Adapt (I)

SCARLET

Logan, seeming to already know the layout of Trent’s house, goes to the bathroom and washes the blood from his arm and hands. When he returns, his sleeve is rolled back down, as if nothing has happened. Avoiding his gaze, I slip from the room, a fresh shirt in hand. Leaving Logan alone with Boe and Caron gives me anxiety, but I reason that if he meant us harm, he wouldn’t have saved me. Twice.

When I come back to the room, I have had another quick shower - one that isn’t as tenuous as the first. No longer covered in blood, I feel better able to handle everything that is happening. Phoenix greets me with a panting smile, sitting on the bed. Caron and Boe are still frozen in the position that I had left them in.

“So, what happened to the girls?” I ask Logan, my voice a little chipper. Where did that come from?

Logan turns from his inspection of the dinosaur poster hanging on the wall. “They are safe.” He answers simply.

“Where are they?” I press.

Logan’s gaze narrows, measuring me. Then his eyes float around the room, pausing on miscellaneous things, considering them. “I think it is time I tell you more about what you are, Scarlet. Along the way, all of the questions you have will be answered, though I cannot guarantee that no new ones will arise.”

“Okay...” I say, waiting for him to continue.

“Come.” He says, then strides out of the room.

I hesitate for a few moments, looking at Boe and Caron who are still frozen in their tableau. Logan pops his head back around the corner of the door jam in a way that almost seems comical to me. “They will be fine until you return. Come.”

I look at Phoenix. I bite my bottom lip, hoping he somehow knows what to do, then follow Logan out of the room. By the time I make it to the kitchen, Logan is making his way out the front door, into the night.

I follow, quietly turning the lock and shutting the front door behind me. Just because I am risking my life by chasing a stranger - a Therian no less - out onto the street in the middle of the night does not mean I am going to leave my family and friends unprotected to potential burglars. Or worse.

Although the lock had seemed useless against Logan.

I half run to catch up with Logan, who’s long strides make two of mine. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular.” He says. His hands are in his pockets, his head bowed.

“Then why did we leave the house?” I wonder.

“You do not concentrate when your loved ones are nearby. I need you to be clear headed when you hear what I have to tell you.”

I laugh, sarcastically. “Couldn’t you just make me understand with your brainwashing?”

He looks sideways at me, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “It does please me that you think my mind manipulation are my most powerful ability. In truth, it is little more than a side effect - a party trick. Smoke and mirrors if you will. But both smoke and mirrors have proven to be very useful in many ways.”

I think about Boe and Caron frozen in their worry, in Clarke’s bedroom. “Will Caron and Boe be okay?” I ask, worried now.

Logan lifts his head. “They will be fine. In fact, they are sleeping right now. When they awake, they will find you healed and believe that it is due to your miraculous healing abilities. They will both think that seeing you bleeding on the bed was just a dream.”

“Oh.” I say, then frown. “That’s a little more than smoke and mirrors.”

He shrugs. “Recent memories are the easiest to manipulate.”

Recent memories. “Where are those girls?”

Logan’s expression doesn’t falter. “They are safe, in a caring facility that I assure you has the most comfortable accommodations.”

“Shouldn’t they be returned to their families? They have been missing and I’m sure their families are worried sick.”

I see a breath fill Logan’s chest slowly. “Scarlet, you did a great thing by saving those girls last night. What you have not realized is that you also saved some new lives as well.”

My breath catches in my throat as I am reminded of the girls’ swollen bellies. “I didn’t intend to -”

Logan holds a hand up to cut me off but does not look at me. “It matters not what you intended. You did save them, as well as the girls. Those children would have been submitted to a life of indoctrinated violence, used as pawns in a much bigger, even more nefarious game played by bigger chess pieces. Now the babies have a chance to grow up as law abiding people and have a chance at full and happy lives. Because for every one of my people you have tracked through their grotesque actions and then terminated, there are ten more that fly completely under your radar because they abide by our laws and live peaceably.”

