Scarlet

family—did they think she would be the best person to take care of him?
    That didn’t make any sense. Clearly they weren’t worried about her dad’s well-being. So what else? Was leaving him here a message to her? A threat?
    “You must remember something,” she said, her voice taking on a tinge of desperation. “Something about the room, or something someone said? Did you get a good look at them? Could you describe one of them to a profiler? Anything? ”
    “Was drugged,” he said, quickly, but then his brow drew together as he struggled to think. He made to touch his burn marks, but then let his hand fall into his lap. “Wouldn’t let me see them.”
    Scarlet barely resisted the urge to shake him and scream that he had to think harder. “Did they blindfold you?”
    “No.” He squinted. “I was afraid to look.”
    Frustrated tears were beginning to sting her eyes and Scarlet tilted her head back, gulping down patient breaths. Her worst fears, those sneaking, horrible suspicions, were true.
    Her grandmother had been kidnapped. Not just kidnapped, but kidnapped by cruel, brutal people. Were they harming her as they’d harmed her son? What would they do to her? What did they want?
    Ransom?
    But why hadn’t they asked Scarlet for anything yet? And why had they taken her father too, but then let him go? It didn’t make sense.
    Terror clouded her thoughts as all the possible horrors streamed through her imagination. Torture and burning and dark rooms …
    “What did you mean, when you said they made you? What did they make you do?”
    “Burn myself,” he whispered. “Handed me the poker.”
    “But how—”
    “So many questions. I don’t know. I never knew my father. She doesn’t talk about him. I don’t know what she does here in her big ancient house. What happened on the moon. Don’t know what she’s hiding—she’s hiding something. ” He pulled weakly at the blankets on the bed, glancing halfheartedly beneath the sheets.
    “You’re talking nonsense,” Scarlet said, her voice breaking. “You have to think harder. You have to remember something. ”
    A long, long silence. Outside, the chickens were clucking again, their scaly feet scratching across the gravel.
    “Tattoo.”
    She frowned. “What?”
    He placed a finger over one of the burns, on the inside flesh of his arm, just below his elbow. “The one who handed me the poker had a tattoo. Here. Letters and numbers.”
    Her vision prickled with bright lights and Scarlet gripped the rumpled quilt, for a moment feeling like she could faint.
    Letters and numbers.
    “Are you sure?”
    “L … S…” He shook his head. “I can’t remember. There was more.”
    Her mouth ran dry, hatred overtaking the dizziness. She knew that tattoo.
    He’d pretended to be kind. Pretended he only needed honest work.
    When—days? hours?—before, he’d tortured her father. Kept her grandmother prisoner.
    And she’d almost trusted him. The tomato, the carrots … she’d thought she was helping him. Stars above, she’d flirted with him, and all the while, he knew. She recalled those moments of peculiar amusement, the glint in his eyes, and her stomach twisted. He’d been laughing at her.
    Ears ringing, she peered down at her dad, who was turning out the pockets of a pair of pants that probably hadn’t fit her grandmother in twenty years.
    She stood. The blood rushed to her head, but she ignored it. Marching to the corner of the room, she grabbed her grandma’s portscreen from where her father had tossed it onto the floorboards.
    “Here,” she said, throwing the port onto the bed. “I’m going to the Morel farm. If I’m not home in three hours, comm the police.”
    Dazed, her father reached out and grasped the port. “I thought the Morels were dead.”
    “Are you listening to me? I want you to lock all the doors, and don’t leave. Three hours and then comm the police. Do you understand?”
    Again he succumbed to that frightened, child-like expression. “Don’t go out there, Scar. Don’t you get it? They used me as bait for her and you’ll be next. They’ll come for you too.”
    Clenching her jaw, Scarlet zipped up her hoodie to her chin. “I intend to find them first.”

 
    Six
    CARSWELL THORNE
    ID #0082688359
    BORN 22 MAY 106 T.E. , AMERICAN REPUBLIC
    FF 437 MEDIA HITS, REVERSE CHRON
    POSTED 12 JAN 126 T.E. : EX–AR AIR FORCE CADET, CARSWELL THORNE, HAS BEEN CONVICTED AND SENTENCED TO A SIX-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE AT THE END