BloodLust: A Josh Hutcherson Story

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Scarlet tried everything she could to try to prove Taylor wrong. That this actor was not her sire. She checked his birthday, 12th of October, just like her. She checked her vitals, trying to come up with some sort of excuse to prove that she hadn't experienced a sire attack when she watched that movie with Perry. But her vitals were normal again almost instantly. 

Scarlet didn't know if she could do it. This guy was famous. It wasn't like he was a normal person who's death would just be skimmed over in the news and investigated into a little bit, if he died, it would become massive worldwide. Scarlet wouldn't be at risk, the elders would make it look like a stabbing or a hit and run, she wasn't in danger of being caught at all. But that didn't make it okay. 

Until she could get her head straight, Scarlet came to conclusion that she wouldn't even try to seek Josh out. There were too many things to go over first. What would she do with Perry? She couldn't fake her own death, like their parents had done, she couldn't do that to her sister, but what other option was there?

"You could always pretend you're going off to Africa to feed the poor," Taylor suggested.

Scarlet stopped in the street and gave her friend a tired look. "Seriously?" she asked flatly. "Even though I haven't showed any interest in the poor in my twenty one years of 'life'?" Cars whizzed past them in a blurr of blues and yellows, the sound of tyres almost deafening in Scarlet's ears. Somehow, she had always thought that the world would come to a stand still the day she found her sire, but instead it all went on as usual, oblivious to her trauma.

"It's an idea," Taylor responded, folding her arms.

"Who's going to care for her?" Scarlet asked. "She's not of legal age to be on her own yet." 

Taylor chewed the inside of her cheek thoughtfully. "An orphanage?"

"She's not an orphan," Scarlet snapped. "Can't I wait another two years until she's legal age to be on her own? She'll hate me if I abandon her now and dump her in an orphanage. I don't want to leave her like our parents did."

"You don't have many options here," Taylor replied. "You're not waiting. The elders are annoyed enough that you're pushing this thing off until you can get your wits about you. You're really supposed to immediately search for him and use your allure to get him alone."

"I can't do anything until I can get things straight with Perry," Scarlet answered. She braced herself against the wind and brushed her hair away from her eyes. "I'm not leaving her behind unprotected and helpless." 

Taylor shut her eyes and exhaled, trying to stay calm. "You're not a special case, Scar, you're the same as everyone else. You have to find this guy and kill him, okay? It's for the good of our people and for the good of the war. We need more soldiers, more people to fight."

Scarlet shook her head. "I'm sorry Tay, I just can't. Not yet." 

"Not yet," Taylor parroted as they started walking again. "Not yet. I have a right mind to kill you." 

"You love me really," Scarlet replied.

Taylor scoffed. "Whatever."

As they headed down the road, Scarlet became aware of the crowd that was forming the further they went. Scanning the distance with a sharp eye, Scarlet could vaguely make out a bunch of cameras and a couple of those sound muffler things. "Is there filming going on down there?" she asked.

Taylor shrugged. "Must be."

The crowd got thicker and Scarlet had to jostle her way through with her elbows more and more. Taylor was much more blunt, shouting and swearing at people to get the eff out of her way before she effing shoved her effing boot up their effing butts. The people who tried to fight back got a combat boot to the back that sent them sprawling forward onto the ground, knocking over a few others along the way. Scarlet had never seen her mentor so desperate to get to the other side of town before.