I am shocked by the image of therians going about mellow lives. Checking mail, paying billings, working blue collar jobs and mowing lawns. Surely, I could not have been completely wrong in my assumptions of these creatures. But then again, I am half one of these creatures, and I do not have an urge to kill humans for my own enjoyment. Perhaps Logan is right.

“So, these girls are going to give birth to baby therians?” I ask, feeling a mixture of dismay and guilt.

Logan’s gaze hardens a little. “I agree, the situation is not ideal, but I have put in place the proper care and protocols in order to keep them not only accommodated for physically, but also mentally. Over the next week each girl will be made privy to what it is they are carrying. I will personally tend to them, making sure their minds understand and accept this information so they can make informed decisions about what comes next. I hope it puts your mind at ease, knowing that each girl will be afforded understanding and a choice, just as human women in first world countries are given.”

I did not need to press further to know that he meant that these women will be given the opportunity to abort these children. “So, what happens if they decide to keep the baby?”

“Then they will be mothers, protected under our laws and be accommodated for by our society.”

And if they don’t? I don’t ask this out loud, afraid the answer isn’t something I want to know.

“Then I will alter their memories and they will be returned to their lives, none the wiser.”

My frown deepens, at his answer and his clear ability to read my mind. “How can you alter their minds? I have never come across a Therian that is able to do such things.”

Logan turns down a street and I nearly trip over trying to keep up with him. “Ah, see now we are getting closer to the questions you should be asking.”

I wait a beat for him to continue but he doesn’t, so I ask, “Okay, what is the question I should be asking?”

He gives me a quizzical look. “If you do not ask it yourself, do you think you deserve the answer?”

I grind my teeth. “You speak as if you were born on a different planet.”

“An observation, not a question. Yet I will answer it anyway. No, I was not born on a different planet, but in a different time. A time when words meant more than their syllables, and knowledge was earned, not deal freely to those who do not want it.” His demeanour shifts, his shoulders straightening even more than his regal posture usually allowed. He slows to a casual walking pace.

I let out a huff and grab his shoulder, spinning him to face me. “You know, you think you are answering my questions, but you really aren’t.”

His expression turns sombre in the moon light. Logan’s pale skin turns almost blue. His eyes are shadowed by his brows, but I can see the blue light that is deep in his eyes. Like a flashlight that has been dropped in the ocean, resting hundreds of feet below the surface.

I realize, with a start, that Logan is stunning. His face is symmetrical and angular, giving his jawline and cheek bones natural definition. His honey blond hair compliments his pale skin and his brown eyes give his gaze weight that I never knew a look could have. He is taller than me, but not as tall as Boe, with a lean build and broad shoulders. For the first time, I see all of these details and wonder how the hell I missed it before.

“I know you don’t understand.” He says softly. “But for you to completely understand, you need to first know the back story of where my people come from. Where our people come from.”

I flinch at his inclusion of me in his people - his species.

“Has anyone told you how our people came to be, Scarlet?”

I shake my head. “Evolution?” I guess.

Logan chuckles. “To try and use sterile genetic theory to explain something as vast as an entire species – is very human. No, I mean the Lore surrounding the birth of life.”

I screw my nose up. “I don’t believe in that stuff.” I like my life black and white, and creationist views are all tones of grey to me.

The light in Logan’s eyes brightens by an increment. “With everything that you have witnessed in your life, you do not believe in magic?”

“Everything can be explained through science. I see no reason why Therians would be any different. Or hunters for that matter.” I counter.

He cocks his head to the side. “Yes, it is very human, indeed, of you to deny what is right in front of your eyes. You see, you think that magic is fictional because it is not explained by science. But magic explains itself quite well. Or rather, magic seems to explain everything around it. From the air around us, to the sand under our feet.” I look down and see that my bare feet are half covered in sand, my toes instinctually curling into the grains. I hadn’t realized that we had made it onto the beach. “To the dance that the oceans and moon perform eternally.” Logan gestures out to the ocean, which is sedate and glittering under the white light of the moon. “Yes, your science explains how they dance, but they cannot explain why. Even Einstein surrendered that the more he studied science, the more he believed in God.”

