Sisters Red

  I take the subway in circles for most of day three, until I realize that I'm seeing the same people coming home that I saw going to the shops, the park, the diners, hours prior. I force myself off at the next stop and begin to walk. I'm surprised when I emerge from the subway station; I haven't been to this part of town before, but I recognize a logo on a sign pointing me to Vincent's Elderly Care, the hospital Silas's father is in. I linger on the street corner for a moment. I haven't talked to anyone in days. Pa Reynolds was always kind to us, took care of us after Oma March died, until our mother got there. He knows about the scars already, and he doesn't stare. At least, he didn't before the Alzheimer's. He probably doesn't remember me at all. What if he cries out? What if I scare him now?

  I can't continue to be alone, though. I turn the corner to the hospital, a giant white and cream building that looks as

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  if it's a product of the late sixties. Nurses in salmon-colored scrubs chat on benches outside while eating yogurt, and even from the sidewalk I get an overpowering whiff of that horrible hospital smell--saline and latex and rubbing alcohol. I wrinkle my nose and ignore the curious stares from the nurses as I enter through bright white automatic doors.

  "Can I... um... help you?" a young girl calls out from the reception desk. Her fake smile and voice fade when she sees me, though the giant mirror behind her tells me it's not just because of my scars. My hair is a tangled mess, my clothes dotted with dirt and leaves. I grimace and yank my hair back into a ponytail as I approach her. That's better, somewhat.

  "Hi," I say, but my underused voice cracks. I start again. "Hi. I'm here to see Charlie Reynolds."

  "Your name is?" the receptionist says, bouncing back to her perky professionalism.

  "Scarlett March."

  "Oh, you're not on Mr. Reynolds's visitor list--"

  "I'm visiting for Silas Reynolds. He couldn't make it and wanted someone to check on his father," I lie. The receptionist chews on her pen for a moment, then shrugs.

  "Okay, then. Right this way." She slides a Be Back in a Moment sign across the desk and leads me through the hospital. We pass rooms of people in wheelchairs, pointed at televisions that I'm certain they aren't truly watching. Rooms where the curtains are drawn and doctors talk to old people in coddling, soft tones, the same voices they would use for

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  infants. "Good job! Now eat another bite!" I frown and try to block my ears.

  "He's right in here," the receptionist says, opening the double doors of a back room with a key card. We walk in and I hear them lock behind me. I fight the urge to bolt.

  The room is brown. Completely brown. Brown paneling, brown carpet, brown leather furniture. The only color in the room is the patients, most of whom wear sea green hospital gowns. They have lanyards around their necks displaying their names and pertinent details. They don't even give me a second glance, and though I suspect it's not out of politeness, I'm still grateful.

  "Miss March, here to see Mr. Reynolds," the receptionist calls across the room to a beefy male nurse who looks more like a club bouncer than a hospital employee. He nods and smiles, then points toward the back of the room at a small circle of wheelchairs.

  Toward Pa Reynolds.

  The receptionist pulls a chair up for me, but I can't stop staring. Is this the way people feel when they see me? I sink into the chair, regarding Silas's father with awe. Time has dissolved the once strong, proud man; his wrists are frail, neck small, lips loose and wet. He looks around the room in alarm, as though he's searching for something specific but can never find it. He's one of the few not wearing a hospital gown, but the gray sweatpants and white T-shirt make him look even more washed out and call attention to the age spots that cover his skin.

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  "Mr. Reynolds?" the receptionist says so loudly that it hurts my ears. Pa Reynolds turns to face her, bobbing a little in his wheelchair. "Mr. Reynolds, Miss March is here to visit you today. Isn't that exciting?"

  Pa Reynolds glares at her. I snicker; it's a familiar glare, one that would usually accompany the words "Are you thickheaded, child?" The nurse looks exasperated for a moment, then smiles at me and walks away.

  Pa Reynolds moves his wavering eyes to me. I turn my head so he doesn't see my missing eye. He smiles and reaches a delicate hand forward, and I wrap my fingers around his, soft as aged leather.

  "Celia," he croaks, his voice higher pitched than I remember. "Celia, how lovely to see you, my darling."

