Art by dave.xp
The police should be coming for her soon.
She waits on her fire escape, gazing up at the night sky with a slitted gaze. The streets of Manhattan are quiet enough that she can hear the rustling of stray newspapers being pushed down the street by the wind and the sound of hobos shifting through trash. At her back, her small townhouse holds its breath, all the lights shut off and only her window is still held ajar. The driveway is absent of her papá's junker Ford and the only clue that it was ever there are the dried oil stains on the concrete.
She scowls at the slab of asphalt before looking down the street once more, pulse quickening. She turns and pulls her window open the rest of the way so that she can climb inside. She looks around at everything, drinking in the sight and replaying the memories that each item brings before she never sees them again. The walls are a soothing cream colour, plaster with band and movie posters that show her accumulating interests through the years. Her closet has a healthy amount of clothing folded inside, waiting to be worn, and in the corner of her room is a small TV with an Xbox hooked up to it.
She frowns at the system, wandering over and brushing the thin layer of dust from its top. She allows herself to wonder for a second about whether or not she should bring it with her, but a barking dog outside startles her and brings her back to thoughts of her mission.
She goes to her closet and brings down a black suitcase from the highest shelf. She tosses it onto the bed with a soft thud, hardly flinching at the noise as she starts packing her favourite clothes inside it. As she moves on to collect other belongings and pack them, she has to stop herself from bringing along every precious little trinket that she comes across and only take what is most important.
She casts another quick glance to the window as her quick breaths and pounding of heart fill the silence. She needs to get far away before any adults show up and figure out that there is indeed a child still in this house; that is if her papá got the chance to say anything before they took him in.
She swallows hard and gathers a few more things, packing them away into her suitcase before zipping it up. With that finished, she moves to her thrift store dresser and reaches for the terrarium that sits on top. The tiny painted turtle inside turns to look at her when she moves his tank, making her heart melt.
"It's okay, Bindo. I'm not leaving you behind," she whispers, her lips twitching into a half smile.
She places her beloved pet on her bed right next to her sleeping bag, pillow, backpack, and acoustic guitar. She turns to look over her room again, lingering on the desk littered with blank music sheets and a notepad, all reminders of a dream that will never come true.
She wanders over and flips through the notepad, lingering on a design of a skull with a halo and angel wings surrounding it. "I should tell them that I'm leaving," she mumbles as she runs her fingers over her band's half-baked logo idea.
She shakes her head. If she's going to run, she needs to leave nothing behind, not even messages to her friends. The weight of her decision hits her again and she exhales and pushes her black hair from her eyes, the red ombré flashing before her eyes for a split second.
Red is a colour that she can't explain. There's something about its vibrant hue that draws her in. It reminds her of everything she loves and everything that she hates, like campfires and cherries or any kind of anger.
There are two kinds of anger, the wet and the dry. The wet kind is when your voice shakes and your eyes grow teary and you're trying not to completely break down even more because, deep inside, you're more heartbroken than you are angry. That anger is red. The dry kind is when you're fed up with it all, when your voice is deadpan and your eyes are filled with malice, the kind of anger that makes people fear you. It's all bathed in red.
It's always red with her and the reason is something that she still yearns to understand about herself. Her guitar has a red paint job to remind her that even her strongest emotions can be channeled through her music, her band posters are smeared with red that scream rebellion and living life to the fullest, and her hair is red to show that she is not one to be easily tamed.
Because red, unlike other colours, is not only about wrath, it is about passion, pursuit, and romance. It is a fire that cannot be contained forever; it will either die or escape and wreck some havoc. Her fire isn't going to die. She's going to set it loose.
She finishes her packing, zipping up her backpack and lugging her suitcase to the door. She stops observe the room that she has called her own for her entire life and comes to rest on a picture of her mamá and papá. Her mamá is as gorgeous as ever with her smooth caramel skin and her dark hair and eyes, possessing a beauty that her daughter inherited. Papá's skin is lighter but his hair is as black as a raven's wing and his hazel eyes are bright, his smile creasing them at the corners.
She wishes that the picture would bring her joy, but it only brings bitterness. She moves to the photo and stares into her parents' unblinking eyes. "You think you can just leave papá and I, marry a new guy and have a new family?" she utters to her mamá. "He wouldn't be in trouble if you had stayed."
She punches the picture, sending it flying, and the frame snaps as it hits the wall. She snatches up her backpack and slings it over her shoulder before grabbing her suitcase. She hurries down the stairs and out her front door, happy to see that the shopping cart she snatched from the alleyway nearest to her home is still waiting. She loads up her belongings before returning to her room to retrieve her guitar and Bindo's tank and supplies.
With everything packed, she shuts the door to her home and locks the door, pocketing the key. She grips her cart, knuckles white against the handles, and she spares a long look at the night sky. To her surprise, the moon has been painted red. Her face doesn't soften at the sight of the blood moon, although her eyes grow misty with nostalgia. The last time she saw one was during the year that her mamá left, the year that red became her colour.
Red, like the anger that has been building inside her ever since three became two and her papá's life began spiralling downwards. Now, two is becoming one, and she hopes that her papá will understand why she had to run. She has to care for herself now.
From the outside, her anger is dry. Her face is stone cold, her eyes like the stare of a lioness on the prowl. She is dry to everyone but herself. Only she knows just how heartbroken she truly feels.
She forces a triumphant smile and throws her hand to the sky, two fingers extended into a peace sign. The night is lit with red and so is she.
YOU ARE READING
Non-Mutation (Book Four)
Fanfiction"You're weird too, Raphael. But...I like weird." Her anger has built over the years, festering inside of her like a disease with no cure. It is dragon fire with a heat that nothing can extinguish. She sees red, the colour that has always fuelled her...
