For starters, Cinder was in near disbelieve at the idea that Thorne and Cress weren't actually dating. Then again, she could understand why. Thorne was four years older than Cress. He was an adult, and she was still a teenager. Sometimes, Cinder forgot she was just a teen too.

But it made sense to Cinder why they were waiting. Thorne had experienced most of what life had to offer on Earth and Luna. Cress had yet to do things Thorne and the rest of the Rampion gang had done hundreds of times. Like, use a public bathroom.

The idea of them waiting until Cress was an adult both sobered and delighted Cinder. One, it made her think Thorne was still too frightened of hurting Cress to admit his feelings for her.

On the other hand, if they were agreeing to wait for each other, they must have discussed it a little. And it told Cinder than Thorne loved Cress so much he was willing to wait for her for years before they would officially date. The feeling Cinder received from that concept overpowered her former, more somber emotion.

"Well," Cinder said. "You better keep Cress happy either way. It's not easy spending that much time with you, alone, on a spaceship."

He gave her a quirky look. "But you did that? When we were first on the run, and before we met Scarlet."

"I know," she grinned. "I'm speaking from experience."

........................

After sedating Cadmar for what seemed like the hundredth time, the doctors were able to extract enough of his DNA to examine.

"It seems that a foreign matter - which we believe is the gas particles - has been consumed by another molecular substance," the Head Doctor explained to Cinder. "The particles are surrounded and being dissolved inside a plasma. Making them harmless to those infected."

She pondered this, knowing it was good news, and that it could save her friends. "Do you know what the substance that is stopping the particles is? Are you sure it's the Death's Rival serum?"

"We're running tests as we speak, your majesty," she said. Before Cinder could comment in the high title, the woman scuttled off. Presumably to check on the tests she's mentioned.

Cinder hoped that this cure was that simple and that close. It would be a nice break from having to start a revolution to save people from a disease. And if the contagion could be eradicated this quickly, then the chances of it getting to Earth would be slim to none.

And the keys to save both worlds were inside two childhood best friends. The cure in one, and the contagion in the other.

It startled Cinder to realized that those two - Cadmar and Goldinia - had just seen each other for the first time in over ten years a few hours ago. In that short time, one of them had been infected with a mind-manipulating contagion, bitten the other, and sent both of the to Emergency Rooms.

On top of that, one of them had been transformed into a minion of LSOP since they'd last seen one another. The other had been dismembered, and given metal limbs as replacements. Though, Cinder was happy to think that Cadmar didn't care that Goldinia had cyborg parts. And that he loved her, no matter what her body looked like.

The world was spinning so fast, and Cinder kept ignoring the messages she received in her retinal scanner. Most of them were from Kai, asking her to tell him what was going on. But it wasn't like she could send a reply, even if she wanted to. Cress had blocked the signal somehow, and cut the Lunar Palace off from the rest of the world. Messages could come in, but none could go out.

Meaning, the people in the palace couldn't tell anyone what was going on, and that there was a deadly contaminant leaking out. If someone from the Union of Earthern Nations broke into the palace, through the Lock Down protocol ...

Scarlet, Wolf, and Cress would have exactly what they wanted. They would be free to infect anyone else in the Milky Way. Earth and Luna could go to war again, all over a disease that Levana had created and intended to make the populations of both planets bow to her will.

"Your Majesty," the head doctor called. Cinder turned around and out of her gaze. Thorne, who was still by her side, also gave the doctor a look. "Miss Darnel is waking up."

.....................

Her head was pounding, her neck throbbed with agony. She couldn't think, and the red strips of words Goldi couldn't read only made her condition worse. Suddenly, she was nostalgic for only having one usable eye.

As she regained the ability to see past the red, the bright lights around her set her back a few steps. They blinded her, making her head reel back with pain.

She growled in anger, swiping her real arm out in front of her, smacking a few things around. Later, she would learn that the things she hit were doctors.

Goldi felt long tubes connected to her arm, and thought they were pumping her full of that disgusting syrup Levana used to keep her alive. She tried to rip the rubber tubes out of her, but found she couldn't move her metal hand.

Probably because it was twitching out of control.

She watched in horror as her arm moved all on its own. A metal restraint held the limb down to the hospital bed. But that didn't kept it from moving by itself. Her mind may have been playing tricks on her. But Goldi swore she saw sparks hissing and flying out of her arm.

There was a monitor right next to her head, and Goldi heard it releasing high pitched beeps like crazy. GOldi was no doctor, but she remembered from when she was little that the beeping mimicked the beating of someone's heart.

If that thing was hooked up to GOldi's heart, then that particular muscle was going the speed of a Maglev train.

Goldi attempted to slow her breathing. She thought of things that made her happy as a little girl. Playing with her brothers, listening to her father's bedtime stories about the stars, thinking of all the things she and her brothers would grow up to do, one day making her mother proud of her. For a split second, they helped.

Then, everything got ten times worse.

The things that used to calm her as a child, and in her metal prison, not longer comforted her. While thinking of her brothers and what they could do, she saw their dead bodies. Darien, drained and barely himself, lying in a coffin. Cygnus and Corvus, the twins so identical and inseparable, now parted forever in death. All of them, gone before they could live their own lives.

As the old stories her father old her echoed in her mind, Goldi remembered how he left her all alone to face the wrath of her mother. A woman that Goldi now saw as a woman who would never love her. Goldi's father abandoned her, and let her be the final domino in the Darnel family to fall prey to Levana's torment. He wasn't the man she thought he was, and now, she wanted nothing to do with him.

Her family was gone. Crescent was as good as gone again, and Cad was past that. Goldi was half metal, and would be considered a freak of science for the rest of her life.

Nothing could change that. Nothing would change that.

Her life had been over from the moment Levana stuck her in that prison of mirrors. Her body hadn't been her's to control for even longer. She'd always been a freak.

It'd just taken her a while to understand that.

"Goldinia," someone said. A hand grabbed her shoulder, holding her down like a restraint. Above her, she saw brown hair and blue eyes. The face was still a little fuzzy, but she thought she knew who it was.

The man leaned over her and tried to keep her calm. "Breathe. Try to calm down and breathe."

"Yeah," she wheezed. "Because I wasn't breathing before you said that. Thanks for the advice."

He rolled his eyes. "Cinder, you and this snarky twelve-year-old would be best friends if you just let it happen."

Yep, Goldi thought. That's Thorne alright. As if things could get any worse. That was all she thought before her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she blacked out again.