  It takes me a few moments to respond. After the shock, the hurt passes. This man doesn't know me. He made a rocking horse for me as a baby, he helped Oma March teach me to ride a bike, never once cringed at my scars, but he doesn't know me. How much harder it must be for Silas.

  "I'm not Celia," I say softly. "I'm Scarlett, Pa Reynolds. Scarlett March?"

  Pa Reynolds stares at me a moment, then smiles and nods. "Ah, Celia. My love."

  I sigh and sit back in the chair, leaving my hand wrapped around Pa Reynolds's wrinkly fingers. Celia had been his wife, his high school sweetheart, Silas's mother, who had died when he was eight. How can Pa Reynolds mistake me for someone he once loved? I look nothing like her--she was

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  blond, beautiful, delicate, graceful... I force myself to swallow and shake my head. This was a mistake. Even the look in his eyes is all wrong--he doesn't look like the fatherly figure I knew, the one I so desperately need advice from now, but rather like a scared boy.

  "I think I should go," I whisper hoarsely.

  "Oh, Celia, please, no." Pa Reynolds puts his opposite hand on top of mine, pinning it down. He looks at me, eyes full of pain. "We didn't mean it. It wasn't our fault; it just happened."

  "I know," I answer quickly, though I have no idea. "I know it wasn't."

  "He'll be fine there. My parents will raise him. He'll be fine."

  "I'm sure he will be." I try to stand, but the old man has a surprisingly intense grip. He trails his thumb over my knuckles.

  "Celia, please. There's no other way. They'll never let us get married if we keep him."

  I sigh and decide to humor the old man. "Keep who, Pa Reynolds?"

  Pa Reynolds reaches up and runs his fingers through the tips of my hair, apparently oblivious to the bits of leaves and grass stuck in it. "Our Jacob. Our little boy. He'll be happy, Celia. We'll be happy."

  I pause, mind whirring, connections clicking together. "Our Jacob"? Jacob, as far as I knew, was Pa Reynolds's

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  brother, Silas's uncle. Surely I'm misunderstanding. I pull my hair away from his hand.

  "Pa Reynolds," I say loudly, in a voice irritatingly similar to the receptionist's, "I think you're confused. Let's talk about something else. Why don't you tell me the story about Silas getting stuck in the tree again? You loved telling that story." I attempt a warm smile, but I'm not sure it works, because instead of smiling back, Pa Reynolds's eyes narrow. His face changes, falls, lifts, falls again. He pulls his hand away from mine and, with surprising speed, moves his wheel-chair so close that my knees touch the armrest.

  "Scarlett. Little Scarlett March," he says softly. His face changes, crinkling up in a grandfatherly way. He presses his lips together and leans to one side to stare at my eye patch. "Oh, my child. My poor child. How are your wounds healing?"

  "They're fine, Pa Reynolds. Long healed." At least he knows me now.

  "Oh my... my darling. And it's all my fault..." He trails off.

  "Of course not. You could never have gotten there in time," I say, cringing. Pa Reynolds had rarely talked about the attack after it happened, and to relive that time now, to hear this poor old man overcome with guilt... It's painful.

  "But it is, of course it is." He shakes his head and rubs his temples with his fingers. When he looks back at me, his eyes are reddened, tears building in the corners. I sit up, scared.

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  "No, Pa Reynolds, you tried to get there--"

  "You, and baby Rosie, and... oh g
od, poor Leoni!" He calls Oma March by her first name, nearly sobbing. "We tried," he says. "We tried so hard; we were just a day late leaving that year. One day! One day and they wouldn't have come. That was the key--keep him moving, and they could never find him in time."

  "They..." I swallow. This can't possibly mean what I think it means, can it? "Pa Reynolds? I need you to explain to me what you mean. Please."

  Pa Reynolds shakes his head as if this is something obvious, something I should know, and then his eyes change again. "Oh, Celia. They can't find us at the coast. We'll take him there again, just like we did when he turned seven. We'll take all of them to the beach for the entire month. Jacob too, even... And we'll get the triplets home from school. All our babies."

