Scarlet

Scarlet- Part 25

I dream of Joanna.

   Hey, let's go over here! I have a secret!" She called out, her voice, high, young, happy. Full of life. We both bounced over, underneath a broken down shed that our parents never had fixed. Life was easy, carefree, simple. Suddenly, as I got closer to her, everything shifted. The bright, sunny garden shattered, her happy, smiling face, her bright golden hair fractured. It was 11 years later; we were 13 and 15.

We're in a dingy, broken down apartment in London, on the run from  Gisbourne, our comfortable, simple lives gone. All because of me, my selfishness. We braided our hair together, admiring the colors, the golden and the deep brown. "We'll be together forever, just like our hair." She promised me. I smiled happily, and fell asleep against her, only to wake up and find that she was gone, my hair the only braid left.

Everything shakes again; now she's sick, and I'm making my first steal, trying to save her. Cough medicine from the monks, whiskey, brandy, bread, everything I can think of. But she keeps coughing up blood. Her hair is stained a pink now, her once bright, happy, carefree smile gone. I learn that she did unspeakable things to keep me alive, to feed us. She sold her body because of me. She died because of me. She lay there, in a puddle of her own blood on the bed, on pink sheets. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. All because of me. She died because I couldn't just take what my fate was supposed to have been.

I woke up fast, my face wet with tears. I climb down the tree, careful not to wake anyone. I go sit on top of a cave, staring into the night.

  An hour passed; maybe two. At some point, Rob came and sat by me, not saying a word.

"Gisbourne gave me the scar." I told him softly.

Rob just looked at me, allowing me to go on.

"He shoved his knife in my face when me and Joanna were in London. I said he wouldn't use it on me. He did, to teach me a lesson."

"Bastard son of a bitch. You couldn't have been very old, and to cut your face as punishment? To cut a girl?" He said, disgust in his voice; "Who's Joanna? Is she the one you don't want to talk about?" He asked quietly.

"I was 13; two days before 14. Not so little. I'm just happy he didn't cut open my sisters face and fuck her face up. She was always the pretty one. Joanna was my sister, if that's what you're asking." I responded, my voice shaking. 

"How did she die?" He asked, real gentle.

"She got sick. Coughed up blood everywhere, nothing helped. That's when I started stealing. Didn't have the money to buy medicine, so I stole what I could, to try to save her. And..I couldn't. It wasn't enough." I said, tears dripping down my face, my body shaking. He slipped his arm around me, and I leaned into his shoulder, cold all through my body.  "I wrote her name, on some paper by her body. I hoped maybe someone would tell our family. But I left her Rob. I left her, and I'm why she died. It should've been me." I gasped out, burying my face in his shoulder.

"Where did you go?"

"I went to church. I sat there, with the saints glaring at me, with rain pounding the shit out of the roof. A candle tipped, and I figured it was God saying I wasn't welcome anywhere. The next day, I saw you. That's why I let myself get caught stealing from you. But instead of letting me die, you brought me here."

"You didn't let yourself get caught."

"Yes I did."

"The punishment for stealing is death. You thought I was a lord, you thought if you stole from me you could be with your sister again." He realized, gazing at my broken form.

"You didn't do what you should've. I wanted to die, but not slow, not by disease. Even if it would get me back to her."

"Christ. Scarlet..do you still want to die?"

I swallow hard, not sure how to answer. "Sometimes. But as long as I get to try and help people, even if I am breaking all kinds of laws, I'll take it. But really, I'm such a fucked up person. Maybe I would be better off dead, there's no one to miss me." I said softly, whispering the last bit.

"Scar. Don't you ever say that; I..I can't loose you." He pulls me closer, into him, and my heart jumps. But it doesn't mean anything. I'm a band member, they need me. It means nothing more than that.

  I stare off into the night, my thoughts full, Robin and the townspeople and Joanna and London and Gisbourne, all jumbled together.

  "What doesn't kill you

    makes you wish you were dead

    got a hole in my soul, going deeper and deeper

     and I can't take one more moment

    of this silence

    the loneliness is haunting me

    and the weight of the world is getting harder to hold up."

    -Drown, Bring Me The Horizon

I stay with Rob, at the cave, until daybreak. I get up silently, letting him sleep a little longer. I adjust the belt with my knives, and tug my hair under my hat better, pulling my cloak's hood up over it, to cast a shadow over my eyes. I have my own schedule today; I can't handle the boys today. Dave can just keep training with other weapons. Besides, I'm supposed to still be on cave rest anyway.

    I head over towards an inn, owned by a woman. It's damn unusual, but when her husband kicked the bucket, she took over the place. I go to Lena sometimes, when I need to talk to someone who isn't a man.

   I walk in, and sit in my spot, in the corner, near the back door. She brings me a mug of beer, a smile on her face. Just as I take a swallow the first drink, some men walk in.

Dressed in black and silver, I immediately know they're the sheriffs men. Black for death, silver for the gleam of their weapons. She smiles at them, but it's not a real smile, not like the nig ones she gives me. She gets them some drinks.

"Lena, you know this isn't why were here. The sheriff expects his generosity of helping you with food to be returned."

"I don't have any money. I'll have some next week." She says, her jaw clenched.

The men don't respond; they instead just casually leave, only to set the stable on fire.

The inn panics; I run outside, towards the barn. I run into the burning building, my body hunched over. I slide into the first stall, the horse strangely calm. I cut his rope; he gallops off. The next 6 aren't so calm. I dodge hooves, cut ropes, almost getting nailed in the head several times.

Just as I walk out the of the last stall, ready to get out and save myself, there's a man in black and silver. Death and metal. "Got you now boy." He hisses into my ear, his breath stinking of beer.