The Red Hunter

C h a p t e r 2 0

Secrets are like winter.

Both bite with frost and kill more than they spare.

Families are suppose to stick together during the frigid season--to create their own bundle of warmth. But if just one adds snow to the flame, the fire will no longer burn bright.

My fire--my source of belonging was the sanction Jack and Peter created for me over the years, yet Peter dumped water on that fire, leaving me cold and alone in the dark.

I was aimlessly wandering down the hall in Peter's small apartment, touches of midnight seeping through the glass windows as I slowly walked forward. My hand was slowly dragging across the bare walls, my eyes not really paying attention as to where I was going.

They have the same scars.

To anyone else, it would have just been a creepy coincidence, but I feared it was much more than that, and that it would bring about things that shouldn't ever surface. Peter and Circe were connected in the past, that much was clear, but the fact that he wouldn't share what he knew bothered me. With anyone else I would leave them to their secrets, but families crumble when too many are kept. What truth was so heavy that he couldn't share his burden with me -- a truth he would rather conceal than trust in others to help him?

I shivered, thinking back to how Peter shut me out, immersing into his own thoughts with no light in his eyes. I need answers.

A melody drifted from around the hallway's bend, the voice sweet as a siren's as it sang the solemn tune. My feet moved on their own accord as I walked towards the nolgastic song.

Circe was sitting on the kitchen counter with something clasped in her hand as she swayed to her own humming, her dark eyes trained on my form as I entered the room. To my relief, the murderous frying pan from before was still on the ground at the other entrance of the kitchen where Peter had dropped it just an hour ago.

"Why are you humming that?" I asked, but received no answer. Instead, she glanced down at what I could barely make out as a photo in her hands.

Grumbling, I cautiously stepped forward, curious to see what she held that I hadn't seen before.

The photograph in her hands was worn and old, the colors faded and the corners crinkled. I really shouldn't have been surprised at what I saw.

There were two men and one woman, all three cloaked in hunter uniforms except the male in the middle was in red, the cloak of a Moon Slayer.

The three of them were in front of a large gothic statue, much like the ones that adorn the front of the Castel Sant'Angelo. To the far right and closest to the wall towards the side was a man in his mid twenties, his blue eyes tired and smile small as he looked forward. The Moon Slayer next to him, neither tall nor short, glowed as the sun high in the sky danced in his auburn locks, like a field of red flowers flowing with the summer breeze. His chocolate eyes weren't looking at the camera, but down at the petite girl he had his arm wrapped around.

Her jade eyes held unshed tears as she looked forward, not towards the camera, but as if she were looking at something behind the photographer. Her dark hair was bound behind her in a messy ponytail and her skin was pale, as if it hadn't seen the sun in years.

"Gabel, Peter, and Jasmine," Circe spoke. "This is probably the last photo of the three of them before everything changed, and probably the only photo Peter has left of her," Circe motioned to the green-eyed woman.

I stayed silent, not wishing to talk about any of this.

"I never liked Jasmine, your mother," Circe finally spoke right when I thought the topic was dropped.