Interludes

Chapter 5: Wolf

Author's Note: Turns out Wolf is also hard to write... Either way, his emotions give me feels.

Disclaimer: All characters and previous events belong to Marissa Meyer and The Lunar Chronicles

He had never been one to waste time. It wasn't in his make-up. A hunter could not waste a day while tracking his prey. When tired, a fighter did not have the choice to take a break before defeating his opponent. When following orders, a soldier could never sit back on his heels and wait until the moment felt right.

Waiting, dangling in space (literally), while Scarlet was captured out there somewhere, felt like the worst kind of torture.

Wolf covered his face with his hands. If he had been on Earth, he would run. He would run across the country until he found her. On the Rampion there was no alternative. He had to sit and wait.

It had been three weeks since she'd been taken. Admittedly, he'd been unconscious for about five days of that period. For that, he was incredibly grateful. Since then, kidnapping aside, he's been laying on his bunk or Scarlet's. His thoughts were a murky blur of nothing. Eventually it was easier to exist with an empty mind.

Originally, scenarios ran through his head like wildfire. She'd been executed, she'd been tortured, she'd been imprisoned, she'd escaped, she'd fallen in love with someone else. As they progressed, they became more and more outlandish. Her face, once etched in his mind with accurate certainty, had begun to blur slightly at the edges. Three weeks.

If he thought hard enough, he could remember the shape of her lips, and they way they looked when she smirked at him. He could feel the thickness of her hair against his fingertips as he smelled any remnants of her shampoo on his pillow. A few weeks ago, he thought he would never forget the determined look on her face when she kissed him on the train. He forced himself not to. Now, even that was fading into uncertainty.

Mostly, he tried to take himself back to their last night together on the Rampion. When they lay together in his bed, learning the shapes of each others' bodies and hearts. The night she said she loved him. The night he knew he would never love anyone else.

She had felt so small under his hands that night. It didn't fit together with the strength she carried with her everywhere. He remembered counting her ribs under his fingers and he traced the soft skin. Her pulse was thrumming under his palm, fueling every motion of his body, as though it was his heart too.

The way she had kissed him that night made him sure that he had never really known what losing his mind was like. Every tense muscle in his body had relaxed, attuned to every motion of her lips, every breath in her lungs.

She was his alpha. The concept had become more and more apparent.

As the days since her capture ticked by, Wolf forced himself to believe that his friends cared about Scarlet; that they placed her safety high on their list of priorities. Even he knew the odds of her survival were thin. Perhaps he, above anyone, knew that truth.

With a loud sigh, he dragged the pads of his fingers over his face and through his short beard that was starting to grow. He had taken a few liberties with his hygiene in his state of depression. As if to remind him, his stomach rumbled loudly.

A knock on his door startled him, and he was instantly annoyed that he let his guard down. He was getting better at living a normal life, but adrenaline still made his instincts run wild. Swallowing down his urge to flee, he stalked over to the console by the door and slammed his fist into the open command. He glowered down at whoever was disrupting him until he realized it was the small frame of Cress, holding out a plate with a sandwich.

"Um, hi," she squeaked, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I thought you might be hungry."

He wanted to send her away, but he saw a slab of red tomato hanging out the side of the sandwich and couldn't look away. His stomach growled again and Cress bit down on her lip to hide a smile.

Wolf studied her for a moment. She was small, tiny even. He could tell she felt uncomfortable in the surplus military clothing Thorne had on board. The sleeves of her t-shirt were rolled up to her shoulders and she had cuffed her pants to her calves. He watched her bare toes twiddle on the metal floor.

He was still surprised they had made such a good team during the kidnapping at the palace in the Eastern Commonwealth. She had little reason to trust him, but she had, and he was grateful for it. Wolf gave her a small smile, before his glower scared her away. "Thank you," he said, pleased to hear that the genuine gratitude he felt came through in his voice.

Cress handed him the plate. "You're welcome. We haven't seen much of you around and I just wanted to make sure you were taking care of yourself." She eyed his beard and raised an eyebrow.

