Fated. Morgan Rice

in the door – and all suspecting she never would.

      Suddenly, the phone rang. Caitlin jumped up and snatched it, her hand shaking. She dropped the receiver several times, finally picking it up and holding it to her ear.

      “Hello, hello, hello?” she said. “Scarlet, is that you? Scarlet!?”

      “Ma’am, it’s Officer Stinton,” came a male voice.

      Caitlin’s heart dropped to realize it wasn’t Scarlet.

      “I’m just calling to let you know we have no sign of your daughter yet.”

      Caitlin’s hopes were dashed. She gripped the phone, squeezing it, desperate.

      “You’re not trying hard enough,” she seethed.

      “Ma’am, we’re doing all we can – ”

      Caitlin didn’t wait for the rest of his response. She slammed the receiver down, then grabbed the phone, a large landline from the ’80s, ripped the cord out of the wall, picked it up over her head, and smashed it down to the ground.

      Caleb, Sam, and Polly all jumped up, startled from sleep, and looked at her as though she were mad.

      Caitlin looked down at the phone and she realized, maybe she was.

      Caitlin stormed from the room, opened the door to their large front porch, and went out alone and sat on a rocking chair. It was cold in the dawn, and she didn’t care. She felt numb to the world.

      She folded her arms across her chest tight, and she rocked and rocked in the cool November air. She looked out at the empty street that was spreading with the light of a new day, not a soul in sight, not a car moving, all the houses still dark. Everything still. A perfectly quiet suburban street, not a leaf out of place, everything clean and how it was supposed to be. Perfectly normal.

      But nothing, Caitlin knew, was normal. She suddenly hated this place which she had loved for years. She hated the quiet; she hated the stillness; she hated the order. What she wouldn’t give for chaos, for the stillness to be shattered, for sound, for motion, for her daughter to appear.

      Scarlet, she prayed, as she closed her eyes, crying, come back to me, baby. Please come back to me.

      Chapter Five

      Scarlet Paine felt herself floating through the air, the fluttering of a million small wings in her ear as she felt herself being raised up, higher and higher. She looked out to see she was being hoisted by a flock of bats, a million bats, surrounding her, clinging to the back of her shirt, carrying her through the air.

      Scarlet was carried up through the clouds, through the most beautiful breaking dawn she’d ever seen, the clouds scattering and breaking up, the whole burnt-orange sky on fire. She did not understand what was happening, but somehow, she was unafraid. She sensed they were taking her somewhere, and as they screeched and fluttered all around her, as they hoisted her into the sky, she felt as if she were one of them.

      Before Scarlet could process what was happening, the bats set her down, gently, before the biggest castle she’d ever seen. It had ancient stone walls, and she stood before an immense arched door. The bats flew off, disappearing, their fluttering fading.

      Scarlet stood facing the door, and slowly, it opened. An amber light spilled out, and Scarlet felt drawn to enter.

      Scarlet crossed the threshold of the door, passed through the light, and entered the largest chamber she had ever seen. Inside, lined up at perfect attention, facing her, stood an army of vampires, dressed in all black. She hovered above them, looking down upon them as if she were their leader.

      As one, they all raised their palms and slapped them against their chests.

      “You have given birth to a nation,” they boomed, their voice as one, echoing off the walls. “You have given birth to a nation!”

      The vampires let out a great shout, and as they did, Scarlet took it all in, feeling as if, finally, she had found her people.

      Scarlet’s eyes flew open as she woke to the sound of breaking glass. She found herself lying face-down on the cement, her cheeks pushed up against it, cold and wet and damp. She saw ants crawling toward her, and placed her palms on the rough cement, sat up, and brushed them away.

      Scarlet was cold, achy, her neck and back twisted from having slept in this uncomfortable position. Most of all, she was disoriented, freaked out at not recognizing her surroundings. She was underneath a small local bridge, lying on the cement slope beneath it, as dawn broke above her. It stank of urine and stale beer down here, and Scarlet saw the cement was all marked up with graffiti, and as she studied the ground, she saw empty beer cans, refuse, used needles. She realized she was in a bad place. She looked around, blinking, and had no idea where she was, or how she got here.

      There came again the sound of breaking glass, accompanied by shuffling feet, and Scarlet turned quickly, her senses on alert.

      About ten feet away stood four bums dressed in rags, looking either drunk or on drugs – or just out for violence. Unshaven older men, they stared at her as if she were their play-thing, lecherous smiles on their faces, revealing rotting yellow teeth. But they were strong, she could tell, broad and tall, and by the way they approached, one of them throwing a beer bottle and smashing it under the bridge, she knew their intentions were not kind.

      Scarlet tried to remember how she had gotten herself to this place. It was a place she never would have willingly gone. Had she been brought here? Her first thought was that maybe she had been raped; but she looked down and saw herself fully clothed, and knew that wasn’t it. She thought back, trying to remember the night before.

      But it was all a painful blur. Scarlet remembered in flashes: a bar at the side of Route 9… an altercation… But it was all so hazy. She couldn’t quite recall the details.

      “You know you’re under our bridge, right?” one of the bums said as they all approached, getting ever closer. Scarlet scurried back on her hands and knees, then rose to her feet, facing them, shaking inside but not wanting to appear scared.

      “No one comes here without paying the toll,” another said.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how I got here.”

      “That was your mistake,” another said, in a deep guttural voice, smiling back at her.

      “Please,” Scarlet said, trying to sound tough, but her voice shaky, as she stepped back, “I don’t want any trouble. I’m going to leave now. I’m sorry.”

      Scarlet turned to leave, her heart pounding in her chest, when suddenly, she heard footsteps running, and then felt an arm wrap around her throat, holding a knife to her throat, his awful beer breath in her face.

      “No you’re not, honey,” he said. “We haven’t even begun to get acquainted.”

      Scarlet struggled, but the man was too strong for her, his stubble scraping her cheek as he rubbed his face against hers.

      Soon the other three appeared before her, and Scarlet cried out as she struggled to no avail, and then felt their awful hands running down her stomach. One of them reached her belt line.

      Scarlet bucked and twisted, trying to get away – but they were too strong. One of them reached down, yanked off her belt, and threw it, and she heard the clang of metal on the cement.

      “Please, let me go!” Scarlet screamed, as she squirmed.

      The fourth bum reached down and grabbed her jeans by the waist and started to pull on them, trying to yank them off of her. Scarlet knew that, in moments, if she didn’t do something, she would be hurt.

      Something inside her snapped. She didn’t understand what it was, but it completely overwhelmed her, an energy flooding through her, rising up through her feet, up through her legs, her torso. She felt it like a searing heat, shooting through her shoulders, her arms, all the way to her fingertips. Her face flushed, the hair stood on end all over her body, and she felt a fire burning inside. She felt a strength she didn’t understand, felt herself to be stronger than all these men, stronger than the universe.

      She