Scarlett Wrappley's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

They reached her lab as the sun climbed. Scarlett bolted the door and set her sample bag on the bench. Around her stood rows of bottles, coiled tubes, and the acid barrel that hissed in the corner. Garrison slumped against a table. For the first time in hours, they both breathed slow. "You saved my work," Scarlett said. She lifted a strange bloom from a shelf. It grew from a plastic bag, its petals curled and toothed like a hungry mouth. "I made this last winter. A flower from a bag. People throw them away. I keep them. I love how they last forever." Garrison almost smiled. "You love garbage." "I love things that don't rot." She stroked a petal. "Blood rots. That's the problem. If I can build a substitute that keeps, I can carry it in a bag and live among you people. No hunting. No fangs in the dark." Garrison started to answer. Then his ears twitched. His nose lifted. His yellow eyes narrowed at the far corner of the room. He rose slow, silent, sniffing the air like an animal that has caught something wrong. "What is it?" Scarlett asked. He didn't answer. He crossed to the door and yanked the bolt back. "Garrison?" "I have to go." His voice was flat. "Don't follow me. Stay here." "Wait, what did you smell?" But he was already gone. The door swung shut. His boots pounded away and faded. Scarlett stood alone among her bottles, confused, the flower still in her hand. She told herself he was tired. She turned back to her bench and opened the sample bag. She lined up the stolen drinks, the vials, the notes. Time to work. Time to build the mix that would set her free. She did not look down. On the leg of her workbench, a cockroach clung to the wood. Dirt crusted its shell. Purple runes glowed along its back, faint and steady. Its pale eyes fixed on her hands as she measured and poured. Every drop she added, it watched. Far off in the trees, the old hunter felt the pull behind his eyes turn sharp and certain. She was still. She had stopped moving. She was working. He grinned and picked up his pace. Scarlett bent over her first batch. She warmed the mixture and watched it turn a deep red. Her heart lifted. This one might hold. This one might keep. Hours passed. She did not know Garrison had run to draw the hunter off his own trail. She did not know the bug had stayed behind, marking her door for the man in the woods. She only knew her work was safe at last, in a place no one could find. Outside, boots crunched closer through the pines. And on the bench leg, the roach lifted one filthy leg, then set it down, patient, waiting for its master to arrive.