Scarlett woke to the sharp, crisp morning air. The sun broke through the mist, casting gold streaks across the old wooden floor of her mother's house. For a fragile, brief moment, she almost let herself believe the shadows were retreating.
This was before the knock.
Scarlett froze, hand closed over the shape of a coffee mug on the kitchen table, that cup being enough to perhaps ward off whatever was waiting across from the other side of the door. Mum cleaned quietly in the living room without noticing the noise; the humming soft and undecisive. Scarlett hung for a beat, gauging the chance she should move forward or draw herself back behind the secure door. Again the knock; louder this time.
Scarlett took a deep breath, setting her mug down with shaky fingers.
But it wasn't Dylan Hayes. He stood on the porch with his dark hair all mussed, face unreadable. His coat was dripping with morning mist, and his shoulders seemed tense under it. He looked at her with his eyes snapping into hers and Scarlett felt right away an uneasy knot in the pit of her stomach.
"Hello, Scarlett," he said, soft and with that unmistakable care.
"Hello, Scarlett," he said, soft and with that unmistakable care.
'What's all the big deal about? What do you want?"
He seemed to pause, shoving both hands deep into the holes in his pockets. "I have to speak with you. Can I come in?" Scarlett looked over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of her mother humming along but oblivious to the world going on outside. For a moment there was a hesitation in the air interest and instinct played their hand on her. "Uh yeah," she murmured, backing back.
He went in and warmth and warmth surrounded the place, instead of dampness and chilliness outside. Scarlett's heart was pounding against the rib cage, but she tried to act cool.
She walked him into the little, sunlit kitchen that made the space gold.
"Got some coffee?" she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
Oh yeah, thanks said sitting down at the kitchen table as she filled his mug with the warm brew his eyes didn't move while he watched Scarlett set the mug before he pulled out the other side, opposite him as heat with that kind of expression for she's trying to feel exactly how he feels "what is going on then?"
Dylan sipped his coffee, peering down into his cup for a moment, into the dark liquid there. His face was nearly ill at ease as he sought the right words.
His voice had steadied again, but there was a tension in it. " Things that could change everything."
Scarlett's pulse began to pound. Change everything?
He groaned and put down the mug. His eyes flicked to the window, the sun hitting his face. "There's secrets in this town, Scarlett. Secrets that people kept covered up for a very, very long time. About your father, about Hawthorne, about the Collective."
Scarlett sat like an iced glass, frozen. Every muscle in her body was taut. "What are you talking about?
Dylan looked back at her, his face serious. "I've seen things. I've heard things. Things that connect to you. And they're not good."
Scarlett leaned forward, her voice sharp now. "What kind of things?"
He rubbed his hands together for the second time and hesitated once more. His shoulders tensed, and his eyes danced around the space. "Can't go into everything right here. Trust is rather fragile, at this point. I've been looking for answers for a long while now, Scarlett. And some of these answers came easily enough to chase after me. But the deeper I look, the worse it gets. People watch they won't think twice to quiet those who might talk about their secrets".
Scarlett's throat was dry. Words were punches into her chest, a hit; plural. Father, where she had gone. The shadows. She started to breathe fast.
"What's going on here, Dylan?" she asked with a shaking voice.
Dylan looked at her eyes, and their view with his was sharp and uncluttered.
I'm saying, I'm saying… I would have better told you at the start of things, he breathed into her. But trusting is a poisonous thing to Hawthorne, Scarlett and I was underestimating. I thought maybe I could help you but then I was underestimating risks.
What am I doing? She thought and now her voice was that kind of scary trembling laced together with confusion and horror.
Scarlett looked up. Dylan looked at her gravely. That she might feel from the tensions put even into the words face that was falling, Dylan.
That is, I can give you nothing of all those things because of that kind of protection you feel you deserve, I lied for reasons I could never fully explain, and for those, I am sorry but the secrets go deeper than you realize it, and I won't always be around to turn to you for.
These knives are for words. Frigid-cut. Betrayal. A trust that had been carved through like it hadn't ever really been there at all. She just looked at him now, her voice low, wrenched.
"You lied to me?"
Dylan's stare was steady on hers; his face twisted up and was painful. "Yes. Sorry. I wouldn't gamble with you getting hurt."
Scarlett felt that the world was breaking up under her. The floor was unstable beneath her. They started to build fragile bonds, that shared trust-was seemingly being swept away by shadows and doubt.
She didn't know whether she should be angry, cry, or ask for answers from him. She only felt the bitter sting of betrayal and the doubt clinging to her heart.
Go she said cracking up but firmly.
Dylan didn't protest, yet stood there, his face pinched up with indecision, held out the mug and grasped it, but his face was obscured behind uncertainty.
Scarlett, please trust I only have you in my head, he urged.
Go, Scarlett answered now without further arguing but with her sharp and piercing voice, this time it was quite firm.
She looked up at him, for just a moment, one moment only, pain flickered across her face, and she nodded.
Scarlett watched him get up and head to the door. Each step was like wading through water-sand. The weight of what he said hung suspended in the air, a fog filling the space between them.
And when the door shut tight behind him, Scarlett's hands were shaking again in her lap. She wriggled to get into the nearest chair. Her breathing was ragged, the warm steadiness of the coffee doing nothing for her any longer on the hands.
The deception was cold and cruel, and now she did not know who was trustworthy enough, or was this chapter of her voyage built upon lies.
This was the first scene.
And hurt more than any dream she ever could remember.