Adapt (I)

SCARLET

“No freaking way!” Caron gazes around the cosy red leather and timber interior of The Kraken.

Boe’s wears a proud smile. Trent is hovering behind us, his hands stuffed into his pockets. He wears an expression that matches Caron’s awe, if not more subdued. We had explained to Caron and Trent the purpose of The Kraken, as a harbour for hunters and their human counterparts, on our ride into the city. They had nodded in understanding at the time, but I knew that they had not fulling comprehended. Now that we are standing in The Kraken, realization washing over them visibly.

Sam waves at us from behind the bar, as he sits a glass in front of a customer. He is in the traditional bar staff attire - a crisp white button down and black slacks. He has a tea towel slung over his shoulder. Tonight, he has another person with him - a woman in very similar attire. She is petite and blonde. Her hair is pulled into a high ponytail. She flits behind the bar, pouring drinks and flashing bright smiles, keeping up with the crowd easily.

Tonight, the bar is packed. Almost every booth is taken and the bar itself is lined with people.

Boe steps closer to me, his arm brushing mine. “Stay close. Sam wasn’t kidding when he said you are a local hero.”

I scan the room, thankful that I have not registered any hunters in the immediate vicinity. I fall into stride behind Boe as he leads us to the bar. Caron quickly falls in beside me, Trent bringing up the rear of our little group.

“So, all of these people know about hunters?” Caron whispers as she threads her arm through mine.

“Yeah,” I say back. “But more importantly, they know about the Therians.”

She is still looking around in awe. I see her eyes looking into every face; I’m sure trying to figure out how their lives have been impacted by Therians.

We make it to the bar. Boe leans against the counter. “Sam!” he beacons. He turns back to us. “What do you guys want to drink?”

Caron and I ask for orange juice. Trent asks what sort of beer they have on tap. After Boe gives him a few options he settles on a dark ale.

When Sam arrives, he greets Boe and I warmly. “Hey brother!” he clasps Boe’s hand in a sort of casual handshake. Sam looks to me. “Ranger, you’re back! Good to see we didn’t frighten you away last time.” He gives me a wink.

I scratch the back of my neck, blushing at the new nickname that Boe is clearly spreading around. “Yeah,” I start, straightening. “I liked it so much that I brought friends.” I motion to Trent and Caron.

Trent steps forward and offers a formal hand for Sam to shake. “I’m Trent.”

Sam takes his hand and shakes firmly. “Sam. You’re Scarlet’s guardian?” Trent nods. “Well, you have done a fine job, sir. Ranger here is about as famous as they get in our little bar.”

Trent steps back, proud Papa-Bear expression all over his face. “It’s all her, really.” He attempts modesty.

I am just about voice my denial when Caron pipes up. “I’m Caron, Scarlet’s best friend.” She gets on her tippy toes and offers her hand over the bar to Sam.

“Very nice to meet you, Caron.” He takes her hand and lays his other on top. With a wink he says, “Welcome to The Kraken. What would be your poison tonight?”

Caron tilts her head, a little blush tinging her cheeks. A born showman, Sam just greeted each of us in the most personalized way he could.

“Umm, just orange juice.” Caron says.

Sam nods and let’s go of her hand gently. Boe tells him the rest of our orders before Sam starts to pour. Not surprisingly, Boe orders his vodka on the rocks. Trent sips his dark beer and Caron and I clutch our orange juices, which Sam had slyly splashed with Boe’s vodka.

Boe bee lines for the Pool table that had just conveniently freed up. He feeds in two dollars and the balls fall. He starts to rack up the table. I scan the place for Cindy.

“Relax.” Boe says to me. “Cindy will find us.”

I sip on my OJ. “I think I will go for a walk around, try and find her.”

Boe faces me and shakes his head. “No, Cindy doesn’t do things for people when they ask. You have to make her think that you are keeping a secret from her. Then she will do all of the work for you.”

I narrow my eyes. “That seems... manipulative.”

He shrugs. “If you want to find Logan, I think she is our best bet. I have tried tracking him, and I can’t. But Cindy will find him.”

I take a big gulp of my drink then sit it down. I wipe my hands on my jeans. “Still, I think I should try and find her.” Begin to walk past him.

Boe grabs my wrist. His touch makes my hair stand on end and make my already warm cheeks hotter.

“Just trust me.” He whispers.

I bite my lip.

He smirks. “You bite your bottom lip when you are nervous.”

I stop biting my lip and square my shoulders, trying to portray confidence. If I don’t want Boe to see his effect on me, I definitely don’t want him to see me in any sort of weak state.

