by Loretta Lost
I turn to my side to study Scarlett. She is wearing an old-fashioned white nightgown that I believe was a hand-me-down from Mrs. Brown’s daughter. It’s weird to see her in a dress, because all her clothes are normally so tomboyish, but I think her pajamas are in the laundry. Peering closely at her, I reach out and touch her hair to examine the roots. Sure enough, there is a light brown color near her scalp. How did I never notice this before?
She swats my hand away. “I started dyeing it to look different. I don’t want him to find me.”
“Your name was Serena? Like Sailor Moon?”
“You watch too much anime, Cole. Yeah, that was my name.” She hesitates. “Well, technically it was ‘Serenity’ on my birth certificate, but no one ever called me that. A bunch of cops chose that name at a police station, when I was brought in by the old woman who found me in the snow. But it was mostly shortened to Serena when I was in school. The only person who ever called me Serenity was Benjamin.” Her voice grows very soft. “I grew to hate that stupid name. He would always say it over and over. That’s what he used to call me… in bed.”
My entire body quakes with rage, and I can feel the bile rising in my throat.
Someday, I’m going to make it my personal mission to ruin this man. I’m not sure how, exactly, yet, but I will take revenge for Scarlett, and all the harm that was done to her. I will take revenge for her lost innocence. If I told her this, she would probably say that she wasn’t innocent, to try to downplay what happened to her, and shrug it off, but I know better.
It’s still eating her alive every day.
I can see it behind her pale eyes, which she hasn’t yet begun to shield with contact lenses. I am sure she will, soon, once she can afford them. She’s running and hiding away from the world. She’s burrowing deep inside herself, and trying to avoid letting anyone see who she really is. I’m lucky that she lets me have a glimpse of the truth.
“Do you think he knows I’m alive?” Scarlett asks, moving over to sit on my bed. She stares out the window, at the darkening sky. She has made it a habit to stay up all night and sleep immediately after coming home from school, so it’s currently her morning. “I wanted to go to Columbia University,” she tells me. “Maybe he thinks I will apply for the scholarship, and that’s how he’ll find me? Maybe it’s an invitation—an olive branch. Maybe he’s guaranteeing me acceptance and a full ride.”
“Screw him and his stinking scholarship,” I tell her. “You can get any scholarship you want! You don’t need his money.”
“Maybe,” she says softly. “But also, maybe not. I found a job at the mall, Cole. I want to give you some money for the laptop. But even if I work every day after school, it will take months to pay you back completely for the computer.”
“Hey,” I say, getting up to move over to sit near her. “It was a gift. There’s no reason to pay me back. Besides, I’m using it too, aren’t I? Don’t take the job at the mall. You need to focus on your studies so that you can get those other scholarships.”
“I need money,” she tells me with determination. “We need to get a car.”
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I can get us all the money we need.”
She looks at me with narrowed eyes. “The way that you earn money isn’t exactly safe, Cole. There are risks, and it’s beneath you. I don’t want you doing that. I mean, I appreciate that you did. But I could always… access some money using the internet.”
“Isn’t that risky?” I ask her. “You could get caught. You could get in big trouble.”
“Everything is a risk. But if you promise not to do anything dangerous or illicit for money, then I promise to do the same,” she offers.
“Deal,” I tell her softly. “We’ll keep each other good.”
She smiles, and leans over to place her head on my shoulder for a second. A large yawn escapes her lips. “Hey, Cole? Do you need to use the computer any more tonight? For anything other than stalking me?”
“Nope! Not really. I finished all my homework.”
“And you don’t want to watch any anime porn about Sailor Moon before bed?” she teases.
I grin. “It’s called hentai, but no. I have better things to do than watch porn. Besides, I have this amazing thing called my imagination. It’s way better.”
“I think I’ve heard of that website,” she says playfully. “Can I take the laptop down to the library?”
“Of course. Just promise me you won’t do anything illegal?”
“I won’t,” she says with a sleepy smile. “I’m a good girl.”
