't know. Maybe they had the police in their back pocket, because I was there. The police didn't try to investigate anything. They drew a line, they left it at that, and then I came in."
"But how come I didn't die?" Cinder demands to know. She's facing Thorne now, eyes wide, and her hands are clenched at her sides. Thorne, hidden beneath the hood because he's too smart to let himself be seen by street cameras, almost cowers. "Whoever tried to kill me, they- they set me on fire, Thorne. That should have killed me."
Thorne puts his hands up in surrender. "I wasn't there for the-"
"-attempted murder," Cinder fills in, with an edge to her voice. "I figured as much. But, I almost died, and whoever it was that ordered this on me- they didn't bother to check to make sure they finished the job."
"I don't have all the answers to all your questions," Thorne interrupts. "I really don't. Because then you're going to start asking, why go through all the trouble to save me, Thorne? And that answer's kinda of complicated."
"What I should be asking," Cinder interjects, "Is why you didn't just call in this tip to the police if you knew there would be a body for you to dispose of. For all I know, you would have disposed of me if I'd actually been killed."
Thorne looks away, and down to the floor. "It's going to be light soon, sweetheart. Which means we've got to get a move on." He closes the topic off, no longer wanting to continue, and starts briskly walking in the direction of his 'discreet' vehicle; a motorcycle with an obscenely loud motor that Thorne swears is not junky nor is there anything wrong with it.
Cinder straddles the bike after Thorne seats himself on it, and puts the borrowed helmet on, her new fingers fumbling with the clasp as she almost drops it. Thorne's hood obstructs his face, so Cinder can't see what his face looks like, but as she holds onto his waist, she can feel that he's nervous.
She chalks it up to the impromptu crime scene visit, rather than doubt his ability to start her life from scratch, because she needs to believe in something, even if that something is a sketchy con artist.
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"A what?"
Scarlet Benoit doesn't bother to hide the two days' worth of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, nor does she bother to take off her muddy rubber gardening boots, hands on her hips, domineering presence making her wild red curls seem more threatening than they actually are, and causing the person who's accidentally muttered before her cower.
Crescent Moon Darnel takes a step backward, her bare toes sinking into the plushy mud-trekked carpet of the living room, lightly freckled cheeks aflame before she mumbles, again, "A code six."
Scarlet tosses the towel she's been holding to wipe down the granite countertops, and it lands with a wet slop onto the floor, which she doesn't even bat an eye at. "Right now? As in, besides the one who's sleeping?"
Cress nods. "She, well, she came in just this morning. With, C-Carswell Thorne."
Scarlet curses under her breath, a few choice words in her native tongue of French before she demands, "Let him in, I suppose. He didn't tell me about her beforehand. He just told me to expect another body but I didn't know she was a code six." Grumbling, running a hand through her hair, she snaps, "Did he tell you about her?"
Cress shakes her head wildly. "Not at all. I assume I'll need to help her?"
Scarlet sighs. "He at the door?"
Cress nods, again.
Scarlet yanks open her front door with more force than necessary, the tarnished brass knob clutched tightly in her hand and then her brown eyes are blazing fury as she yells, "What the fuck, Carswell?"
Cress peeps around Scarlet, face still red, as she surveys Thorne standing with a tall girl obstructed by a dark hood. The sun is barely breaking through the sky, and she can see the purplish orange hues and the moon's barely-visible silhouette. Distracted by that, she hardly registers when Thorne actually steps inside, with the girl pulled protectively by his side.
Scarlet is hissing something, and Cress catches the end of that. "...not mad at her, Carswell, I'm mad at you! I should have been made aware of her state from the beginning to start preparation for extraction, to get Cress started on a new identification form, to-"
"Chill," Thorne interrupts. Scarlet bristles, and opens her mouth to start mouthing back in return, before Thorne presses a finger to Scarlet's open lips. She fumes, but obligatorily waits. "It wasn't planned, okay? I didn't even know if she'd be alive. But, we were just lucky."
Scarlet's thin patience can no longer tolerate Thorne's vague explanation. "What do you mean, we were just lucky? This is a girl we're talking about! When you said a body, I assumed you mean a live one!"
"Well, she's alive, and she's here," Thorne cuts her off again. "I'll tell you every last detail. In private. I can't tell it all with ears all around." To Cress, he acknowledges, "Hey. Your dad fill you in?"
