RED | A dark retelling of Red Riding Hood | WATTYS 2021 SHORTLIST

Chapter Fifteen: Death

What does one do when dying?

Before tonight, Marjorie had never given it much thought. She always imagined she would leave this world like most everyone—through illness or by bad luck. But never like this, sitting on her Grandmother's staircase, waiting for the moon to rise above the thick tree line.

She wanted to be alone, not because she was brave but because she was scared. She sat hunched over, wrapped in her red hood and ignoring the growing burn in her spine. The ache wouldn't matter at sunrise.

Soon, the sun would come, and Marjorie would leave with the moon.

She kept the tears away, because tears meant panic, and panic would scare Petyr, who watched her from the den window. His silhouette casted a long shadow over the ground below. He hadn't moved in the last hour.

Marjorie wondered if he feared looking away. Perhaps he thought she would disappear like mist.

Fenris was more blunt with his emotions. Where Petyr watched silently from afar, he paced on the frozen grass below the staircase. His bare feet hit the cold blades of green as if didn't feel their true temperature.

He ran warm. When she had brought him into her, the first touch of his skin burned like an iron brand straight from the fire. But then, it had melted something inside Marjorie, until she could only surrender to the welcoming heat.

She pressed her hand into her chest as if she could still find his flame inside her.

It was cold, as she expected.

Marjorie turned her head up to the clear, night sky. It was starless above. She laughed dryly. She always wanted to die warm, underneath the heat of the summer sun, with lips chapped and her eyes aching from tiredness.

Instead, she shivered, alone and wide awake, knowing tomorrow would never come for her.

"Damn it all," she whispered. Her hands rushed to her head and clutched at her hair, as if that could shake out the thoughts terrorizing her mind. "Just—just stop thinking about it."

"I can stop this." Fenris materialized above her, his eyes glowing with a dark promise he ached to fulfill. He moved quicker than what seemed possible, but she found his strangeness refreshing. A long, elegant index finger pressed against the bottom of her chin. "I can kill him for you." There was no hesitation in his voice.

He nodded toward the window, where Petyr glowered down at the pair. He cocked his head of golden hair, silently asking Marjorie if she needed his aid. She waved him off with a forced smile.

"If you did that, I fear my heart would break," she admitted. "He is my dearest friend."

She wondered then, if she would have been just as selfless in this moment if it weren't Petyr lined up for sacrifice. Would she allow Fenris to kill a stranger for another year of life?

"You call him friend, but it would break your heart if I killed him," Fenris whispered. He crouched on the step below where her feet set, outstretched and protected in the warm, soft leather of her boots. Like this, with his large hands hanging over his knees and his thick brows furrowed in deep thought, Marjorie wanted to touch his face.

She wondered what his lips would feel like, pushed underneath her thumb, or what color they would turn when he bit into the red pit of a cherry.

"Fenris, when was the last time you loved someone?" She didn't know where the courage came from, but once it left her lips, Marjorie realized she wanted to know the answer.