Sisters Red

by Jackson Pearce

  above my head, feeling as if there is nothing to do but take the blow. If it hadn't been for Silas...

  "We're running out of time," Scarlett says, rising to pour herself a glass of water. She picks at the broken remains in a bag of animal crackers. As if to mock her, the church bells chime out once for the quarter hour. She sighs. "There has to be more we can do. Without the Alpha, we could have taken the group at the bowling alley. Maybe we should try something like that again."

  "Not with the Arrow pack, though," Silas interjects from where he's lying on the couch, tossing a tennis ball to himself. "I imagine the Alpha will have warned the entire pack about the three of us. And besides, weren't we really hunting mainly to gain information about the Potential?"

  "We can't just ignore a pack of wolves," Scarlett says, shaking her head with a note of desperation in her voice. "And besides, there's still Bell. And Coin. Their Alphas don't know who we are..."

  "Yeah, and they're probably being absorbed into Arrow as we speak," Silas says glumly, sitting up. "They're organizing. Better to unite into one pack and get the Potential than lose the Potential and keep the smaller group. One unified pack is going to be a lot harder to fight than three."

  "So what, then, Silas? Do you have a suggestion?" Scarlett snaps, slamming her glass down onto the counter so hard that Screwtape flees the room. Silas sighs.

  "I don't know, Scarlett. I'm not trying to piss you

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  off--I'm just saying, we've been here for almost three weeks and all we know is that the Potential is a specific person, that he can be transformed only during a specific time, and that he has an active moon phase only every seven years. That's half the planet, and the whole full-moon-after-the-birthday thing doesn't really help unless you plan to start stalking people's birthday parties. This might be too big a job for us, Lett. Maybe we should focus on hunting instead of baiting them with the Potential," he says in the firm voice he seems to save especially for Scarlett.

  "Hunting with what, Silas? You? Me? Is Rosie supposed to bait an entire city on her own? We can't even make a dent in the population if we don't have the Potential!"

  "So, what, you weren't even making a dent before this? Before we threw the Potential into the mix, you were perfectly happy to hunt the outlying wolves!" he answers. He isn't afraid to fight with her--but then, she isn't afraid to fight with him either.

  "With knowledge comes responsibility!" Scarlett snaps, her face turning red with anger. "We know we can use the Potential, so it's our job to do it. We don't take the easy way out, Silas."

  Silas mutters something under his breath. My sister's face is bright, anger boiling right under the surface of her skin.

  "What did you say?" she says, voice dangerous, and I can tell she picked up the words that I did not. I consider stepping

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  in during the quiet, but I'm not sure I can--whom would I agree with? The sister I'm part of or the boy that I love? I clamp my lips shut.

  "Forget it." Silas shakes his head and reaches for a book.

  "Tell me!"

  Silas exhales and looks at Scarlett. "Lett, maybe it's your job. That doesn't mean it's mine." His eyes flicker toward me for just a moment as he says this, but I look away. I can't say that to my sister. Luckily, Scarlett's rage erupts and she doesn't catch the glance.

  Her voice jumps. "Not yours? Not yours? You know what? Fine. Go to San Francisco and have a lovely time." She exhales, words snaking off her tongue. "But it's their blood on your hands, Silas. All the girls whom you could save but won't. I hope their lives were worth a guitar lesson to you. I hope you think about how it would feel to be their mothers and fathers and sisters. I wonder if you could tell them that their little girls died because you wanted to learn how to fucking play 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.' "

  "Lett, come on--" Silas begins, and I see guilt replace the frustration on his face. Scarlett raises her hands and shakes her head. She looks at me.

  "Rosie, it's just me and you, it seems," she says. Her words are aimed at Silas, but they cut through me. I nod, afraid to look at Silas, blinking back tears of frustration. Scarlett spins on her heel, grabs her hatchet, and leaves, slamming the door, which bounces back open on the doorjamb.

  It's silent for a moment. I swallow the lump in my throat

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  and hurry toward the kitchen, tossing breakfast dishes into the sink so hard that I hear a plate crack. I have to hunt. She's my sister. I have to hunt--girls are murdered, eaten, and I can stop it.