I resist the urge to chuckle at this as I stand up and move to close the laptop. “Here you go,” I tell her, lifting it and handing it to her before moving to grab the plug. “It’s all yours.”
“Thanks,” she tells me, rising to her feet. She turns to leave, but hesitates to look back at me. “Will you try to get some rest while I study?”
“I will. I just need to brush my teeth and I’ll move to your room.”
“Good. Sleep tight, Cole,” she tells me, heading for my bedroom door with the laptop clutched tightly under her arm. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I am harshly awoken from my sleep by… nothing at all.
There is dead silence in the room—not even the sound of Scarlett’s breathing. I blink and look around in confusion. “Scar?” I mumble sleepily. Squinting at the bed, I seek out her sleeping form. Panic begins to spread through my chest when I don’t find her there. I place my palm on the floor to push myself to my feet as I stumble toward the door, in search of her.
Then I hear it; a male voice shouting. It’s coming from downstairs.
The library. I remember she was studying in the library.
Dammit.
Reaching for my baseball bat, I bolt out of the room and run down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. The sight that greets me is one that instantly makes my blood boil.
Mr. Brown is holding Scarlett by the throat, with her back up against the blazing fireplace, as if he intends to push her in.
“Answer me!” he bellows. “You thieving little bitch! Where did you get it? Where the hell did you get it?”
She can’t respond, because his hands are crushing her windpipe, so her voice comes out in a muffled croak. Moving forward, I slam my baseball bat into the professor’s back to distract him, but he barely even flinches. I expected him to him focus his attention on me, but he only momentarily grunts and shoves his elbow into my stomach, sending me hurtling backwards.
I land on the floor and my bat goes clattering away. He is such a bulky, heavyset man, and he hits surprisingly hard. I am angry at myself for letting him get the upper hand again.
“Where did you get the money for that computer?” the professor demands, close to hysterics. He shakes her viciously. “Did you swipe my credit card? Did you steal from my safe? Where the fuck did you get that money?”
Lifting her off the floor by her neck, he shoves her closer to the fire, until the flames are dancing around her ankles. Her toes curl as the flames lick at the sensitive bottoms of her feet.
I was about to rip myself off the floor and dive at him again, but I have to pause, mid-motion.
The sight of the fire makes me frozen.
Pieces of ash and sparks of fire are drifting up into Scarlett’s hair, and a few tendrils are glowing as they begin to catch fire. No small amount of terror courses through me at this sight. I have seen such flames before. I still see those flames every single night, when I close my eyes. I feel like they have been searching for me. All this time, the fire had unfinished business, and it was seeking me out, to completely burn everything I love. I see Scarlett tightening her small hands around Mr. Brown’s wrists. I see her legs kicking wildly as she tries to break free. I see my house burning. I see the rafters falling. I can smell the smoke, and Scarlett’s burning hair.
I am rooted to the spot and unable to move. But then she screams for me.
“Coh—Co—oole!” i
s Scarlett’s muffled moan of pain as she struggles to free herself. Both of her hands are clawing at Mr. Brown’s larger ones, and trying to tear them away from her throat. But he is continuing to throttle her. He is going to kill her. If I don’t stop him, he’s going to kill her tonight. My heart palpitates in my chest when I see that the flames have caught onto her nightgown, and have started making their way up her dress.
I am not entirely thinking when I reach into my pocket, pull out the switchblade, and walk forward. Before I realize what is happening, I have plunged my blade between two of the professor’s ribs, and into his kidney. I jerk the knife back and forth, and twist it. The man hollers, like a cow being slaughtered.
“Don’t touch her,” I tell him coarsely. “Don’t you fucking lay a hand on her again!”
In the middle of roaring in pain, the man releases Scarlett and she falls to the floor in front of the fireplace. I am so focused on her, and afraid of the flames that are traveling up her dress, that I don’t notice when Mr. Brown twists around, putting his hand on the switchblade and tearing it out of his back.