Boe’s smirk intensifies, letting his dark green eyes linger on mine before he lets go of my wrist and says, “Do you want to break?” He nods toward the table where the white ball is very neat lined up to start the game.

So, we play pool. Trent and I are on one team, Boe and Caron on the other. I am an average player, occasionally getting on a lucky streak. Trent is consistent, setting up balls and sinking them on his next turn. Boe is like a shark, hardly missing a shot. But he is evened out by Caron’s performance, which is fair considering this is her first game of pool. It doesn’t take long before we are all laughing, calling each other out on foul play. Trent shouts the next round of drinks. I notice that my orange juice is lacking its vodka spike this time around. Sam mustn’t have been able to hide our glasses from Trent while he made our drinks this time.

It doesn’t matter though. We rack up another game, making rules for each person to handy cap them. Boe is now only allowed to sink hot colours - orange, red, yellow. Trent is not allowed to hit the same ball two times in a row, and I am not allowed to sink a ball that is inside the half of the table that the white ball is in. Caron doesn’t get a handy cap, but she calls us out every time we forget our rules. We bicker over the pool table, laughing and joking. It isn’t until Boe goes to get the next round and Trent starts teaching Caron how to position each ball in a legal pool rack, that I stop and look around. People are edging in around us, their eyes flitting to us every few seconds. Everyone in the crowd is different. Some sport business casual outfits, some look more like ranchers. Others kind of resemble fishermen coming in from a big day out at sea. There is nothing that seems to tie all of these people together except the fact that they are all very interested in what we are doing. I suddenly feel very self-conscious. I have been laughing, and yelling at Boe and Caron all night, my façade lifted for a brief period of time.

Boe returns with a tray of drinks. He hands them to each of us then gives me a cheeky look. When he does, he sees the expression on my face. “What’s up?”

“Why is everyone staring at us?” I turn away from the crowd, only to see people in the booths with their eyes fixed on us as well.

Boe raises an eyebrow at me. “Us? No. They are looking at you, sweetheart.”

I drop my head, letting my long dark hair curtain me from the stares and hide the fact that I am biting my lip again.

Boe nudges me with his elbow. “What? You aren’t shy, are you?”

I shake my head, my hair still shielding my face. “Why the hell are they staring at me?”

Boe leans down and speaks in my ear, making the knot in my gut tighten. “Other than the fact that you are the most beautiful girl in this bar?” My eyes shoot up, meeting Boe’s which are wild with mischief. “They all know your name, Ranger. You’re a legend around here.”

“I don’t understand. How am I a legend?”

Boe picks at a strand of my hair. “You really don’t understand, do you?” He sees the confusion on my face and takes that as an answer. He sighs. “Scarlet, you are the girl that kicks ass and didn’t need Head Quarters training to do it. To these people, you are the first actual hunter that understands what it is like to be a human hunter. You are their gold standard, the bar that they set their own goals by.”

I want to say that they have the wrong idea about me, but I don’t. Instead, I am fixated on how Boe is looking at me. His mouth is pulled to the side in a suppressed grin and his eyes burning into mine with... pride?

I take a shaky breath in, trying to compose myself. Boe’s mouth twitches. He is enjoying his effect on me. Geez! Why can’t I pull myself together around him?

“Boe?” A woman’s voice calls.

“Here we go.” Boe whispers to me, then breaks our private little moment to turn and face the voice.

Cindy weaves her way through the last of the crowd and sachets around the pool table to give Boe a hug. She is a little taller than me, which instantly makes me envy her. She is dressed in a navy-blue blazer, a tan shirt and tight skirt that has small slits up each side, finished with a pair of ballet flats. Her blond hair is pulled up into a bun, showing off her young beautiful face and blue eyes. She didn’t look like this the other night, in her cargo pants and twelve bourbons deep. I instantly feel a pang of jealousy as she gives him a tight hug.

Boe launches straight into the pleasantries, asking her about any cases she has been following, offering his advice. She asks him what he has been up to and he gives evasive yet polite replies. I decide to let them chat, not really in the mood to watch Boe and Cindy flirt for the next hour. So, I go to join Caron and Trent who have taken a seat at a high table. I sit up with them, my back turned to Boe and Cindy. I can see Trent and Caron peering over my shoulders, watching. They have clearly worked out who she is.

Trent and Caron speculate while I am just silent, slowly sipping on my drink. I am spacing out, allowing nonchalant thoughts to flow through my head, when Caron whispers in my ear.

“You and Boe seem to be getting very friendly.”

Pulled from my daze, I blink at her. Then I look to where Trent was sitting, vaguely remembering that he had excused himself to go to the rest room.

