The Fire Didn't Stop Her

Life Is Too Short

Cinder sat in the co-pilot's chair as Jacin steered the Rampion towards the Sahara desert. She'd seen an image of the crashed satellite on her retinal scanner. When she first got the picture, she'd been terrified. Then she scanned the image for and body shaped objects, and none came up. There was little blood inside the ship – which could mean someone just hit there head (probably Thorne).

The second thing she noticed was that there were faint footprints that led away from the satellite to a nearby town. Cinder had calculated which town in Africa was the closest to them, and she came up with the town of Farafrah. Now, the Rampion was making a beeline for the little town as Cinder had an unconscious lunar soldier in a bunk with her cousin's crush driving.

Yeah, this situation was weird. But she needed to push that aside for a moment and get to her allies. What troubled her the most was what would happen to them if Levana got to them first.

More importantly, what Kai would do. After all, he'd recognize Thorne the moment he saw him if he was captured. And she could only imagine what Kai had been going through since he saw Thorne "kidnap" his fiance. She didn't know whether he would let Levana deal out a punishment for Thorne, or if he would come up with something even worse.

Cinder didn't want to wait around to find out. She couldn't be responsible for the possible pain and/or death of her friends. She had to get to them first.

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

Cress couldn't believe their luck. They'd found a town, a place to stay, kind people to help them out.

And she was free. She was finally free from her satellite, from Sybil, and from the lunar crown. And their luck was so great, Thorne was somehow winning at a poker game. Even thought he was blind.

"I don't need to see the cards to know how to win," he assured her. Though, Cress thought knowing what cards you had was a vital part of the game. Apparently it wasn't, since he'd won three games in a row now, and seven-hundred, eighty-two universe so far.

Smiling, Cress turned around to go back to the room. She needed a shower to get all of the sand out of her hair and toes. It took her four steps away from Thorne to ask, "Where you going, Crescent? I'm winning."

Again, let her reiterate how freaked out that he could sense that she was moving away at a light-footed pace – and know the suits of the cards in his hands, but not the cane that had been placed an inch from his eye because someone didn't believe he was actually blind.

"I'm just going back to our room," she replied.

"Okay, darling," he chirped. Yeah, he called her this because when they got to the hotel and she couldn't think of a fake name, he said they were Mr and Mrs Smith. This immediately sparked near embarrassment inside of her, causing hot red to enter her cheeks.

Now, she was in a fake marriage with a blind guy who'd fallen out of the train car and she dove out the same why to help him. An odd story, since he'd portrayed her as the hero of the tale. She'd never thought of herself as the hero, or anything but the damsel in distress despite how she used to think.

And just so everyone knows, Cress has always had the same personality. But she used to think of Thorne as a flirt who cared little about women. She thought he was rude and annoying. Now, he'd kind of grown on her. Like a little brother that you didn't want in the beginning, but grew to care for eventually.

When Cress entered their room, she went to the shower and turned the knob all the way to nearly boiling hot. Because of Sybil, she'd never had anything warmer than nuke-warm for her ten minute showers.

And she'd never had a bath. Her shower hadn't been designed for that, and she'd never had one as a shell in the lava caves. This was going to be her first time having a bath.

She filled the tub half way with wonderfully warm water and took off her tattered dress. Slipping into the water, all of the harsh whippings from the sandy winds faded away. The grains fell from her hair and relaxation finally covered her skin and climbed into her head.

"Crescent?"

Cress screamed at the sight of Thorne in the open doorway. She could have sworn she'd closed it.

"It's okay!" he said. He waved his hand in front of his eyes. "I'm blind, remember?"

Cress still couldn't help but drag the shower curtain over her exposed body. "That doesn't make it okay to come in here when I'm naked," she mumbled.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and agreed, "I guess you're right." He turned around and was closing the door behind him when he called out, "I just wanted to make sure you weren't sick or anything. Then our little newly-wed getaway would have been ruined," he joked.

Or at least, she hoped he was joking.

AN: Sorry for the short chapter guys. I didn't have much time to write and I'm kind of sick right now. But a special thanks to TinHoverCarInIce for making a cover for this story. It was nice and I liked it. I'm glad that you like my story enough to do that.