The Hunt

The girls spent the day silent and never apart. Mathew and Ryan were really worried about them.
“Are you alright?” Mathew asks Ice.
She nods and looks away.
“I’m really sorry” Mathew says to her softly.
She doesn’t respond as her and Scarlet sit together in the lounge room. The boys had been by their sides all day as the girls grew more distance. They didn’t even talk to each other but you could tell they were communicating through facial expressions and gestures.
“Boys!” Elizabeth yells from another room.
Both boys jump to their feet but look at the girls not wanting to leave them but helpless to cheer them up.
“Go see what she wants” Ryan tells Mathew.
Mathew nods and walks to were their stepmother had yelled from. Ryan sits on the arm of the chair beside Scarlet.
“Please tell me what’s wrong” Ryan says quietly “I understand you hate me but you aren’t looking well”
Scarlet takes and deep breath and turns to face him.
“Ryan I don’t know what is wrong, this place is just” Scarlet stops and shudders unable to find a word to describe what she is feeling.
“so strange and there is something truly wrong” Ice finishes for her without looking at either of them.
“What?” Ryan asks even more concerned.
Elizabeth walks into the room with James and Mathew. Scarlet suddenly disappears entirely at the same time as a clock flies across from a table into the wall.
“Scarlet!” Ryan exclaims with his eyes darting all over the room looking for her.
Ice grimaces and lays a hand on invisible mass.
“What was that?!” Elizabeth exclaims looking at the shattered clock laying on the ground below a dented wall.
“Go out of the room, it’ll help” Ice murmurs then places her hand back in her lap.
Everyone else is standing dumbfounded.
“I want an explanation” Elizabeth snaps.
Both boys sigh as Elizabeth starts to show her true colours as the demanding shrew she is. Her eyes shoot to look at Ice and stares pointedly at her. Ice looks back with a blank expression. Scarlet walks into the room from behind Elizabeth, James and Mathew. Everyone jumps with fright at her sudden reappearance.
“What did you just do?!” Elizabeth exclaims.
“Settle down” James tells Elizabeth as he wraps an arm around her shoulders.
Scarlet walks over and sits beside Ice.
“Good suggestion” Scarlet tells Ice.
Ice just nods.
“We have to leave here” Both girls tell the boys at the exact same time.
“No, there is a party tonight and we cannot have our guests of honour disappear” Elizabeth tells them sharply.
“Now why is my antique clock smashed?” She orders.
The girls stare at her blankly only staying silent because of Elizabeth’s attitude. If she would just ask calmly they would answer, instead she is overacting and provoking the girls to be difficult.
“Well?!”
“Because you are an obnoxious, all to powerful and foreign evil source” Both girls yell at her fed up with her attitude.
They both get to their feet at the exact same moment and walk from the room without a sound.
“Get back in here!” Elizabeth orders “You will not turn your backs to me while I am talking to you”
All of the boys, including James, have stood frozen like statues as the girls clash.
“We are not your brainless servants” Ice hisses over shoulder.
Both girls go directly out the front door unprepared to stay in the same house as that woman.
“No wonder Mathew and Ryan despise her” Scarlet seethes
Ice agrees as they walk down the light grey driveway. The gates at the end present a problem to the girls but they quickly decide to just scale them. Just as they leap down from the dark grey gates a suddenly wall of fire appears at the tip of each bar along the gate. Seems some sort of security system was used to try and keep the girls in, too late though. Around the area it seems so remote. Both girls see a few boulders and decide to take a seat on them and think through everything.
“Okay, so we just left our boyfriends?” Ice starts
Scarlet nods.
“And left the only place here that would keep us away from harm?” Ice continues.
Scarlet nods again.
“We are alone out in the open spaces of hell?” Ice asks
Once again Scarlet nods.
“Everyone that could help guide us think we are inside the gates due to the security system” Scarlet adds.
“And we have nothing but the weapons on the chains around our neck” Ice finishes.
Both girls look at the ground for a minute before looking eye to eye.
“We’re screwed” They tell each other in unison.
Silence encases the area. Not a single thing moves or makes a sound. Scarlet shoots her head up after looking at the ground.
“Just thought of another problem, our powers are not responding to our will and it’s getting worse the longer we stay” She tells Ice.
“Oh yes, that’s good one” Ice says nodding.
“How long do you think it will take the boys to find us?” Ice asks wincing as she looks at her tattoo.
Both girls feel the pain worse now that they have brought the thought of it to the front of their minds.
“I don’t know, but I have to admit despite acting as if I really hate him I miss him now that he isn’t with me” Scarlet says in a soft voice studying her tattoo.
Ice agrees.
“I don’t want to jinx it but I think I am in” Ice cuts off unable to say the word, she takes a deep breath before whispering the rest” well, you know? The L word”
Scarlet sighs and lays back uncomfortably on the boulder.
“I know, the same goes for me” Scarlet says.
“But only now” Ice starts
“Does it dawn on us” Scarlet continues
“That we couldn’t imagine”
“Living without them”
“now that we have left them” Ice finishes.
Scarlet takes a long steady breath before jumping to her feet.
“Time for action, sitting here has just gotten us feeling down” Scarlet says straightening
her posture from the hunched over way she had been.
“You’re right” Ice agrees “But what course of action is there to take?”
“Time to go home” Scarlet says finally then launches into her list of what should be done “We need to steady our powers again, defeat that demon, get a new home after the mishap in our old one and I need some food”