  "You mean... Silas."

  "We'll take them there, stay for his birthday. Silas is too gentle to saddle with this sort of knowledge." He waves his hands dismissively at the window, then leans back as if peering inside another room. "Keep him moving. As long as he's moving, the wolves can't find him."

  I inhale sharply. Of course. I'm so stupid--how did I not realize? I can muster only a whisper. "Jacob was your son. Silas is the seventh son of a seventh son, isn't he?"

  "We thought he would be a girl, Celia! Like the triplets, another girl! The doctors said he would be, but they made a

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  mistake. We can keep him safe, we can take everyone away on his seventh birthdays, we'll hide him till the moon phase is over... They'll never find him, love. Never."

  "Then... that's why the Fenris came to Ellison, isn't it? Silas was turning fourteen when we were attacked. Silas was a Potential." I inhale and close my eye. "No. Silas is the Potential." The realization crashes over me like a wave, knocking the wind out of me. He just turned twenty-one. Even though his birthday was a while ago, this is the first full phase after it. My Silas--no, Rosie's Silas. He could be a Fenris. He could be the monster I fight next. He could lose his soul. He would have already, had we not been wandering from Ellison to here and then all over this city... Silas. It's him. He is the bait I've been looking for all this time.

  My eye snaps open and I look back at the old man. "Pa Reynolds, does Silas know? Did you tell him?"

  Pa Reynolds looks at me, all grandfather lines again. "Scarlett. Little Scarlett March. How are your wounds healing?"

  "The Fenris, Pa Reynolds!" I say urgently. The beefy nurse rises and gives me a curious look. "Does Silas know he's a Potential?"

  "How do you know about Silas..." The old man's face turns white.

  "Does he know?" I nearly shout.

  "No. No, he doesn't. No one but Celia and I... Oh, Scarlett. Look what we've done to you. And Leoni! Oh, Leoni, it's our fault. We were a day late; we stayed in Ellison an extra day

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  to avoid the thunderstorm. Leoni, my friend..." Pa Reynolds puts his head in his hands and begins to weep, dry, ancient sobs that sound more like gasps for air than cries.

  "Is there a problem, miss?" the nurse says as he takes long, powerful strides toward us.

  "No. No," I say, leaping to my feet and stepping away from Pa Reynolds. "No, but I have to leave." I have to warn Silas; I have to tell Rosie. I turn and run from the hospital, wind screaming in my ears and heart racing.

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  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Rosie

  This isn't working, is it?" Silas mumbles to me, squeezing my hand. I jolt out of the daze I was in.

  "What, us?" I say quickly, chest tightening in worry.

  He smiles gently and runs his palm down my lower arm, letting it rest on my fingers. "No. Hunting without her."

  I nod in agreement. We've been sitting outside the Attic for hours now, waiting, watching. But we haven't seen a Fenris. Haven't seen Scarlett. Without Scarlett there's no drive, no power behind our hunting. And truthfully, I'm not hunting for Fenris anyway; I'm hunting because I hope that we'll run into my sister. I keep thinking that we'll catch her lurking around the clubs, that I'll be able to throw my arms around her and plead for her not to be mad. And of course she'll

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  listen, and we'll go back home and order kung pao chicken, and Silas and I will... be over?

  Silas draws me closer and kisses my forehead, my nose, my lips, so tenderly that I could melt against him despite my worries. I nestle my head into the crook of his neck. I can't just let this be over, not when it feels so... right. I can't be just a hunter, nothing more. Not again.

  "Maybe it's for the better that we haven't seen any wolves," Silas says, hopping off the wall we're sitting on. I jump down after him. "Now that the Arrow pack knows us and all..."

  "No. Fenris move quicker than this. If they were going to set up a trap for us, they would've done it already," I answer as we interlace our fingers and begin to walk back to the apartment.

  "You sound like your sister," Silas says, eyebrows raised. I smile. That's comforting, in a way.

