The evolution of Scarlet Greene in the mind of Theo Steiner was like a never ending grocery shopping list.

Once upon a time, Theo had viewed Scarlet as nothing but the cold blooded murderer that he sought revenge on. As time went by, he started viewing her as a misunderstood girl that was forced to grow up too soon. At a certain point, he'd viewed her as a mother. How a woman lethal as her could be a good mother was beyond him. But she was. And that's how she became the subject of his insatiable curiosity, which slowly became an obsession. Until one day, Theo does not know when but it happened. Scarlet became the unknowing woman he was in love with.

It reminded him of a time in his teenage years when Theo's sole purpose in life was to stalk his brother Ley. A time when he wanted to see what it looked like spending quality time with your mother, going to recreational places with her and hearing her tell you how much she loves you. He wanted to look into his brother's eyes and see what shade of blue they become when he hears those words.

He wanted to see what kind of facial expression one wore when the world didn't view you as unwanted, and see how a mother's fingers fit on their son's wrist when they held their hand.

But then he'd found out that his twin brother in fact, didn't give himself the chance to enjoy those little bits of privileges that he could never have. Simply because Theo didn't get them. It was absurd to say the least, and the day the two of them fought because Ley decided to give up college to "follow in his brother's footsteps," that curiosity faded.

Shirley had no idea what that meant, following in Theo's footsteps was pain and torture and days and nights of training, it was determination and blood thirst and letting yourself get consumed by a need for vengeance. It was surrendering your soul to the devil.

Where guns, dead bodies and blood had become a usual thing in Theo's life, he was sure that his twin brother had never heard a gun shot in his life.

Theo had never before met a woman like Scarlet Greene though. The kind of woman that could manage to be heartlessly ruthless and yet vulnerably fragile at the same time.

She killed like she had no soul, yet whenever she was looking into the emerald green eyes of a certain little girl, it was like they bared her, putting her soul out in the open for the whole world to see.

She moved with the gracefulness of a swan, yet the ground beneath her feet still shook with every step she took.

She never smiled, yet her smirk was a queer kind; bitter like a mourning day but somehow breathtaking.

Theo had watched her on several occasions, he'd seen her in action more than once. He knows how bad she is, more than she knows. Yet he has also seen her cry helplessly more than once. He knows better though, Scarlet Greene can never be helpless. This helpless girl, the one that lets people see her cry and smile and let others cry on her shoulder is not the Scarlet Greene. Yet he didn't once wish to see her go back to who she was before all this.

Before she looked into his eyes and smiled at him, before she softly held his hand and cried on his chest, before they strolled around the city and made memories together and held him tight when he decided to embarrass himself crying in front of her.

Before he fell in love with her.

But it's too late.

Scarlet has the kind of eyes that shine with flecks of red and gold like hell fire, yet she'd hid them beneath those blue contacts that glowed like the summer sea. One had to sin enough to see past the blue eye contacts. Not many had had the chance before, but he had.

Each day of stalking her, watching her every move turned his thirst for revenge into thirst for getting to know the woman beneath the scars. The girl she was before her innocence was ripped off of her like a band aid. Before she could break someone's neck without a second's hesitation.

Revenge.

Theo had joined the NATD as a freelance assassin, not because his teenage dream had been to learn how to kill people. But his elder brother, the one person that loved and understood Theo unconditionally had been forcefully recruited, trained by the organisation and killed at the hands of Scarlet Greene. He was to seek revenge. But after doing the math, following and doing a lot of research on his killer, he'd realised that by the time his eighteen year old brother had died, the girl who killed him had been only fifteen. No girl would have chosen to kill at fifteen. Scarlet, just like Jamie, had been forced into the organisation. She had been forced to kill.

When she had decided to defect it, that's when the NATD hired him, because they knew that if they fed him information about the death of his brother, he'd be more than willing to oblige. He hadn't refused, knowing that it was the only way he could save the woman he had grown obsessed over. It wasn't like him to stalk for fun, yet he'd somehow found himself following Scarlet around because he enjoyed to.

He enjoyed the spontaneity of her days, nothing about her was predictable. Where he'd expect her to meet up with her hacker best friend downtown, Scarlet would end up going skating with her daughter and when he'd think she would go out, she wouldn't at all.

Days morphed into months, the lies to the organisation were becoming less and less believable. Until the organisation, without Theo's knowledge figured him out. They'd sent some other agent to take both Scarlet and Celine out. But Theo, having been busy following her around figured it out quickly and killed the agent that was sent to take out Celine at her school.