“You little piece of shit!” he screams as he advances on me and slashes out with the blade. He hacks into my chest, cutting a large gash across my lungs.
I grunt and step back, hoping that I am quick enough to keep the cut from going too deep. The pain makes me see double. When blood starts pouring from my chest, I place my hand over my wound in shock.
“Little boy with dead parents,” Mr. Brown says with a drunken cackle. “Do you ever think maybe your pops wanted to die? Better than slaving away to raise a wretch like you. You’re just a waste of space. Eating my food, shitting in my toilets, sleeping under my roof. You can burn, the both of you. I’ll just tell the agency you ran away. Good riddance!”
Mr. Brown comes at me again, hacking at me with the knife. I stumble backwards awkwardly, clutching my chest and trying to dodge his blows. When he strikes out with the blade and stabs me in the stomach, and I double over with a sharp intake of breath. My head spins, and I try to remember what organs are located in the area that he stabbed. Is it something vital? My liver? My pancreas?
He withdraws the blade and I fall to my knees, coughing out blood. He immediately goes to hack at me again, and I am in too much pain to move away. I awkwardly turn to protect my middle, and he cuts a deep gash into my arm instead, but not before I hear a sound that I will never forget:
It is a sound like death.
It is a scream so shrill and demented that it makes my blood run cold.
I see a flash of flame and cinders, the crash of an impact.
“Get away from him!”
I realize that Scarlett has reached into the fire with her bare hands, grabbed one of the burning logs, and smashed it against the side of Mr. Brown’s face. He stumbles and falls at the force of the blow, and the log rolls to the carpet.
Scarlett doesn’t stop there. Climbing on top of the man, she pummels her fists into his already busted face, over and over. Her hands are small, but they are knotted up tightly into little balls that might as well be made of steel. When her fists connect with his cheekbones and nose, I hear the cracking of bones, and I know that some of them are hers.
She doesn’t seem to notice. She doesn’t even notice that her hands are badly burned from the fire. She doesn’t even notice that her skirt is being consumed by flames that are twisting around her legs. She screams as she hammers her fists into his face, filled with a fury that is almost feral.
I have never seen a creature more beautiful and wild.
My jaw hangs open, and I forget that there is blood pouring out of three gashes in my body. “Scar,” I whisper hoarsely. “Scarlett, stop! Scarlett? Serena!”
She turns to face me suddenly, and there is fire in her eyes. I thought I had seen fire before. I thought that the blaze that burnt my family to ashes had been really something. I thought that I had developed a healthy fear of fire, and respect for its destructive nature.
But that was before I saw her eyes.
All of a sudden, I realize that I don’t know her at all.
“Shhhh,” she says softly, putting her index finger over her lips. “Serena doesn’t know. Serena doesn’t like hurting people.”
Her voice sounds different. The strange intonation sends chills down my spine. Her eyes are crazed, and she is way too calm.
“Scar, what’s wrong with you?” I gasp out as I try to crawl toward her. “You’re on fire! Scarlett!”
“I am not Scarlett,” she says as a small giggle escapes her throat. “Scarlett was a stupid little whore. I’m the one who killed Scarlett.”
“What?” I say in horror.
“Serena doesn’t know,” she says again, rising to her feet and stepping over Mr. Brown’s body. A savage smile transforms her features as she steps toward me. “Serena is soft. Soft and sweet, like a tender little marshmallow. That’s exactly what she tastes like. Do you like marshmallows, Cole?” She lifts her fingers to her lips and licks them, as though removing the sticky residue after a campfire.
My body is frozen with fear and shock. How can she joke like this when she is on fire?
“Poor girl,” she continues. “But I did it all for her. I killed that little whore, so that she could live. And now I’ve killed the professor for you, brother.” She holds out her hands to me, palms upturned like a goddess from an Eastern painting. “Can you keep a secret, Cole? Let this be our little secret.”
I don’t understand how she is just standing there. There’s something wrong with her. “The fire,” I whisper, clutching my chest. “You’re burning alive.”