  "Rosie," Silas says with a sigh.

  "No," I snap. "You shouldn't have said that to her, Silas. She's right--it's our job."

  "Rosie, you don't want to spend all your time hunting and studying wolves any more than I do. I don't want to hurt Scarlett, but I can't live the way she lives... and neither can you," Silas says. I'm not sure if he's apologizing about Scarlett or pleading with me.

  "She's my sister! " I scream, face hot. My frustration will dissolve into weeping before long, I'm sure.

  "Your sister," Silas repeats, eyes deep and shining, drops of obsidian in the blue-lit room. "Not you. You're your own person, Rosie." His words aren't necessarily kind, but stern.

  I laugh sarcastically and a few teardrops escape from the cage of my lashes; they splash down my face and join my hands in the dirty dishwater. "We have the same heart," I mutter, shaking my hair from my wet face. The same heart, torn apart so that I could stay safe in our mother longer while she put her body in front of mine. Her body in front of mine so that I could stay safe longer instead of face the mouth of a monster. Always her body in front of mine, always her to be wounded, to be cut into pieces and hacked away at while I see with both eyes and can think of a life beyond hunting.

  I am so selfish, so petty and selfish. Thunder crashes

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  suddenly, so loudly that the shoddy windowpanes shake with its force. I can already see strips of lightning in the distance, blending in with the perfect lines of light from the downtown skyscrapers. It won't be long now before the storm.

  I turn to snap at Silas again, to ask him how he would dare to even question why I would give up everything to hunt with Scarlett. Before I can say anything else, I see a flash of gray fur slip through the door. I drop the silverware I'm holding and cry out.

  "No one shut the door!" I dash past Silas, yanking my cloak off the chair as I run. I double back in a giant bound and snatch one of the woven laundry baskets off the countertop--Screwtape can't be caught; he has to be trapped. I slide the crimson cloak over my shoulders, take the stairs two at a time, and fling the building door open into the street, shouting Screwtape's name like a lunatic. Why is every single thing in this city the same pale gray shade of Screwtape's fur? Stupid cat, stupid, stupid cat.

  "He can't have gotten far." Silas runs up behind me, a concerned look in his eyes. I don't reply, worried my voice will come out in a pathetic squeak. So much movement around me, and none of it is familiar; everything is harsh, choppy corners and elbows and cars screeching to a halt at a stop sign. None of it is the slow, languid movement of my cat. My eyes race across the city street to the empty lot. Gray movement behind a chain-link fence.

  "There!" I shout so suddenly that a bike messenger almost skids into a fire hydrant. I ignore him and bolt across

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  the street, cloak flying out behind me. I know I saw him. I run along the fence until I find a loose section. Silas appears beside me and takes the basket out of my hands, then holds the section of fence up for me to slide through. He throws the basket through after me, then clambers through himself.

  The chain-link rattles down as Silas rises. It's somehow quieter in here, as though the thick brush and junker cars that are rooted against the fence are blocking the sound of the street beyond. The buildings on either side look all but abandoned, their old wooden balconies leering at us, jagged teeth on the crumbling brick walls, a few forgotten scraps of laundry and sheets whipping around in the
stormy breeze. A drop or two of fat rain runs through my hair. I fall to my knees in the dirt, peering underneath the rusted cars. I'm startled back to standing for a moment by a junkyard dog that barks angrily, taunting me with yellow eyes from behind the fence of an adjacent lot.

  "You're sure you saw him?" Silas calls from the other side of the lot, where he's picking through the giant weeds. I nod and my throat aches as a horrible black ball of fear lodges itself under the roof of my mouth. I cry Screwtape's name again.

  And then I just cry.

  His name, Scarlett's name, Silas's name, in one desperate stream of s sounds that I can't separate from one another. I want someone to make things right; I want someone to make me not feel as if I'm constantly being pulled different ways by my heart and my head. Most of all I want someone to just

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  tell me what to do, to find my cat in the rain and restore some sense of normalcy to everything. Silas rises and looks at me, hair dusting around his face in the wind and his T-shirt covered in mud.