He had- not for the first time -lied to his brother in a plot to get him to babysit Celine. Shirley, like Theo wasn't a kid's person, but Celine wasn't any kid, she was like a ray of sunlight and great company. It was proven when later Shirley had with great pleasure taken her to the park and done numerous activities with her.

And told her that his name was fucking Teddy! The bastard. But he did pay for it.

As usual, Theo had gone on to follow Scarlet. And lost her, of course. And he'd searched and searched throughout the whole of Northgate but nothing.

Until he entered a certain apartment building she used to frequent, and heard someone, a girl, Scarlet scream. It was a lie.

Theo knew she was screaming because it was the safer option. Scarlet never needed anyone to save her but being seen killing people when the organisation had put a bount on her head was like inviting death to dinner. Yet he knew that if she did scream, she needed help.

By the time he kicked the door open, a man was hitting Scarlet on the head while another straddled her lap. Disgust filled his throat so much he felt like throwing up at the scene in front of him. It didn't matter how ruthless Scarlet could be, or how strong she was, getting ganged up on by junkies trying to rape her before killing her was just low of the organisation. Because at first glance, Theo knew that these were no ordinary Northgate junkies. They were mercenaries, assassins.

Just like Scarlet. Just like him.

The organisation was run by smart people,  this would've looked like an ordinary Northgate rape and murder of a young woman by some junkies.

He couldn't do anything at first as he got blinded by a light, a white light that seemed to come from both the side of Scarlet's head and one of her wrists. Stunned with an erratic heartbeat, Theo could do nothing but stare open mouthed. So were the mercenaries inside. They all fell off of her in sync, thrashing until their backs hit the wall behind them. Until one of them snapped at his colleagues.

"What the hell y'all lookin' at?!" His words were slurred a bit, yet not enough for a supposed junkie. "We been warned. Y'all was bound ta see this sooner or later, now ge'ta work!"

That snapped Theo awake too. He knew about this light, in the research he'd done about the organisation so he had no idea why he was surprised in the first place. He stepped forward as the light dimmed, and kicked the leader in the shin before they could react to his presence.

"What the f...ugh!" Theo punched his chest again. Another one launched at him from behind and spinning around, Theo kicked his jaw, sending him flying to the wall while simultaneously elbowing the third junkie at the neck. All three of them fell to the floor, Theo's eyes momentarily drifted to Scarlet who was now lying unconscious but the wound on her head was nowhere to be found. The fourth junkie attacked, leaping forward like a bulldog but Theo effortlessly kicked him in the stomach, grabbed his hands and twisted until they broke with a very disturbing sound.

The leader launched himself at him then, and Theo all but got out all his anger on him. He salvaged his face with countless punches until the red spots of anger in his vision had turned into red bruises on the decayed toothed man's face.
That's when he'd seen her move, the distrusting gaze she swept all over him made his heart clench, but he was mentally applauding her for being cautious. Cautioun was supposed to be every mercenary and agent's middle name. Like the stupid man he had become when it came to Scarlet Greene, Theo had watched her stumble through the door, all the while fighting the remaining junkie until she was out of sight.

Only then did he remember his name, and the fact that he didn't want to lose sight of her again.

Theo knocked the junkie out and ran through the door after Scarlet. At first he thought she was gone, then he saw her getting out of a cave, looking pretty exhausted. It was all he could do not to offer to carry her the whole way to wherever she was going next. "Miss?" He called. What was wrong with him for fuck sake? Miss? For real?

Scarlet stumbled on the steps. Theo reached out so first and held her at the waist. Ignoring the different things that ran through his mind at the first contact he'd had with Scarlet Greene, "Miss are you alright?" he asked.

Scarlet made a small nod.

"You sure you're alright?" He asked again. Because he didn't want to let go of her yet. He was so whipped and creepy.

"I said I'm fine!" she hissed. "Now please let me go, I can stand perfectly fine on my own."

Theo let her go, reluctantly. And she fell down the last four steps.

"Uuurgh!" Scarlet cried and Theo couldn't help himself, he laughed at her. She looked so different like this, so fragile and vulnerable.

"May I?" He said, holding his hand out. She took it begrudgingly and had no choice but to look at him then. She looked stunned for a moment, and Theo felt flattered but then she started analysing his facial features like a case file.

It was unnerving. "You could take a picture," he said in an attempt to get her to stop. "It'll last longer."

Scarlet rolled her eyes and raised a brow at him. "Is that all there is?" She asked, gesturing to his whole frame. "A very lame cocky line?"

Way to go, Steiner! Theo chuckled to hide his embarrassment and then she was walking away. He followed.