I jab a finger at Logan. “You are taking that quote out of context. Einstein was not religious. And did not worship any God. He was a self-confessed agnostic.”

His smirk doesn’t get bigger, but it does spread to his eyes. “By not denying a creator, he left himself open to the possibility of there being a creator. Nevertheless, the Lore will help you to understand yourself, as the bible helps humans to understand their nature.”

I take in a breath. “Okay, fine. Tell me your little story.”

Logan ignores my comment and turns to the ocean, looking upon the water as if scrutinizing it. Logan always seems as though he is teetering from moment to moment, half in the present, half in a world of his own.

“In the beginning there was Void. Nothingness. Out of the void came the four elements of life - Light, Darkness, Time and Energy.” He begins. His tone takes on a quality that I cannot help but listen to. The world falls away and I absorb his words.

“These four elements battled in the Void and from their collisions came the sparks that blossomed into life. Life, being the product of such battles, continued in their parent’s footsteps by warring with itself, killing the weak and leaving the strong.

“The Elements grew tired of their battles in the Void and turned to the Life they had created. They saw the way Life battled. They saw the destruction and grandeur; the utter defeat and glowing victory - all that could be felt by possessing mortal flesh. They descended to the Realm of Life and used the platform to continue their battles, using their new-found emotions to fuel their hunger for victory.

“But their pure primordial power could not be contained in mortal flesh. For they were the precursor to life, death was a difficult commodity for the Elements to obtain. As were the emotions that drive Life. The emotions of mortals became the sustenance upon which they survived, and later thrived.

“What the elements failed to foresee was the love that they felt for the mortals. Even as they used the humans to further their advantage with one another, they also grieved for lives lost in the battles. They formed connections with the humans. Friendships. To thank the humans for their loyalty, the Elements bestowed the gift of their blood to the humans, healing their sick and strengthening their bodies. It seemed such a divine and perfect gift to give the humans they loved. But they also did not foresee the consequence of this.

“You see, the humans that had been delivered unto the gift of an Elements’ blood, seemed to rise from their deathbeds, alive but changed.”

Logan stopped talking, eyes still scanning the dark horizon.

“Wait, those were the first therians?” I ask after my brain knits together the information I have just been given.

He nods. “Yes.”

I frown. “I’m confused, how is knowing this going to help me understand what is going on here?”

“I have yet to tell you the part that will pave the way to your understanding. You see, the love that the Elements had for humans birthed more things than therians. But that comes later.

“When the Elements realized their mistake, they appealed to the Void of which they had come. The Void was disappointed in the Elements that she had bore and cast them back to earth with the punishment of dealing with the consequences of their actions. She did, however, see the wickedness of these offspring and sort to create balance.

“She looked upon the earth and saw everything that life had built. Her eyes caught sight of some small children climbing a tree. She counted the children. One, two, three. Satisfied with her solution, she gave them a small portion of what made her children difficult to kill, and a tool made of the void, that would kill her offspring: The Elements - and the beings made of their blood. These three young children grew to be divine warriors that pursued balance in a world threatened by mistakes of the Elements.”

Hunters, I realize.

“What the Void forgot to account for was what else often comes of love. When the Elements returned to the Realm of Life, they bore themselves children of the womb. These children mirrored their parents. The Elements realized that even if their mother’s creation of hunters did terminate their life, their legacy will live on in their seed.”

Logan finishes his monologue, and I digest everything. I’m still confused as to what I am supposed to get from this. “This doesn’t really explain how you can control minds.” I say, almost flippantly.

He turns back to me. “It is quite a lot to take in, but now I will answer your directly - now that you have context to adhere it to. You see, you have heard of ‘full therians?’ Well, that is a misnomer. ‘Full therians’ are actually the direct descendants of their Elemental grandparent, living embodiments of the Element. They have power over the element of which they were born.”

Logan goes quiet again. He turns to watch me, waiting for me to understand. I put my hand on my hip. “Logan, clearly you will have to spoon feed me this last puzzle piece because still I don’t get it.”

He smiles, enjoying my sass. “Scarlet, I am a descendant of one of those primordial elements. I am Energy.”