Awry

70

Scarlet ran through the woods, trees flying past her as she made her way closer and closer to the shack in the forest. She’d only been there once but she knew exactly how to get there.

Scarlet heard Gabriel, Nate and Tristan running after her, but she didn’t look back.

“Scarlet! I am not dressed for sprinting through the wild!” Heather voice was far behind her, but chasing after her nonetheless. “Slow down.”

Scarlet couldn’t slow down even if she wanted to. There was something in the shack. Something that belonged to her in the past.

Coming upon the hut, Scarlet found the front door unlocked and let herself inside. She looked around for a moment, hoping a flashback would hit her.

“Scarlet?” Tristan entered the shack after Scarlet. “What are you doing—”

“It’s here.” Scarlet barely looked at Tristan as she started running around the shack, looking behind hanging pictures and up the fireplace for clues, hints, anything.

“What’s here?” Tristan eyed her closely.

“I don’t know.”

Gabriel and Nate were next to enter the hut.

“What is this place?” Nate looked around.

Scarlet opened up every cabinet in the small kitchen, knocking things aside. She was desperate for any clue as to what, exactly, she was looking for.

Amnesia sucked.

Panting and flushed, Heather was the last member of Team Awesome to barge through the front door, mud coating the bottom half of her heels. “I twisted my ankle, swallowed a fly, and ran through a spider web trying to follow you here, Scarlet. This better be good!”

“It’s good,” Scarlet said automatically. “Or maybe bad. I’m not sure.” She started opening all the windows and knocking on the walls.

“Scar,” Tristan said. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know!” Scarlet snapped. “I know how stupid that sounds but…but it’s the truth. There’s something here. I hid something here.” Scarlet frantically walked from one end of the cabin to the other, running out of hiding spots.

Creak.

The floorboard beneath her foot moaned. Scarlet paused. She stepped on it again. Creak.

She knew that sound. It was familiar and personal.

Dropping to her knees, Scarlet started running her hands along the dirty floor.

“What the…?” Heather looked disgusted. “Scarlet, if I ate a bug just so you could wipe the nasty floor with your hands, I’m going to be so mad.”

“Shh!” Scarlet held up a hand as she put her other hand on the floorboard and listened. “Hear that?”

“Uh…no.” Heather said.

Tristan came up behind Scarlet and looked down at the floor. “What are you listening—?”

Snap.

Released from a hidden hinge, the floorboard popped up, revealing an old, metal handle.

Scarlet gasped. “I knew it!” She started tearing at the surrounding floorboards, pulling them up and throwing them aside until a large, square door appeared beneath the floor.

“O-M-G.” Heather inhaled.

“What the hell?” Gabriel squatted down beside Scarlet.

Scarlet pulled up on the handle, but found it stuck. Using all of her weight and strength, she heaved again. The door lifted with a cloud of dust, causing Scarlet to lean back on her heels.

Once the dust cleared, everyone stared down at a dark flight of stairs.

“Holy crap!” Heather jumped back. “Is this some kind of mystery cabin? How did you know these stairs were here?”

Scarlet’s eyes surveyed the steps. “I think…I think I used to live here.” She motioned around the small shack.

Nate shook his head, clearly confused. “What?”

“I don’t know.” Scarlet looked down at the darkness and then ran to the kitchen. When she’d thrown all the cabinets open, she’d seen a few flashlights. Grabbing one, she hurried back to the descending staircase. “But I’m going to find out.”

She started to step down into the darkness.

Tristan grabbed a few more flashlights, passed them out, and they all headed down into the darkness, with Scarlet as their leader.

The stairs were old and weak, moaning beneath the weight of the people climbing down them. After a few steps, Scarlet realized they were in a cellar of sorts. She reached the cellar floor and carefully stepped forward into the small room.

Scarlet lifted her flashlight to light up the area before her. What she found herself looking at was a wall covered with hanging weapons.

Bloody weapons.

Heather sucked in a breath at the site.

Nate said, “Wha…?”

Tristan and Gabriel remained silent.

Scarlet’s eyes widened in disbelief. She knew they were hers. She couldn’t remember her last life, but somehow she knew the deadly, bloody weapons hanging before her were hers.

Scarlet took a step back, overwhelmed with fear. “Who…the hell…am I?”

Tristan was speechless. He blinked. And then blinked again.

Scarlet started to hyperventilate. “Ohmygoodness, ohmygoodness, ohmygoodness—”

“Okay, let’s not panic here.” Heather held up a hand. “It’s really no big deal.” She shrugged, trying to look brave. “So you’ve got a secret arsenal of slightly-used weapons. Hidden in a creepy…and probably spider-infested cellar…in the middle of nowhere. That’s no reason to panic.”

A bat flapped in front of them and Heather yelped.

Scarlet’s eyes began to glow.

Tristan’s eyes began to burn as well, searing into his head with a blaze he couldn’t begin to describe. But the pain immediately stopped.

He saw Scarlet blink as the neon glow disappeared from her eyes. She stared at Tristan. “I had a memory.”

“What do you remember?” Nate asked.

“It was a good memory,” Scarlet answered. “I remember a graveyard.”

Heather tucked her lips in. “That’s not what I would call a ‘good’ memory—”

“No, I mean. It was an important memory.” Scarlet walked over to the weapons and grabbed a blood-coated butcher knife off the wall, looking at the blade curiously.

“What was important about it?” Tristan watched her eye the knife.

“I can’t remember.”

“Of course you can’t.” Heather sighed.

“But the graveyard is in Avalon.” Scarlet started making her way back up the cellar stairs, still clutching the knife. “Let’s go find it.”

Tristan looked at Gabriel.

Gabriel looked at Tristan.

And Scarlet kept walking up the stairs with a bloodstained knife in her hand.

“Uh…Scar?” Tristan tried to sound calm. “You know you still have a knife in your hand?”

Scarlet looked down at the weapon. “Yes. I want to take it with me.”

“Why?” Heather swallowed.

“Um.” Scarlet looked confused. “I don’t know. But I know I want it with me.” Scarlet turned and started back up the stairs.

Gabriel and Nate exchanged a nervous glance before following after her.

Heather pointed at Tristan. “Okay, if my B-F-F goes rogue and starts trying to chop me into pieces, I fully expect your immortal hotness to protect me, got it?”

Tristan raised his eyebrows in response.

Taking a deep breath, Heather followed everyone up the stairs and out of the cellar.

Waiting until they were gone from sight, Tristan grabbed two bloody daggers and a hunting knife off of Scarlet’s wall.

If she was going rogue, so was he.