Adapt (I)

TJR Garcia © 2020

Boe

I throw my leg back over the seat of my bike and wipe my dagger on my dark wash jeans. This is why black is practical. I can clean my dagger without worrying about someone seeing a big red stain.

I rev the engine to life and kick up the stand. That is the fourth group that I have taken down and none of them knew a ‘Logan’.

Logan. What a shitty name. Logan.

Before I put my helmet on, I get out my phone to check the time. It is four-thirty in the afternoon. I need to get back to Scarlet.

I wonder, absently, if she has thought about me.

I bring the helmet down on my head. My back tire screeches on the bitumen as I leave the abandoned ally way littered with three Therian bodies.

I wind my way through the streets, not seeing a car for at least three blocks. It seems a little too good to be true, but I am not going to question it. Fewer people mean less chance I will be connected with the bodies left in the ally way. We usually dispose of the bodies to avoid being caught by human authorities, but I don’t have the time today.

In truth, if I am going to look at this purely from a hunter’s point of view, today could have been one of my most successful days on the job. But I haven’t gotten what I came for. No one has heard of Logan. Maybe I have the name wrong, or maybe he is doing this out of spite. I needed to figure this out. What he said about Scarlet is driving me crazy.

I begin to head out of the city and toward Green Haven. It will be an hour and a half before I make it home.

‘When you are ready to know more about who you really are then come find me. Just ask for Logan.’

It makes no sense. The way he talked; it was as if everyone knew him. So why wasn’t anyone piping up?

Unless they were all ordered to only reveal themselves to Scarlet.

I take a deep breath to calm myself down. This is infuriating. I have to find out what Logan is up to. What does he want with her?

Something in the back of my mind chirps.

Maybe it is the same thing that HQ wants with her.

I narrow my eyes at my own internal dialogue. That makes no sense. Scarlet is a hunter. HQ recruits hunters. It’s simple.

I ride on the narrow roads that run parallel to the coast line. I lean into the corners, loving the way the bike bends to my will. For just a small second, I allow my mind to wonder away from my side mission with Logan, and I think about what is happening with Scarlet’s training.

I’m not sure what I am going to do. I have probably set the original mission back ten paces, which is more than I can afford. I was gaining her trust and then... I mean, who stabs someone?

But she was outraged. Uncontrollable. Something in her had snapped. There was even a moment I had sworn her eyes had flashed. That couldn’t be right though. I must have been imagining things.

And I knew it wasn’t going to kill her. Hunters are immune to hunter’s daggers, especially their own.

But I stabbed her.

I stabbed her!

Guilt balls in my gut.

The ocean stretches out in front of me, as the road bends back to follow the bay coastline. The corner is so tight that my knee nearly touches the black top.

Why is it so important that I finish this mission anyway? Why is it so vital that I change her mind? She is obviously happy. Why do I want to take that away?

It is because I am jealous? Or because I don’t want to leave her? God knows that it isn’t because I feel indebted to HQ. I toss back and forth between the first two options, and I can’t seem to rest on one. I envy her lifestyle, but I know that is it mostly superficial. What she has here, in this podunk town, is just a mask. Even Caron isn’t a real friend. She can’t be when she doesn’t know what Scarlet really is.

And yet I admire how Scarlet can do it. How she can pursue this normalcy so fervently. How she can hold onto the idea that what she has here is something worth all her potential as a hunter. The look in her eyes when she thought I was trying to break apart her friendship with Caron told me that who she is relies on what she does outside of hunting. That makes her determination to stay here such an attractive quality - because she refuses to be defined by what she is. She is the people she loves.

What’s more, I am endeavouring to change all of that.

Right there, mixed with that guilt, is an emotion that I have never truly felt before. I know what it is. Unquestionable. Attraction. Concern. Caring...

I have fallen for her.

And doesn’t want anything to do with me. She is only going along with this whole ridiculous deal to get me away from her and her town.

My eyes lock on one of the cars in my rear-view mirror. It has been there since the out skirts of the city. It is unmistakable - a bright yellow Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren.

I screw my nose up. This is going to be annoying.