The Curse of Hood [Book #1]

Inner Demons

Chapter Four – Inner Demons

The bark of the tree was cold against Scarlet's back and the wind blew her hair around herself. In the red jacket, perched high up in a pine tree she looked as if she could be a over sized cardinal. She sat quietly up there, out of sight, starring out in to the distance. Up ahead sits a small white house; although her attention turned completely to a single window.

Seth held his green and black cell phone to his right ear, pacing around in the kitchen. He had dialed the number more than three times already. Scarlet could see the faint glow of her phone far below her, Seth's name and picture on it. She watched him in the window, he wasn't alone. A tall, lanky, tan, dirty blonde boy about sixteen – Fred – who was a typical teenage boy. Seth's obsession was aliens when Fred's was girls in ways Scarlet didn't want to think about. But Fred was Seth's best friend from before she came around, when she did he had set him to the side. They had only met a few times when she had stumbled in when Fred was visiting, needless to say she nearly broke his hand once.

By the looks of it, Seth hung up again. His hair was wilder than usual, going every where. He pressed the buttons on his phone fiercely. Fred grabbed his shoulders, shouting something she couldn't hear. Seth, despite the size difference of the two boys, shoved Fred away and yelled back. She thought she could see redness around his eyes, cheeks and the end of his nose.

Scarlet couldn't help but watch when Seth threw the phone on to the dinning table and tackled Fred, who gaped as soon as Seth had gotten a hold of him. They fallen out of Scarlet's sight but the rare occasion of elbows, legs and the tops of their heads appearing as they rolled around on the kitchen floor. Mrs. Bailey appeared in the window soon after, startled and worried, she yelled something at them and reached to grab one of the boys, but a cop squeezed between her and grabbed Seth by the collar of his shirt and yanked him up off of Fred, who jumped up with blood running down his nose. He wasn't trying to go after Seth, but Seth was throwing a fit in the cops arm, screaming, and thrashing.

That's when she turned away from it, slowly she crawled down from the tree. The sun was up, shinning through the glossy leaves of the tree tops. The ground was slick and wet from last night's storm below the blanket of pine needles. She scoops up her phone, she was wrong he hadn't called four times, he had called twelve, and left a voice mail each time. She frowned and clicked the button to listen to them, she took a deep breath holding the phone up to her ear, waiting.

“Voice mail 1;” the machine lady spoke, then Seth's voice came up, he sounded normal but worried. “Scarlet I don't know what's going on. Everyone is screaming and you ran off. Why did you go? Call me back.”

“Voice mail 2; Scarlet, where are you? I went to the cafe,” he choked on the other side, he sounded kind of panicked. “The place is a wreck, Lex is missing and Savannah's dead. Scar, I'm really worried about you.”

“Voice mail 3; Scar, I'm sorry for whatever I did, I shouldn't have dragged you to the convention. There's cops everywhere questioning me. I miss you. I don't know what's going on still, where are you? Why did you leave? Please come back, Scar I need you. Please-” Shaking, Scarlet dropped the phone in the middle of voice mail 3. He sounded hurt, restless and as if he had been crying. She couldn't take listening to it.

Backing away from the phone, she ran off in to the woods, deep in to the darkness of shadows and the sounds of nature. The sun was up and she didn't have long till Lupus began to track her. She only hoped he would by pass Seth's house sense her scent didn't even venture in to the yard. She knew it was a risk but she had to check on him, see him. It took everything she had not to run in there and hug him and tell him everything. But she couldn't, he was already in enough danger by just knowing her.