Scarlett Wrappley's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

Scarlett sagged against the enchanted rope. Its runes glowed cold across her wrists. Blood dripped from her arm to the floor, drop by drop. The window showed the first gray line of dawn. She had stopped counting the drops. She had stopped hoping. The hunter would come back to a corpse, and her plastic bag of samples would rot in his cabin, her work finished before it began. The door burst open. Wood cracked off the hinges. Garrison filled the frame. His long black hair hung wet with dew, his yellow eyes wild. He was the barman who poured her samples and covered her exits, the one friend she had in this town. She had refused to give his name to the hunter. Now he stood here, chest heaving, claws out. "Scarlett." He crossed the room in three steps. "You look terrible." "You came." Her voice cracked. "I told him nothing. He went to hunt you." "I know. I smelled his trail the whole way." Garrison gripped the rope. The runes flared and bit his hand. He hissed and let go. "It fights me." "It's made to hold us," she said. "You can't pull it." Garrison's ears twitched. He tilted his head, listening for the old man in the trees. Then he reached into his vest and drew out the red bottle. The enchanted glass glowed warm against the cold runes. "I found this in the alley," he said. "Yours." Scarlett stared. The stolen tequila. The key to her research. "The magic in it," she breathed. "Pour it on the rope. Magic against magic." Garrison worked the stopper loose. He tipped the bottle. Red liquid ran across the glowing cord. The runes sparked, spat, and dimmed. The rope loosened one turn. He poured again. The cord went slack and dropped to the floor. Scarlett fell forward. Garrison caught her. He pressed the bottle back into her hands, still half full. "We run," he said. "Now." They stumbled out the broken door into the pines. The sky brightened at their backs. Scarlett clutched the bottle to her chest and the sample bag to her side. Alive. Free. Her research safe. Neither of them looked at the doorframe. On the worn wood there sat a cockroach. Its body was crusted with dirt. Strange purple marks glowed on its shell, and its pale eyes turned to follow them. It had watched the whole escape. The roach lifted its filthy legs and crawled after them, quiet, steady, keeping to the shadows. Far away in the trees, the old hunter felt a small pull behind his eyes. He knew that pull. His marked roach had found them. He turned on his heel and started back. Scarlett and Garrison ran toward town, sure they had won. Behind them, a glowing bug tracked every step, and its master followed the map inside his own skull.