“Oh, come on, not even you are that dense, Scar. He has been flirting with you all night. Touching you whenever he can find an excuse.” She whispers at me.

I bite my lip and then stop, realizing that it is becoming my tell.

“Something has happened, hasn’t it?” She presses.

I let out a shallow breath, then give her a small, knowing smile. Now that Caron knows everything... well almost, I realize that I can actually talk to her about this stuff. I feel like a million pounds is being lifted from my shoulders.

“Ever since Boe got to town, it has been crazy.” I half whisper to her so that Boe cannot hear from the other side of the pool table. “We have been really standoffish with each other, and for good reason. But after he told me about my... father...” I stumble around the word, remembering that I had not fully divulged everything to Caron yet. “He has been the only one that gets it, you know. Then yesterday, in the hospital while you were asleep, I kind of broke down. I was a mess and for whatever reason, he didn’t run. He didn’t make fun of me. He didn’t even try to give me advise. He just... held me.” I screw my nose up at how girlie I am sounding.

Caron puts a hand on my knee. “Scar, you have been trying to go through everything by yourself. You are entitled to let people help you. You are also entitled to have a crush.” Her smile is softer now, less prying.

I blow out a breath and rub my legs, looking around, uncomfortable. “Yeah, well I don’t know the first thing about men. Besides, we have a job to do and I really don’t think that being with Boe is going to help.” I say, trying to make the conversation go away. I am not used to talking about this stuff.

“Scarlet, honey. Just settle for a second.” She takes the hand that was on my knee and places it on my shoulder. “No one is saying you have to sleep with him. No one is even saying you have to date him, but you are just a teenage girl. One that hasn’t ever been interested in dating, period. Until Boe came to town.” She lifts her hand from my shoulder and grabs her drink. She takes a sip through the straw, then says, “Just let yourself be a teenager for once. You know, ever since I met you, you have always been old. You live on your own, you read books more than you watch TV, and you drink scotch on the rocks, for Christ’s sake. Not once have I seen you just act like a teenage girl.”

I look at her warm face, her eyes sparkling. She is right, I have never been the kid that snuck out to go to parties. I always had my homework done on time; no discipline necessary. I even have a certain way I like to vacuum. I give her a nod. “Okay. But after we get everything sorted.”

Trent joins us, cutting off any further prying Caron might want to do. “What did I miss?” he asks.

“Boe doesn’t look very happy. Cindy seems to have the upper hand in some way.” Caron tells him. Of course, she kept track of Boe and Cindy’s conversation while she was giving me advise.

“What do you think that they are saying?” Trent asks, as though he is a housewife gossiping about the neighbours.

Caron sips her drink again. “I don’t know, but I think that we are just about to find out.”

Then Boe walks over, Cindy following. I clench my jaw, but force a smile, knowing that Boe is about to introduce us to Cindy.

“Cindy, this is Trent and Caron.” He turns to me. “And this is Scarlet.”

Cindy gives me a bright smile, but I can see the edge to it in her eyes. She doesn’t like me. “It is so nice to finally meet you, Scarlet. I feel like I already know so much about you.”

“Oh,” I say, tilting my head and shooting Boe a look.

Boe catches it. “Apart from the tales of your triumph,” he says, a small measure of hardness to his otherwise polite tone. “The Therians have been talking about you as well.”

I am pulled up short. “What?” I say, while Trent and Caron mirror my confusion.

“Oh yeah.” Cindy says, clearly pleased that she knows something that we do not. “All of them, in their dying breaths, talk about you. Some want to find you, and some want to kill you. All of them know you, though.”

I hear Caron’s sharp intake of breath, unsettled by the thought of someone trying to kill me. It doesn’t bother me; I am used to that. What I am not used to is being on the front page of some Therian tabloid.

“That’s why Jack knew your name.” Boe connects the dots for me. “And Logan.”

Cindy looks up at Boe in shock. “You have seen Logan?”

I see a flash of triumph in Boe’s eyes before he turns them to Cindy. “Yeah...” he trails, unwilling to give her more information.

Cindy shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “I thought he was just a myth, a name that was being tossed around.”

“Nope.” I say, questioning ringing in my tone.

“Do you think he has something to do with the missing girls?” Trent interjects.

Cindy shrugs. “I have no idea. All that I know about him is that he is like smoke, impossible to pin down. The only lead I have on him so far is that he is affiliated with one of the rooftop bars in the city. Real upscale sort of place.” She looks me over, clearly remarking how much I would not fit in with her definition of ‘upscale’. “It’s called Current.”

I dismiss her look and turn to Boe. He gives me a cheeky wink. “Looks like we are paying a trip to Logan’s bar tonight.”