Page 9 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

I could not intervene. She would never know me. That was what I’d vowed.

She was too pure, too naive and hopeful. I didn’t want to see her crushed by life. But perhaps it would serve her well to endure a scrape or two, to make her tougher and more resilient for greater threats to come.

Yet, I cursed Helia for making her children so defenseless, utterly vulnerable. It was unfair that any tenderness that had been poured into them would get brutally stamped out, the process the vilest for the Little Flames of the world. The ones who burned brightest.

I’d long since given up hoping that the world would change, and people would surprise me. Disappointment was a wasted emotion.

Scarlett’s fist clenched, and my eyes narrowed. Perhaps this Little Flame could spit after all.

“I don’t want to kiss Phillip,” she said loudly.

“It was a dare, Scarlett,” one of the boys groaned with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “He has to. Just do it.”

She stayed silent as Phillip stepped closer. She had to tilt her head dramatically to look up at him, as he was nearly two feet taller than her.

“You don’t want to kiss me, Scarlett?” he asked, a cocky swagger to his voice as he faux pouted. He grabbed his chest as if she’d wounded him.

Don’t let him manipulate you, Little Flame. Stand your ground.

“Close your eyes and bend down then,” she said as the boys laughed and slapped each other’s shoulders. They egged Phillip on with a rather uncreative chant.

“Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her!”

Phillip bent to her command, as I knew boys would continue to do for the rest of her life—falling over their own two feet to do it.

When his eyes were shut tight and his face close to hers, she took a step back, wound her fisted hand up, and threw a mean punch to the boy’s mouth.

Phillip cried out, and I grinned wide.

“Hey!” another girl screamed from behind the group, one I’d identified during my last visit as Scarlett’s sister even though they appeared nothing alike. She hurried to the crowd, a leather-bound book and pen clutched tight in her arms. She was tall for her age and had straight blonde hair, with a pointy nose and features that were quick to contort into disdain.

Though she appeared angry, I saw a flash of pain in her eyes as she looked at Phillip, now holding his mouth as he shook with surprise and rage.

“What is wrong with you?” the sister demanded.

Finally, someone other than herself was standing up for Little Flame. I let out a breath of relief.

The boys had paused, unsure of how to proceed now.

Scarlett’s shoulders hunched, and she backed away. Shame. That was the red that had sprouted on her cheeks, the source of the tears that had begun to pool. It was shame.

Little Flame’s sister wasn’t yelling at Phillip; she was yelling at her.

“Isabella, I?—”

“Mom is dying and all you ever do is make all of our lives more difficult,” the sister spat. “Let’s go.”

Scarlett’s chin trembled, and she quickly averted her eyes from the boys and wriggled free of the loose circle they’d made around her.

Her sister shook her head with a dramatic flair before stomping off toward home, walking too fast for her tiny sister to keep up.

Head down and shoulders hunched, Little Flame tried to keep pace.

Her sister’s words worried me. Losing a parent at a young age wasn’t uncommon for a human. It would leave a grotesque scar, but she’d survive. But while it was possible the sister had merely been born cruel and resentful, it was far more likely her behavior stemmed from her rearing.

Was that why Little Flame knew such sadness? Such loneliness? Did her family not see how bright she burned, or worse yet, actively work to snuff her out?

If so, the odds were stacked against her. Her wounds would linger, opening and closing and oozing trauma without her conscious awareness. They would affect her ability to love and open and bloom. The pain a living parent could inflict was much more excruciating than that of a dead one.

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