“No, I’m not,” she tells me, while the flames reach her midsection. She steps closer to me, with a smile still on her face, and the flames reflecting in her glassy eyes. There is something angelic about her, standing there in her white dress, and something demonic about the look on her face. Who the hell is she? “I don’t feel the fire, Cole,” she says softly. “I don’t feel any pain at all. I’m fireproof. So you will never lose me.”
She’s gone insane.
I can smell her burning flesh.
And I doubt she tastes like marshmallows.
I crawl forward, bleeding and hurting, but desperate to reach her. When I get close, I try to use my hands to put out the flames on her dress. It’s too hot. I reach up and grab her by the waist, and throw her down on the carpet, grunting with pain as I roll her body back and forth to quell the flames. It’s too much. Reaching for the front of the dress, I rip it open and peel it off her, before rolling her away. I don’t care that she is mostly naked under the dress. There are a few pieces of burning fabric stuck to her thighs, and I quickly use my hands to pat them down to cinders and peel them away.
It’s done. It’s over. She is safe. My own hands are burned, and my lungs are smoky, but she is safe. This taste of ash and cinders is one I remember all too well. I collapse beside Scarlett’s body, and place my head on her naked chest, hugging her midsection to assure myself that she is okay.
I can feel her chest heaving with rapid breaths, and hear her heart beating beneath my ear.
She’s alive. She hasn’t burned to death. For real.
It takes me a moment to process this. To convince myself that everything is good.
My own heart is beating out of control.
A few feet away, her nightgown is still on fire. It is in my line of sight, and I see that the white dress is charred and black. I clutch her closer, thankful that I got it off in time. I know that she will have sustained burns on her legs, but with any luck, they won’t be so bad. She’s alive. That’s all that matters.
I notice then that the flames from the burning log have caused the carpet to catch on fire, along with the wooden floorboards beneath it. The house is going to burn down, unless I put out those flames. But I’m somehow in no hurry to move.
I continue to lie against Scarlett’s body, panting for breath and bleeding all over her. I realize that I am gripping her body so t
ightly that my fingers are digging into her abdomen. I remember the cigarette burns that Mr. Brown used to put into her stomach. Is it possible that she somehow trained herself not to feel the pain from the cigarettes? Is that why the fire didn’t bother her? Does her mind not process the pain from heat and burns?
She places one of her hands against the gash on my arm to try and stop the bleeding, and uses the other to embrace me.
“Thanks for helping,” she says softly. “I’m sorry that you got hurt.”
I lift my head off her chest so that I can look into her face, and determine if she’s lucid. “Scar—”
“I’m not Scar,” she interrupts angrily. “I’m not Serena. I’m the strong one. I’m the one who killed the baby. Benjamin’s baby.”
My heart twists and constricts. “The baby?”
“She couldn’t face it. She couldn’t deal with it. That’s why she needed me. She was only twelve, and I was so much more. I’m her mother, and I’m her father. I’m her sister, and I’m her brother. I take care of her. So we don’t need you, Cole.”
Using both hands, she puts pressure over the deep wound on my chest. “You don’t have to bleed for me. Remember that. You never have to bleed for me, because I am so very good at bleeding. I can bleed, and bleed, and bleed like a river in Egypt. I bled out that baby for her, in a tiny airplane bathroom. I flushed it down the toilet, dead.”
“Oh my god, Scar,” I whisper softly.
“I am not her!” she says again. “I’m the one who does what needs to be done. I’m not afraid, Cole. I’m the girl he wanted me to be. I’m everything. Look at me.” She tilts her chin up and gazes at me in a frenzied way, with her eyes darting back and forth between mine. “I’m the girl you’re waiting for her to be. You think she needs to grow up, and heal. She doesn’t. Because I’m already here, and I’m grown up, and I’m healed. I can’t be injured, and I can’t be scarred. I’m pure white snow. I’m ready for anything. Everything.”