honeydew with malt and caramel
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Scarlet
Rating: PG (mild cursing)
Challenge: Honeydew #2: fever/chills
Toppings/Extras: malt, caramel
Wordcount: 640
Summary: Victor Blackledge encounters an old friend who turns out to be a new enemy.
Notes: Bookblather’s trick-or-treat prompt: “It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.” BtS malt, and also a little sketch of what may happen in my NaNo.
Victor brought an arm up to shield his face, eyes half-closing against the blazing sight in front of him. Striding towards him across the compound with searing white fire tickling at her hands, confident smirk on her face, was a girl he recognised. Of course he did.
“VC-11!” she cried over the sound of crackling fire by way of greeting. “Remember me?” She chuckled at her own joke, looking him up and down.
“Wren?”
“Ha! That’s not my name any more, Vic,” she said, twisting her head to one side as she rapidly closed the distance between them. He could feel the heat from the fire sizzling in her white-hot hands-she stopped just a few feet in front of him. “They call me Scarlet. For obvious reasons.”
She had a wide, unhinged grin on her narrow-jawed face-although she had dyed her hair crimson, she was still very clearly a Blackledge, with her pale skin and stark eyes, such a pale grey they were almost white. They shone with madness. Victor stumbled away from her a few steps, wiping soot from his eye sockets.
“Did you start the fire in there?” he asked, jerking his thumb back towards the moonquartz warehouse behind him. Robyn was slumped unconscious next to the chain-link fence, her cheeks streaked with soot and sweat, her golden hair singed.
“No shit,” she said, tilting her head to one side. “Is that why you’re a PI now? Your amazing deduction skills?”
“Why?” was all Victor could ask in return. She sneered.
“You’re the detective here, VC-11,” she said. “So detect.”
Victor glanced around himself, although he really didn’t need to-it was all stored to his memory in total exactness. He had picked up lots of human habits over his years trying to blend in with them: he knew that they became a little unnerved if he stood too still for too long.
“Is that human yours?” Scarlet asked, pointing towards Robyn.
“She’s not anyone’s. She’s hers.”
His response made Scarlet smirk as she began to stroll towards the splayed body of Robyn. It had taken all of Victor’s strength to drag her out of the burning warehouse. Now he quickly hopped across the luminous grey ground to stand between her and the advancing prodigal Blackledge.
“How can you be so fond of a human?” Scarlet said, the playful edge to her voice becoming saturated in disgust. “After everything they’ve done to us?”
“We’re humans,” Victor growled in response.
“I used to think you understood. That you were one of us, and I mean really one of us.” Scarlet clicked her fingers and a sharp blue flame appeared at the tip. Spreading her fingers out, she let it trickle down her hand, flames licking devotedly at her pale skin. “Too much time trying to fit in with them has changed you, Vic. It’s made you soft.”
“I’m not one of you, or one of anyone. I’m just a person. So are you.” Victor flicked his hair from his eyes, scowling, before nodding towards Robyn. “And so is she, so just... leave her alone.”
“You are ridiculous, Victor Blackledge,” Scarlet drawled. “Don’t you ever resent them? Dr Blackledge put the voices into your head; he’s the reason you hurt every second of every day, the reason you can’t even consider having any kind of meaningful relationsh-.”
“Stop talking.”
“What’re you going to do?” Scarlet asked, tipping her head to one side, grey eyes reflecting the flames towards him. Black smoke was belching up from the warehouse behind them. “I’m afraid you got lumbered with a bit of a dud power. Remembering! What’s the use in that?”
Victor suddenly smiled: a thin and eerie grin that jerked his cheekbones. He spread the thin fingers on his milk-white hands.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about my powers, Scarlet.”