  "Stop," he says forcefully. I shake my head--I can't stop. "Come on, Rosie. You're in control here; you don't need to be rescued," he says, reading my thoughts. "Come on."

  I nod tearfully, and without so much as a step toward each other, we turn back around. I breathe heavily but stop crying. I continue picking my way through the dirt, peering into the cobweb-filled seats of old Volkswagens and rattling the chain-link fence again.

  "Wait!" Silas shouts, his voice followed by a loud crash. I leap from the ground and turn to see Silas running the length of the far wall, where the lot meets the dilapidated apartments. He dives into the weeds and jumps back out, following a gray streak that flits between cars and old appliances and underneath brush. I dash to Silas to join him just as another crash of thunder breaks through the sky and rain begins to fall so hard that it shakes debris onto us from the apartments' rotting balconies.

  "Go left!" I call to him. Silas cuts in that direction and I move forward, leaping over a rusted engine block and part of an old pinball machine. Screwtape darts out from under the pinball machine, but as soon as a few drops of rain hit him, he doubles back.

  "Toss me the basket!" Silas shouts, but I've already thrown it. He catches it and swings it to the ground in a single swift

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  motion, and it clatters over Screwtape before he can slide back under the engine block.

  "Ha!" Silas shouts, grinning as he puts a foot on top of the laundry basket to hold it down. Screwtape flings himself against the sides. I laugh and exhale in relief, tears streaming down my face despite the grin that feels permanently stamped on my cheeks.

  "Oh god. Screwtape, I hate you." I cry and laugh in the same breath as I trudge toward them. My clothes are covered in dirt and my hair is matted, but I don't care. I peer through the basket bars at Screwtape, who looks at me as though I've betrayed his trust. I rise and meet Silas's gaze. "Thank you, Silas," I say, though the words are quieter than I mean. Something buzzes within me, stirs around in my chest enticingly.

  "Of course," he murmurs. His eyes are heavy on mine, his gaze pulling me in. He licks his lips nervously and runs a hand through his hair. Screwtape howls out as the rain increases, droplets clinging to Silas's lashes and running over his lips. Why am I noticing his lips? I brush my hair behind my ears as the heavy rain drowns out the sounds of the city on the other side of the fence.

  "Rosie," he says, or maybe he just mouths the word. He takes hold of my fingertips, and this time I move my hand and interlace my fingers with his. Silas inhales, as if he's going to say something else, like he wants to say something else, but instead he pulls me to him, closing the distance between us until his chest brushes mine with every breath. His body is

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  warm, and the feeling of being against him and feeling heat from his skin makes me light-headed.

  "I'm sorry," he mumbles, but doesn't break away from me.

  "Why?"

  "Because there's something I have to do," he says, voice velvety soft. Silas unwinds his fingers from mine and reaches up, wiping the raindrops off my face with the palm of his hand as the stirring in my chest spreads through my whole body, pounds in my veins, begs to be released. I put my hands against his chest as if I know what I'm doing, and he finally leans forward and tilts my chin upward gently.

  His lips meet mine, tentatively at first, then hungrily, and I clutch at his shirt as if holding on to him will keep me from floating away into the thunderhead above. His hands run down my back, and one rests on my hip while the other tugs me closer, until I think I could melt into him because nothing has ever, ever felt so right.

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SCARLETT

  I WALK FOR MILES AIMLESSLY. I CAN LIVE UP TO MY responsibilities. This isn't a pointless game. Silas is wrong. Thunder crackles overhead.

  I turn down an alley that I think leads to a sketchy row of projects and beaten-up basketball courts. A rough-looking school stands on the corner, looking defeated by neighborhood crime. My mind is so tightly wound that I feel as if it might explode from pressure. Wolves hang around schools sometimes. It's worth a shot.

  I slink around the school gates just as the first drops of rain fall, and by the time I'm next to the crumbly building, it's a full-blown storm.

