Adapt (I)

TJR Garcia © 2020

SCARLET

The sun wiggles it’s finger-like rays, teasing the horizon. It distracts me from the tidal wave of flash backs coursing through my mind after the most recent dream.

It has been two weeks since Boe and I have started this training, and I am getting tired of early morning starts. I told Boe last night that I needed to have a sleep in, but really, I just needed to be.

Be.

Without the constant confusion of my emotions.

Be, without the constant pressure of making the decision about going to HQ. Because, somewhere along the line, I have started to consider actually going with Boe.

For once I just wanted to wake up, warm in a cocoon of comfort, then go for a walk and take deep breaths without worrying that I’m not doing it the way HQ would want me to. How Boe would want me to…

And how fortunate that the morning I ask for off is the first day of sun that we have had since Boe arrived. I smile as the sun warms my skin. The sea is so still it could be glass.

I breathe in the sweet tranquillity of the moment, sitting here on the cool sand of Main Beach, right before my mind switches back to the reruns of my nightmares…

Correction – nightmare. Just the one. It is always the same one. And it is not a nightmare. It is a memory. I know it is. It is out of context, and it makes no sense to me, but it is definitely a memory.

Running. Always running.

Falling. Always falling.

A point digs into my thigh, but I ignore it. I must get as far away as I can.

I fall a final time, and suddenly the pain in the thigh disappears. I look down and find... a knife? A small sward? It looks like glass, the handle wound with wire. I reach for it.

That was the moment that I stopped running, physically. It was the moment that I started running, mentally. Because, with the dagger in my hand, I felt like I could defend myself. I knew that I had done something terrible, but with my two tiny palms cupping the hilt, I could reason with myself. Obviously, someone had knocked me out and did that to my parents. So why do I feel so guilty?

Phoenix yaps. Broken from my internal struggles, I turn around to see what Phoenix is getting worked up about.

I see Caron, scratching Phoenix’s head, telling him what a good boy he is. She is wearing long, vibrant tights and a loose workout hoodie. She is obviously going for a run on the beach. I should have anticipated that. I scramble to my feet and wipe the sand from my palms.

“You could have said that you were back in town?” She smiles softly at me.

I gulp in air, not sure how to play this off. “Yeah, I got back late last night, and...”

She holds up a hand for me to stop. “Scarlet, don’t even try. Plenty of people have seen you around town, canoodling with Boe.”

Shit. My mouth opens and closes. What was I thinking? This is a tiny town. Of course, she was going to find out. I trip over words before I finally blurt out, “Canoodling?”

She crosses her arms. “Yes, those were the exact words of the lady at Coffee Shell.”

I palm my forehead. Of course. Boe’s insistence on getting a coffee every morning. Stupid, tiny, little town.

“I’m sorry, I just-”

“Don’t worry about it. But, seriously, just because you have finally found a boy, don’t think that you have to hide it from me.”

“No, it’s not like that.” It is the truth, but the words seem shake-y.

“Oh, my God, you’re trying to keep it up?! I know that you guys have been hooking up, just admit it.” She throws her hands out, palms up.

“Seriously, nothing is going on, Caron.” Okay, that was a lie, but not in the way she thinks.

“Really, then how do you explain not being at school? Trying to keep it from me?”

I scratch my head. “I can’t. But that explanation is wrong.” Why did I have to keep lying to Caron?

She shakes her head. “I can get over keeping secrets, but lying blatantly to my face,” She pauses, her lip quivering. “That I can’t.”

“Caron.” I say, but she starts off down the beach. I rub my forehead, considering following her. If I run after her, I will only dig the hole deeper.

If only I had been able to formulate a better lie… No, I hate lying to Caron. If only I could have told her the truth…

She would never believe me.

I grind my teeth.

If only Boe hadn’t have come to town, turning my life upside down. If only he had left when I told him to. If only I hadn’t been forced to make a deal with him. If only he hadn’t cut me off from her…

This is all Boe’s fault.

Then I am running. My feet pull me down the streets of Green Haven, back to my ramshackle little house. Phoenix follows, his paws moving him at full pelt. I barge through my front door, letting the door handle slam against the interior wall. Phoenix winds his way in and heads straight into my bedroom, sensing my foul mood.

Boe leans over the stove, the fry pan handle in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other.

“You!” I point and march over to him. He turns toward me, wide eyed and confused. “I get it now, why you don’t want me to talk to my friends, why you took my phone. You want to severe all my connections here, so that I have no reason to stay. Well, thanks to you, I have just lost my best friend.” I fiercely poke his chest. “And it’s all your doing.” My vision reddens around the edges.

“What-?”

I cut him off. “Don’t even try to weasel your way out of this! You know exactly what you have been doing.” I shove his chest, and he is thrown against the sink.

He recovers quickly, steadying on his feet and eyeing me like I am a skittish horse. “Scarlet, calm down.”

“I don’t think so.” I snap.

“Scarlet,” he tries again. “I haven’t been doing any of what you say. All that is happening is what happens at HQ. You are cut off from the human world. Your support network becomes other hunters.”

“You would just love that, wouldn’t you?! So, you can finish your little mission! I think that it’s time that we renegotiate this little settlement.”

He shakes his head, calmly. “No.”

I growl. “You should leave before I kill you.”

He takes a slow breath. “Scarlet, you can fight me all you want, but we both know that you won’t kill me.”

I wrap my fingers around the dagger tucked into my waistband. “You seriously over-estimate my fondness for you.” Then the cognitive part of my brain shuts down and I surrender to instinct. Every molecule in my body flows in a deadly sequence of actions.

My dagger bites into Boe’s arm, and my fist comes up into a jaw breaking uppercut. Then, I send a series of throws into the weak points of his arms, neck and abdomen.

For some reason he is still standing. The next thing I feel is pain erupting through the left side of my ribcage; then a chop to the tendon in my neck, and the floor flying toward my face.

I know I am in pain, but it hardly registers in my nerves. I find my feet and sweep a round house kick into his hip, but I land it wrong, my shin bone colliding with his hip bone. Sharp pangs of nauseating pain vibrate up my leg, but I can fight through it.

Then something unexpected happens. It is cool and piercing at first, taking my breath away as it plunges into my stomach. Then it burns, as if a hot poker had just impaled me.

I gasp but air fails to reach my lungs.

“I’m so sorry, Scarlet.” I hear him whisper as he supports my body on its fall to the ground.

Cognitive thought returns to me, but it is just one single thought.

Boe has killed me.