Deliciously Deadly: a Red Riding Hood retelling

Chapter 11

Lottie woke up feeling like someone had punched her in the guts, kicked her in the head, ran her over with a horse-drawn cart and left her out to dry.

She lurched over the side of the bed and vomited. With the emptiness in her stomach, all that came out was bile, the acid burning up to her throat every time she retched.

It hurt everywhere, and she couldn't help but cry, her whole body shaking as she spewed for what felt like forever, grateful for whatever kind soul it was that held a wooden bucket with one hand and gently pulled her hair back with the other.

She wanted to see the person before her. Wanted so desperately to confirm Cain's presence and feel his arms around her again. She must be even uglier, the way she was now. Would he still hug her? Even if it was just to keep the both of them warm.

At last, the sickening feeling subsided enough to allow her to lift her face, but her vision swam and all she could make out were the blurred outlines of a man-like creature.

"Here, drink this," the creature said as he shoved a cup into her hands.

For over a decade, she'd worked to make obedience a second nature of hers, so it wasn't until she'd chugged half the cup of bitter, unknown substance that she realised the voice that spoke was a little younger and grating; nothing like the warm honey she'd gotten used to.

Lowering the cup, Lottie looked up and froze at the sight of the young, smiley man before her. "Who—" She did a double take at the dry croak of her own voice, hoarse from disuse.

"You can call me Demon."

She studied the man sitting in a stool next to her bed, bouncing one leg over his other knee as he continued to smile at her like he was the furthest thing from a Demon. Despite the unusual leather armour he wore, the man appeared wholly harmless.

Slowly, she raised the cup and gave the brownish foul-smelling liquid a swirl.

"It's good for you," Demon said.

Obedient she might be, trust was another thing, and she had no reason to trust this man aside from the fact that she'd already consumed half of the liquid and was still alive. It did seem like her headache had eased somewhat, at least, and someone who would hold another person's hair back while they threw up their guts couldn't possibly be a bad person; she was sure of it.

So she took another sip, then another, and surveyed her surroundings while she was at it.

The bed was firm but clean, pushed right up to the wall of a small, windowless room with the barest furnishings. The walls and ceiling were fully boarded up with wood and otherwise devoid of any hangings or decor, making the entire space seem more like the inside of a wooden crate than a room.

Beside the bed sat a small table that held a flickering candle on a brass holder surrounded by an assortment of coloured liquids in glass vials. There was so much clutter on that cramped surface that she almost missed it—the wooden carving of a rabbit and a wolf.

Her hand reached out on its own accord and her heart thudded against her ribcage as her fingers closed around the figurine she'd seen in her dreams.

She remembered being so excruciatingly hot, so sick and weak she could practically feel the icy claws of death scraping down her spine. But in those torturous days of oscillating between burning in flames and shuddering in an ice tomb, there were moments of light, like when she dreamed of holding a wooden figurine just like this one. Like being cradled in Cain's arms.

She even dreamt of an angel who saved her with a tight grasp around her wrist just before she was about to plunge into the pit of hell.

Delicate and cautious, Lottie brushed the tips of her fingers over every intricate groove and detail of the carving, afraid that it might vanish in a puff of smoke, like all of her precious little gifts from Cain that perished in a cruel fire.