Ignoring her, Wolf raised the plate to his nose and sniffed. Still canned tomatoes, but the bread and cheese made his mouth water. "This is very kind of you," he said. He realized, suddenly that he hadn't spoken to anyone for at least two days. He was shocked to feel the loneliness in his heart. For so long he was a solitary creature. Now, within weeks, he was surprisingly used to companionship. Without giving it much thought, he motioned inside his quarters. "Do you want to come in?"

Cress looked startled at first, and tried to hide her surprise by pushing the other side of her hair behind her ear. A nervous gesture. "Oh I don't want to intrude…"

"You aren't. You're a welcome visitor. Hiding in here isn't doing much for making things better," he said. "And I owe you an apology."

"Me?"

Wolf waved her in with his hand and Cress quickly slid past him, into his room. He left the door open. He gestured to a shipping crate in the corner and she sat down on top, legs crossed. Wolf lowered himself onto his bed. "Do you mind?" He pointed at the sandwich and she waved her hand in consent.

He finished it in four bites. Cress looked impressed. With an embarrassed shrug, he licked the tomato juices off his fingers and hands.

"Thank you," he said again, meeting her eyes. "I appreciate this kindness."

"You're welcome." Her cheeks flushed.

Wolf set the plate down on the floor and leaned on his knees. "I wanted to apologize to you for how I behaved at the palace."

Her eyebrow quirked. "What about it? I think we make a great team."

He smiled. "I agree. You're a lot stronger than you look."

Cress tugged bashfully on her short hair as though she was willing it to be longer.

"I wasn't very friendly. I knew you were trying to enjoy yourself at the wedding party." He scratched the back of his neck. "My coping mechanism has been getting things done as quickly as possible to make time move faster. It isn't a very good method."

"I understand."

"Even so," Wolf continued. "I should have been a more willing partner and a better...friend. I'm sorry."

With a shrug, Cress smiled widely at him. "I appreciate that." After a moment she narrowed her eyes. "How are you holding up?"

He wasn't sure he had the words to explain. How do you explain to someone that his heart had been removed from his body, that he was at a loss for direction in life and purpose? She would think he was cracked, like everyone else on board. He heaved his shoulders in a shrug, in hopes that it would communicate his feelings.

She pursed her lips to the side of her face. "I'm sorry. I wish I'd known Scarlet more. I'd be happy to talk about her...if you want. I don't know if that would make it worse."

He started back at her, blinking slowly as he took in deep breaths. Would it? He was constantly thinking about Scarlet, yet he hadn't bothered to say anything out loud. "I...don't know…" was all he could say.

"Tell me how you met," Cress asked, quietly.

Wolf arched a brow. "You really want to hear this?"

She bit down on her bottom lip to hide a smile. "Well, I'm a bit of a sucker for love. It's not really something I ever witnessed first hand as a child."

A bitter laugh escaped his lips before he could stop it. "Me neither."

She watched him quietly, without judgement.

"It was at a tavern," he said finally. "She brought me a sandwich."

Cress' skin broke out in a blush and Wolf couldn't help but laugh. "I guess a sandwich is the way to my heart. She was actually sticking up for Cinder after something that played on the netscreens. Everyone at the bar was drunk or on their way. It didn't go...well."

"Did she already know Cinder?"

He shook his head. "No, she had no idea they would somehow be connected. I knew back then. At least, I'd been told to believe that was the truth. The men were saying rude things about the fact that Cinder was Lunar and a cyborg." He felt his eyebrows lower in a grimace. "People are...full of hate."

"I know," she replied quietly. "I was kidnapped just because I was Lunar. They sold me." Cress blinked away the memory. "What did Scarlet do when she saw you?"

A smile pulled at his lips. "She helped me. Well, she offered me a tomato."

"Thats...kind."

He ran his fingers through his hair. "It was more than I deserved, but no one had ever shown me that much kindness before. I was practically drunk on it. She was…" He could picture Scarlet's face in his mind clear as day. There had been no hatred in her eyes then, only curiosity. Even then he'd thought that maybe...she saw something in him. Something not even he could see, something that would pull him out from the darkness he'd lived in so long.