Cress blinks once or twice, visibly startled to have been addressed by Thorne, that much is obvious with her wide eyes and paled face. "My...dad?"
"Dr. Darnel is the person who brought her back from the brink of death," Thorne says. "Oh, right. Her name's Cinder. Well, actually, it's not. Her name is Selene Blackburn, but she was adopted into the Linh family and they named her Cinder. Or, that's her nickname. I don't know."
Linh Cinder pulls off her hood to reveal a thin, but pretty, face and matted, greasy brown hair pulled into a tangled ponytail. To Scarlet, she extends a gloved hand, a pair of gloves that are likely Thorne's because he looks pained to see that there is a dirt stain on the palm of one. "My name is Cinder. That's the name I've known."
Scarlet firmly shakes Cinder's hand, and she seems to soften. "I'm very sorry to hear you're on the run." Then, her face hardens. "You're not running from the law, are you?"
"No," Cinder says, honestly, and she draws her hand back to clamp onto the other arm's elbow. "I'm technically pronounced dead, and I should be dead. But I'm not."
Scarlet eyes Thorne accusingly.
"Like I said," Thorne reiterates, being very closed off, "In private. All the details."
Scarlet grabs Thorne's arm. "We're talking. Cress," she addresses Cress next, "Do me a favor and take Cinder downstairs. Ease her in."
"Isn't the other code six I sent your way already here?" Thorne asks, which Scarlet confirms with a brisk nod.
Cress studies Cinder, and Cinder doesn't look like someone who's on the run. She mainly looks tired, more than anything, with bags under her eyes and a destroyed demeanor. Her appearance, besides the designer brand gloves, looks less than put together in a sweatshirt far too big for her to be wearing, hideous cargo pants, and a pair of hiking boots.
But Cinder follows Cress, down to the bomb shelter located right under Scarlet's house.
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He sits alone, for what feels like an eternity, with silent tears dripping down his cheeks, off his chin, to land onto the scratchy knitted wool blanket that covers his lap. The damp chill of the underground room overpowers any staunching of cold the blanket is supposed to be doing, but he doesn't mind. Or, rather, he doesn't care. The room is cold and empty save for a cot and a lightbulb hanging from the center of the room and he can hear the gentle murmuring of other stowaways kept in the bomb shelter of the Benoit farm, but, it's not enough.
He screams.
Sobs wrack his body and he heaves forward, off the cot, to kneel on the floor and grip onto his head and cry, cry harder, hands fisted in his own hair, desperation oozing out of every noise that comes out of his mouth until he's choking, choking on his own tears and they won't stop, they'll never stop, because he's an empty shell of himself and he's fucked up and it's not his fault, it's never been his fault, and if only he'd been more proactive.
Maybe his dad could still be alive.
The howls of anguish he's spouting- they make him sound insane. His dad is gone. He's gone, he's gone, he's gone, and nothing will ever bring him back, least of all his sniveling son.
It's as if he's on fire. Except the fire consumes him entirely and leaves him smoldering to die, which, coincidentally, has happened to someone else.
The other code six.
The door to his room opens slowly, and the person on the other end has likely heard his entire breakdown, but it opens nonetheless. A delicate pitter-patter of feet enters first, he can hear rather than see, because he's staring at the floor. Next, comes a heavy clomping of shoes, but their shuffle is reluctant. Almost timid.
And then, quietly, "Kai?"
Kai looks up, eyes red, nose dripping, hair rumpled, and he is almost sorry at the sight of someone he recognizes. "Cress."
She's barefoot again, as she usually is, and she crouches right down next to him to ask, carefully, "Are you okay?" But it's rhetorical. He knows it is. She'd never ask such a stupid question, because Crescent Moon Darnel is the furthest from stupid there is.
"Yeah." A lie, as an answer to a rhetorical question. Kai doesn't care about ethics. He makes eye contact with Cress, at least, and he numbly stands up, pulling the wool blanket around his shoulders. "I was-"
Cress shakes her head. She already knows what he's been doing. "Kai, there's someone else here you should meet."
Kai looks towards the second person. She's been loitering in the corner of the room, too confused or maybe frightened to make a move towards Kai, because her hands are stuck deep into her pockets and she's fixated on the one lightbulb. Her hood and disheveled appearance should make her menacing, but it isn't. There's something in her that Kai recognizes, but it's not her physical features. It must be her broken expression, one that makes her seem more approachable than anything.
