42

As much as she hated Riley's behaviour, Scarlett couldn't hate Riley. In fact, her feelings for him landed quite firmly on the opposite end of the emotive spectrum.

'I think I love him,' she thought. Every time she pictured him her heart would race so fast and hard, she thought it might burst. Her mother said she was going to change any time now, but she couldn’t stomach the thought of it. In fully shifted form, her feelings for Riley would only grow—a primal urge that would smother and overtake her senses. She would be powerless to stop it.

The thought made her want to cry. To scream and wail and sob. As she looked over at Sienna, she saw she wasn't the only one.

"What's wrong, Babes?" she asked.

Sienna shook her head, staring straight ahead with glazed eyes. "I'm all good."

That had to be a lie. Something was definitely wrong with the girl. Her clothes were hanging off her and her face had broken out in a mixture of acne and eczema.

'Could it be drugs?' Scarlett wondered. She wouldn't have the first clue how to deal with a situation like that. Luckily, she had an amazing Mum waiting in the wings to swoop in and help if she ever needed it, for all things wolf and human related.

"Does Adrian’s mother ever come to see him?" Sienna asked.

The mention of that woman was a knife in her chest. She gritted her teeth, wondering why her friend would ask such a question.

"I don’t think they get on very well," she said at last.

"Ah… so it’s him that doesn’t want to see her?" Sienna asked with a sombre inflection.

'So this is why you're upset,' Scarlett realised and pulled her friend in for a hug. ‘Her Dad didn’t want to see her.’

"Some people aren't good at showing love, or show love in different ways," she said. It was the same speech her Mum had given to her when she'd asked why her grandparents never visited but always gave them expensive gifts.

Sienna nodded, pulling up her sleeve to wipe at her face.

"Adrian doesn't love me," she said.

Scarlett wanted to argue, to say there was some hope for her strange little relationship, but she couldn't bring herself to lie.

"Adrian is a horrible person, Sienna. You'd be better off without him," Scarlett said. She hated to admit it, but her stepbrother wasn't a nice person, and not just because he was standing between her and her love. He was cruel to the weird neighbour and Tom. She was also fairly certain he was blackmailing Miss Walters.

When she went downstairs to make a pot of tea her Mum and Ron were arguing in the living room. She couldn't help but overhear their heated discussion about Adrian.

"Adrian isn't capable of those things," Ron claimed. "He's a kind and generous boy. When Karen ruined my life, he held me together. Helped me financially and gave me a shoulder to cry on. I wouldn't be here now if it weren’t for my son."

"Look, I understand he is nice to you," her mother argued. "But you haven't seen the way he's been treating that poor girl."

"So... he has some questionable tastes when it comes to... you know... the bedroom," Ron stammered, becoming flustered. "It doesn't make him evil."

"Just tell him to leave the neighbour alone. I'm sick of having to deal with him. Okay?" Mum said.

"Fine," Ron said and stormed into the kitchen.

"If you didn't encourage the little freak, he might not pop over so often," Ron muttered under his breath, not seeing Scarlett by the kettle.

"Tea?" Scarlett offered. "I just made a pot."

Ron looked up, surprised and a little embarrassed to be caught arguing and muttering but smiled and nodded. "Thank you, Scarlett."

She poured an extra cup of tea for Ron and her Mum before taking the drinks up to her room. She always made her mother a tea if she made a pot, without fail. Her Mum drank so much of the stuff it was a surprise she didn't spend half the day peeing.

"Oh," Sienna said as Scarlett handed her the tea. "I can't drink it. It was milk and sugar."

"So?" Scarlett frowned. "You aren't on a diet, are you?"

"Yes," Sienna said.

Scarlett looked her up and down, taking in her sallow skin and sunken chest. She was practically emaciated already.

"But you're so slim," Scarlett cried.

"Yes, because I diet," Sienna informed, her voice sarcastic as if suggesting it was obvious and shouldn't need pointing out.

'Is she developing anorexia?' Scarlett worried.

She was wondering how to delicately broach the topic when Adrian knocked on the bedroom door.

"You, my room, now," he grunted at Sienna.

She rose from her position on the floor slowly, using the radiator to steady herself. This worried Scarlett more than anything so far.

She pulled Adrian back into the room as the pair left.

"Go easy on her, okay?" Scarlett pleaded. "I think she may have an eating disorder."

Adrian's reaction was as surprising as it was disgusting. He let out a burst of shrill sounding laughter.

"No. She doesn't," Adrian sneered. "She's fasting."

"What?" Scarlett asked. "Why?"

'And why did she lie about a diet?'

"Why does Sienna do anything?" Adrian asked cryptically.

Scarlett thought about it for a second as he walked to his room. She heard the familiar click of the lock after he closed the door.

"No," she muttered. "He wouldn't"

When she went back to her room something caught her eye in the garden. A visitor.

'Riley,' she thought, her heart fluttering at the sight of him. He pushed his light brown hair from his face as he knocked at the door and smiled as Ron let him in.

Unable to stop her legs from moving, Scarlett ran to meet him on the stairs. His eyes widened in shock for a moment before he flashed her a sad little smile and went to pass her.

"Why did you lie to me?”