His eyes flitted up to meet Cress' in the present. They were wide and waiting.

"I...wanted her. I can't explain it."

She broke their gaze to look down at her toes. "I know what you mean."

"I wanted her to help me, I wanted to help her. I wanted to know her, I wanted to be with her…" The reasons ticked through his head easily. They were infinite.

"You wanted to keep her?"

Cress' voice was so small, he barely heard it. She was still looking down at her feet. Wolf realized that perhaps he wasn't the only one with a wounded heart. "You know the feeling?" he asked gently.

She nodded, still hiding her face.

His eyes flitted to the open door. "Thorne?"

Her head snapped up instantly and her cheeks were already flushed as the blood rushed to her skin. "How did you…"

Wolf laughed quietly to himself. "It was a lucky guess, honestly. I haven't been very observant."

"Oh." Rather than elaborate, she asked a question. "Do you think Scarlet is your destiny?"

Destiny.

The concept gave him pause. Considering the start to his life, he never took time to believe in anything deeper than reality. No higher beings, no otherworldly concepts, not even himself. Did he believe in destiny?

He believed in Scarlet, and for some reason, she had believed in him.

"I was tasked with kidnapping her grandmother," he said, harshly. "I took the opportunity to run away." At the pause he chanced a look at his companion.

She waited.

"I was trying to free myself from the pack. Trying to make my own life. When I met Scarlet, I already knew who she was. I hadn't expected to...she was so… I couldn't abandon her." He swallowed bitterly. "If I'd never left the pack, I could have stopped the whole thing. I could have protected Scarlet and her life."

"But you would have lost her…"

Wolf's eyes snapped up. "I've run it over and over in my head. I don't regret it. I can't. She lost her grandmother and her whole life because of me." The truth weighed down on his heart like an anvil. He sucked in a deep breath. "But I'll never regret it."

His confession hung in the air around them like a heavy fog. It had been holding his heart down for days, yet saying it out loud eased the pressure slightly. He let out a sigh.

"I will never regret Carswell being blind," Cress said after a minute. "It probably makes me a monster."

He eyed her curiously.

"He never would have payed me any attention if he could see the whole time. We...needed each other. He let his guard down." She fumbled with her fingers in her lap.

Rather than address either of their confessions, Wolf asked a different question. "Do you believe in destiny?"

Cress smiled to herself. "For a few days, I thought that I'd given it up. But now...after...um, well yes. I believe in it."

Wolf felt a lightness in his heart that seemed to ease three weeks of misery off his shoulder for the briefest moment. They shared a small, secret smile and he was grateful.

The sound of clomping footsteps down the hall ended their quiet moment far sooner than he would have liked. He stood up in anticipation and watched the door, hair standing on end at the back of his neck. At last, Cinder rounded the corner towards his door frame. Her boots skidded on the metal below her boots.

"A message," she said, gasping for air. Kai appeared beside her, eyeing Wolf with equally wide eyes.

"From Jacin I think," Cinder managed, gasping for breath.

Wolf leapt forward to grasp both her arms. "About Scarlet?" He felt Cress close behind him.

Cinder nodded, and gripped his elbows in return. "She's alive."

He felt as though all the muscles and tendons disappeared from his body. He collapsed onto the floor with his hands over his face.

She followed him down, pressing a hand into his shoulder. "He said, 'She's alive. Safe for now.'"

His body shook with relief. "Thank you," he gasped, barely able to speak. "Thank him."

Cinder nodded. "I hope this means he's still on our side. I hoped, but wasn't sure."

He felt another hand on his shoulder. Cress. Without thinking, he reached up and pressed his palm flat against her fingers.

Alive. Scarlet was alive.

The lightness in his heart from before remained, making his chest seem full and warm. He let out a shuddering breath and felt hot tears on his cheek.

Alive.

Author's Note: This is the last of my intended chapters right now. I really don't care to venture into Kai's prissy head, thank you very much, lol. Possible room for Winter and Jacin after Winter is released, but no promises. Marking as complete for now! Thanks all!