"Hi," Kai manages out, and he even fakes a smile. "Kai." And he holds out his hand.
The girl looks at him for a few seconds before she makes the trek across the room to take his hand and shake it, but she finally does, her gloved hand feeling very stiff and unresponsive. Almost immediately, she pulls it away, and she looks upset. "Cinder."
"Cinder is our latest code six," Cress explains, quietly. "Scarlet thought that maybe I could debrief the two of you together. On what happens next."
Kai sits himself down onto the cot, feeling like his legs are unstable, not trusting himself to move on just yet or even consider what would happen next. Cinder, in turn, braces herself against a wall and lets out a low, shuddering sigh, closing her eyes but nodding.
"Alright." Cress locks her hands behind her back, but she can't look Cinder or Kai in their eyes just yet. Maybe she understands the losses they've suffered that have led them all to this point in their lives where they've had to run, and had no other options than to run, or because she's too much of a sheltered person to make much human contact. "The first step is relocation. We need to find discreet areas, a ways away, that no one will think to look for you there. If you're ready, afterwards, will come disguises. You'll need to change some aspect of your physical features if possible. Simply to make your features less recognizable, such as a hair change."
"Change my hair," Cinder pipes up, and she looks distraught at the idea, bringing a hand to her scalp, the gloved hand stoic and unmoving. "Isn't there anything else I can do?"
Cress stops talking, flabbergasted. "Oh- I-I suppose you can wear...hats?"
Cinder fingers a strand of hair for a second before letting go of it, dejected and likely subjecting herself to the possibility of a hair cut.
"Afterwards," Kai says, softly, as if it's only just occurred to him, his eyes gleaming with something akin to hope, "We'll be free to do- whatever we want?"
"Yes," Cress confirms, giving a brisk nod as she returns to all business. "With my help, we'll forge documents. Birth certificate, passport, work history, social security, the works. And, if anything ever catches up with you again, we keep on running, and the process restarts itself."
Cinder's head shoots up. "But-" she trails, almost retracting her words, before she manages to ask-"Is running the only option I have?"
Cress, surprised, puckers her lips into an O shape. "A-As a general rule," she stammers out, "We don't make it a priority to learn the backstory on why you're running away, as long as you're not running from the law. But, our code sixes..they usually end up here when they have no other options."
At this, Cinder sneaks a look at Kai, probably wondering why it is that he is there, and why he is a code six, also wondering what led him to this point in his life, stuck in the bomb shelter of a farm that specializes in rehabilitation of outcasts.
Kai, in turn, sneaks a look at Cinder at the same time, likely confused at the state of her presence and why she doesn't seem to willingly want to be there.
The instant each one catches the other looking, they both stare at the floor and try to play it off as if they were looking towards the walls.
"If you don't want to tell us the circumstances that have left you here, on Benoit farms," Cress says, soothingly, "You don't have to. If you'd like, you can talk to me, or Scarlet, privately."
Cinder lets out a shaky breath, and she nods. "I think I should."
"Whenever you're ready." Cress fiddles with a strand of blond hair for such a long time before she realizes, "There is also the question of your lodging. There's a room adjacent to Kai's, would it suit you?"
Cinder nods, and Kai notices that she has a dirt stain on her chin. "That's fine."
"Good." Cress turns to address Kai next, careful not to show how pitying her expression truly is and barely masking her sadness with a quivery almost-smile. "I'll see you at mealtime, right? And you know that I can talk to you if you need it."
Kai can feel that Cinder's eyes are looking at him again, and can garner that she must be wondering how he could have been screaming so terribly moments ago, or that she's likely thinking that he's pathetic, a twenty-year-old man crying as if he's two years old. He ignores that as well as he can, because he does know that he must be a sight, with an itchy blanket pulled around his shoulders, rumpled black hair, and reddened eyes. "Yeah."
"Okay." Cress's next attempt at a smile is almost comforting and certainly passable as one, too. She gestures for Cinder to follow her, and Cinder does, but not without locking eyes with Kai, just once more, and surveying him, confused, while Kai stands still and doesn't tear his gaze away first.
He also notices that she's pretty.