Scarlett Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Scarlett leaned close to the handprint. Fresh blood, still wet at the edges. She needed to know one thing: was the hiker hurt and crawling for help, or hiding from her? If she lost him, she lost her only witness. She pressed her palm beside the print to measure it. Small. A boot scraped the blacktop behind her. She turned. A man crossed the lot toward her. Black coat, red shirt, dark hair. He moved slow, careful, like he was reading the ground. He stopped at the drag trail and crouched. He did not touch it. "You found this," he said. Not a question. "I've been tracking the man who bled here." She watched his hands. "Who are you?" "Dominic Thornwell. Investigator." He stood. "I've been hunting someone since March. The trail led me into these woods." He looked at the handprint, then at her. "This matches what I've seen." She believed him. His eyes had the same tired look as her grandfather's in his last years. "The whole forest is bleeding," she said. "Trees. Soil. Roses. I came out to find someone who could explain it." "Can't explain it." He glanced at the tree line. "But I know blood. This one was dragged while alive. Someone pulled him." Scarlett's chest tightened. "Then he's not hiding. He's taken." "We can't read the trail here. Leaves cover everything." Dominic nodded past the lot. A roadside sign glowed red and gray through the dusk. Forest runs quick stop. "Someone there may have seen the car. Or the man." They walked to it together. The quick stop sat low and weathered, grey siding streaked with dark stains. Inside, a worn counter held a rusted register. A bored clerk leaned on his elbows. Dominic fed coins into an old machine and two cola bottles dropped. Dark glass, a winged cryptid on the label, red eyes glowing. He handed her one. The cola was flat and bitter. She drank anyway. "The red car," Scarlett said to the clerk. "The one out in the lot. You know it?" The clerk's face changed. "That car's been empty two years." He wiped the counter. "But three nights back, I saw a man run from the woods. Blood down his arm. He got in that car. I heard him scream." He swallowed. "Then nothing. I didn't go out. Dogs were howling all night from deep in the trees." "Where did the screaming stop?" Dominic asked. The clerk pointed back toward the dark woods. "Out there. Past the old wreck. Toward the middle." Scarlett set her bottle down. Her witness was gone, taken alive into the forest three nights ago. But she had something better now. A direction. A time. And a man who read blood for a living. "He's still out there," she said. "Alive or not, whatever took him is at the center." Dominic buttoned his coat. "Then that's where we go."