Scarlet heaved a great sigh and turned around bumping into Theo. An action he knew was intentional. "What do you want?!"

"Whoa!" Theo growled with a grin. He was not going to let her get away now that he'd managed to let her see him. It was sick that he wanted to ask a woman on search for her kidnapped daughter to a date. But Celine Greene was safe and sound. Theo knew this. "Slow down there. Are you running from someone?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

What type of stupid question is that, Steiner?

"No shit Sherlock!" Scarlet clapped once, condescendingly. "I mean who would run away from a dumpster with psychopaths trying to rape them?" She raised an eyebrow too. But that wasn't the only reason she was running.

"You are strange." Theo said, stroking his chin while carefully studying her with narrowed eyes. There was something he didn't know yet about her, he could feel it, and he was dying to find out.

"Pot calling the kettle black?" Scarlet retorted under her breath.

He chuckled. "And by the way, the name's Shirley not Sherlock." He grinned, not knowing why he was lying and reached out to shake her hand. She would at least shake his hand, right?

With Scarlet Greene though, no one knew what to expect. Yet he knew better than to think she'd introduce herself.

Not that he didn't know her already.

"Whatever Sherlock." Scarlet rolled her eyes again while gripping his hand to shake it. "I wish it was nice to meet you Shirley. It isn't."

"You know?" Theo spoke on a grin. "For someone with a steel-hard grip, it's hard to believe you couldn't fight a bunch of junkies who can't even stand up straight."

Scarlet just looked him straight in the eye. Her expression giving nothing away. Then calmly let go of his hand and turned around to leave without another word.

"Boo!" He was following again. He needed urgent mental help.

She jumped. "Jesus Christ! What are you, five?" Scarlet shouted, frustration clear in her voice.

"Close." He grinned. "I'm twenty five though." He grinned again and she looked like she could've snapped his neck. Why was he grinning so much anyway? He shut his mouth.

"Please leave me alone!" Scarlet yelled. "Do you follow strangers around for a living?" Scarlet crossed her arms across her chest and bit down on her lip in an attempt to stop the tears that were forming in her eyes.

Theo felt like the asshole of the year.

"Why are you crying?" He asked but she was not here with him. Her mind was probably working up a thousand ways to get rid of him. He opened his mouth to ask her on a date but, "Just so you know," he said instead. "I don't follow strangers around for a living. I was just wondering what a girl like you was doing in that building, in that strange room."

Ha! A girl like her. He sounded like a bad fan fiction character.

"Strange?" Scarlet asked, finally talking back on a raised brow. "What's strange about it?"

"The fact that it is a baby room?" Theo shrugged. "You know, perfectly furnished,clean and all that shit? Come on, that kind of place isn't something you find in that kind of a building every day."

Scarlet nodded grimly. "So?" He pressed. Give me something more Scarlet.

"Wh-" Her phone rung then and she froze glancing at him.

Theo raised a questioning brow. "Well, aren't you goin' to get that?"

Scarlet sighed in defeat and bent down to get the phone. She must've expected him to leave, but Theo, like a man on a mission, waited patiently.

He was nearly leaving when she hang up, and gasped, staring at her palms that were set alight, the phone slipped through them and clattered to the ground. And she looked up at him, but the light wasn't what surprised Theo, it was the shock on her face, the fact that she didn't know that this could happen to her when she got wounded, and then she searched his face, and whatever she saw in his eyes compelled her legs forward.

She ran.

He followed.

That hideous light was courtesy of the tissue regeneration serum from the NATD, but Scarlet didn't seem to know that. Theo had never seen her look so ... scared. She continued to splint down alleyways. Scarlet was totally freaked out, and was aimlessly running, away from it, away from herself, and the look in her eyes had told Theo that she was running away from him.

Calling after her as the trailer came speeding at her was no help at all, if anything, it was his fault she didn't see it and react quickly. It was his fault she was running at all.

It was his fault because he couldn't make himself walk away earlier. And it was his fault for ever coming into her life, wanting to take revenge on her.

Theo regretted every second of it as he collected her into his arms on the sidewalk, blood spluttering from everywhere on her body, yet somehow, her beautiful eyes stayed wide open, alive, accusing him of sending the woman he loved to her grave. Accusing him of ever being born at all, of existing. For if he didn't exist, Jamie would've been here. If he didn't exist, Shirley would've loved his mother, and Scarlet Greene would've been at home making lunch for her daughter.

For the first time in his life, Theo Steiner was seeing himself through his mother's eyes, and for the first time, he agreed with her. He was a horrible mistake.

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Hem hem... A glimpse in the mind of Theo.

What you think?