Scarlet

One night as Scarlet Benoit delivers produce to the Rieux Tavern, she receives an alert from the Toulouse Law Enforcement Department of Missing Persons. Scarlet’s grandmother, Michelle Benoit, has been missing for “over two weeks” (9). According to the police, the case has been closed “DUE TO LACK OF SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE OF VIOLENCE OR NONSPECIFIC FOUL PLAY” (4). Scarlet is enraged, and as she storms into the tavern to make her delivery, she feels like “[her] world [is] crashing down around her and nobody notice[s]” (7). In the tavern, her friend Émilie tells her that a handsome street fighter has returned to the tavern, and she encourages Scarlet not to worry about her grandmother and just wait for her to return. Scarlet thinks about how her grandmother disappeared without warning from their farm and how she “found her grandmother’s ID chip [...] wrapped in cheesecloth spotted red from her blood” (10). The detectives told Scarlet that people cut out their ID chips when they run away, but Scarlet believes this is the work of kidnappers.