  The junkie swings open his door and glares at us as we ascend the stairs. I've noticed that no matter which of us is holding the key, we always pause for a moment before opening our door, as if we're giving Scarlett time to materialize in the apartment. But Screwtape is the only one behind it tonight, just like he was when we left. Silas gets into the shower while I climb into my bed, even though I know I'll eventually join him on the couch. I can't sleep alone anymore, and his breathing, his warm body, and his assurances that it will be okay are the only things that let me rest, that let me prepare for another morning without her.

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  Silas is gone when I wake up. He's been slipping out in the mornings, trying to find my sister while the city crowds are still sparse. I stumble to the bathroom to splash water on my face. I consider making breakfast, but it's been so long since I went grocery shopping that we're out of everything but a can of spaghetti sauce. I suppose I should go to the store... I sigh, grab my cloak, and walk downstairs and out the building door.

  I walk through the grocery store in a daze, knocking things from the shelves into my basket. Bread, eggs, pasta... I haven't been much in the mood to cook lately. Simple foods, easy to prepare. I check out without talking to the cashier, who gives me a rather cold look for my silence. She bags my groceries, smashing the bread beneath the carton of eggs, and I trudge out of the store. No rush. Not as though I have anywhere to be anyway, since Silas and I have all but given up on finding the Potential and we can't hunt.

  I swing the bags of groceries absently on the way home, cloak fluttering at my heels. I cut through the park--maybe Scarlett's been here? My eyes wander across the wildflowers planted in neat patches. I sigh. Scarlett or Silas. Do I have to choose between them? Is the choice already made? I walk onto the grass, sidestepping a herd of runners on the path.

  "Miss?" a male voice calls out. "Miss, you have to be careful."

  I look up, realizing the voice is speaking in my direction.

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  One of the runners has paused in front of me, his face shadowed by a baseball hat.

  "What?" I ask.

  The runner steps closer and I see traces of a grin on his darkened face. "You have to be careful not to step off the path, miss."

  "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't know," I answer, but as I do so, he reaches up and adjusts his hat. My breath catches as the sunlight illuminates a tattoo on his wrist. An arrow.

  With a crown around it.

  Everything happens quickly. The Alpha swipes out a hand, locking it around my wrist so hard that I think I feel the bone crack. I reach for my knives, but they aren't there--how could I have left them at home, as many times as Scarlett has reminded me to always wear them? Another hand grabs my free arm. I whip my head around and realize it's one of the runners. No, it's all of the runners. They surround me, their faces contorting in and out of ferocity, teeth extending to fangs then fading back to human teeth. Their eyes flash ocher, and the Alpha yanks my body against his. I flail to pull away, to get him off me, to stop touching me, but it's useless. There are so many
, more than I've ever seen in one place before, and they laugh, howl, bark. I try to scream, but a hand that's half covered in fur clamps down on my mouth. The Alpha lifts me into the air like a doll and glares at me, hunger and hatred in his eyes.

  Then someone yanks my cloak around my head, twisting it until I can scarcely breathe. I feel the hem rip and

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  fall away, and my grocery bags plummet to the grass. The Alpha clutches me close to him, digging his claws into my skin. We're running--I can feel the wind against my body, whistling against my head--but all I can see is the blood red cloak encasing me. I struggle against the Alpha's grip, but he's strong--god, he's strong--and I can barely move.

  I scream again, but I know the sound is lost in the speed we must be moving with. I hear the barks and snaps of the other wolves. I'm sure they're transformed, because every now and then one bites at my legs or waist, just enough teeth to break the top layer of my skin, not enough to seriously wound me. Still, the cuts sting and ache, and I snarl as I hear their joyous howls at my expense. The Alpha's breathing is guttural, almost sexual, and we've been running for what feels like ages. I just want to cry into this suffocating cloak. But I don't. I'm a hunter. Please, let me be a hunter again.

  We slow. I listen intently, desperate for a clue about my location. We're someplace quiet, someplace almost totally void of the blaring city noises. The breathing of the pack is heavy, and I hear the crunching noise of several Fenris turning back to their human forms. It gets darker; the inside of the cloak looks black now. I struggle again and the Alpha laughs, then holds me tighter until I feel as if I may explode in claustrophobic panic.