  School must be out--the parking lot is empty, save one beat-up brown station wagon parked near a row of thick

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  hedges. There's an older, heavily bearded man in it, and he motions an unseen person toward the passenger-side door. I creep closer and peer around the corner to see whom he's calling for. It's a middle school-aged girl, clutching her books to her chest nervously underneath a plaid umbrella.

  "I just need directions!" the man calls out, something of a chuckle in his voice. The girl shakes her head and takes a step away from his car, putting several yards between them. Good girl, I think to myself. I sprint from the edge of the school to the hedges, ignoring the rainwater in my eye. The man calls for her again.

  "Look, I don't drive. I can't give good directions. Wait till my mom gets here--she'll know," the girl calls back. The man nods and puts the car in park, then gets out, his steps slow and deliberate. The girl's face blanches, and she frantically tries to open the massive double doors of the school, but they're locked. The familiar rush of adrenaline sweeps through me, the love of the hunt, the love of my purpose. The man strides toward her, hands in his pockets and a dark glare in his eyes.

  In one swift motion, I leap toward them and flip my hatchet in my hand. I dash behind the man and raise the blade of my weapon to his throat, snickering at the man's surprise. He fumbles to turn around and face me. Transform, monster. You can be my second successful hunt.

  "Hey now, missy," he croaks at me, taking a step back. Behind him, the girl seems frozen with fear and confusion.

  "Hey now, wolf," I whisper back. He looks at me for

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  a long time, then darts to my left. I'm faster--I swing the hatchet around and let it slice into his arm, leaving a deep crimson red line. The man screams and grasps the wound, dropping to his knees.

  "You bitch," he snarls at me, voice echoing off the school and through the sheets of rain. I step closer and raise my hatchet. Transform. Fight me.

  The man's face goes as pale as his would-be victim's. He raises his hands up in protest.

  "Look, I didn't mean nothing. I'm sorry. I'll leave her alone," he pleads.

  Fenris don't beg. I let my eye run down his age-spotted arms and to his wrists.

  They're bare. No tattoos, no pack marks. Only a scattering of freckles.

  I furrow my eyebrows and lower my hatchet to my side. The man quivers, blood from his wound seeping through his fingers. I look back up at the girl, who is regarding me with a sort of terrified appreciation.

  I was wrong. He's just a man, a dark man, a monster but not a wolf. I'm really losing it.

  "Go," I whisper, taking a step away from him. The man
leaps up and runs to his car, peeling out of the parking lot in a hiss of tires on wet asphalt.

  I stand still, letting water run down my clothes and off my hatchet. I was wrong.

  I can't do this alone. I need my sister. I need my partner--I just got him back; I can't let him disappear again.

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  And--I sigh and close my eye--I need them for more than just hunting.

  I turn and look at the girl, who is still pressed against the school doors.

  "Are you okay?" I ask the girl.

  She nods. "Who are you?" she asks, tiny voice barely audible over the storm.

  I don't answer. I turn and trudge back through the bushes and around the school.

  I can't do this alone--I can't do anything without Rosie and Silas. But I have to get them to focus. I have to keep them from abandoning the hunt.

  From abandoning me.

  When I return to the apartment, Rosie is sitting at the dining table, towel wrapped around her head. The shower is on, indicating where Silas is. I glance across the room--Screwtape is soaked, licking at his fur indignantly by our bed.

  "What happened to you?" I ask flatly. I strip off my clothing and leave it in a wet pile outside our bedroom.

  "Screwtape got out," Rosie explains. There's something in her voice, a singsong tone that sounds a little like the voice of some animated princess. I raise an eyebrow at her, but she doesn't look up from the book she's leafing through. I nod and pull on a dry T-shirt and jeans.

  "I've already looked through that one. Twice," I tell her.

  "Sorry. Just trying to help," Rosie says, closing the book.

  "I know." I'm trying to lose the bitter edge to my voice,

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  but it's hard--the frustration at Silas still bubbles beneath my surface.