Red could never really be at peace with that, but she finally accepted that it wasn’t her fault. There were no plans that could have saved Mama or Dad or Adam.
It was only then that she realized she’d been carrying that around with her—the belief that if only she had done something different, better, smarter they would still be with her.
I couldn’t have saved them.
She didn’t know everything. And she didn’t need to know everything. Maybe it was better if she never knew why the Crisis started, where the Cough came from, why there were weird monsters coming out of people’s bodies.
You’re the one who always said you weren’t the Chosen One. Only Chosen Ones worry about all that shit. The rest of us just want to live.
She wondered if Sirois was going to let her and Sam leave.
Red closed her eyes for a minute, enjoying the sun, and Sam leaned into her shoulder.
Red cracked an eye open when Sirois cleared his throat.
“You still have some walking to do?” he asked.
“Yes, I do,” Red said.
Sirois gave her a lazy, two-fingered salute. “Good luck to you then, Red Riding Hood.”
“You too, Lieutenant,” she said, and smiled, and pulled her red hood over her curls.
CHAPTER 16
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Red and Sam and Riley had been forced to wait a few extra days before leaving D.J.’s house. It turned out that Riley’s sore throat had been regular old strep throat, not a harbinger of the Cough. When Sam and Red returned to the house, D.J. had been frantic with worry.
“His fever is very high and he’s been throwing up,” he said, after he scolded and hugged Sam in equal measure.
“He always throws up when he has strep,” Sam said.
“But what can we do for him?” D.J. said. “If we had antibiotics . . .”
Red laughed then. “This is a problem I can solve.”
She pulled the amoxicillin out of her pack like Mary Poppins pulling out a lamp from her carpetbag. “Ta-da.”
Riley felt better the next morning, but D.J. was adamant that they not travel until Riley had rested for a few days.
“I’d rather wait until Sirois has cleared the nest of vipers, anyway,” Red said.
The day of their leave-taking was a tearful one. D.J. hugged both children tight and then surprised Red by doing the same for her.
“Your grandmother is waiting for you,” he said, kissing her forehead.
“And your grandchildren are coming to you,” she said.
It sounded like a promise, a wish, a thing made of magic that would come true just because it had been spoken.
And then Red and Sam and Riley had started off again.
25 days later
Are we there yet?” Riley said.
He’d been plodding his feet into the ground for the last hour or so. Red and Sam had both scolded him and told him that walking that way would just tire him out more, but he kept doing it anyway.
“Keep it up and I’ll stop this car,” Red said.
“We’re not in a car,” Riley said. “It would be sooo much easier if we were in a car. Then my legs wouldn’t hurt and my feet wouldn’t hurt and—”
“And our ears wouldn’t hurt from listening to you complain,” Sam said.
Red winked at her.
“We’re just walking through bushes and trees. There’s not even any path,” Riley said. “I’m going to get poison ivy.”
“You’re covered from neck to ankle,” Red said. “The only place you could catch it is on your tongue, because you won’t stop flapping it.”
“Ugggghhhh,” Riley said, but he was quiet for a while after that.
Then it was suddenly there, the clearing with the two-story cabin where her grandmother lived. Red and Sam and Riley all paused to gape at it for a minute, because it seemed to have just magically appeared, like a fairy ring.
The chimney puffed a steady stream of smoke, and the smell of bread wafted in the air.
“Something smells good!” Riley said. “Race you to the door!”
Red hurried after Sam and Riley, because she didn’t know what her grandma would do if two strange little kids banged into her house.
They stopped, though, and waited for her to catch up.
“You’d better go first,” Sam said.
“It is your grandma’s house,” Riley said.
Grandma’s house. I’m home, finally home, and there are no wolves in these woods.
Red knocked on the door.
About the author
Photo by Kathryn McCallum Osgood
Christina Henry is the author of The Mermaid, a historical fairy tale based on the P. T. Barnum Fiji Mermaid hoax. She is also the author of the Chronicles of Alice duology, Alice and Red Queen, a dark and twisted take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well as Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook, an origin story of Captain Hook from Peter Pan.
She has also written the national bestselling Black Wings series (Black Wings, Black Night, Black Howl, Black Lament, Black City, Black Heart, and Black Spring), featuring Agent of Death Madeline Black and her popcorn-loving gargoyle, Beezle.
Christina enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on, and watching movies with samurai, zombies, and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Tina Raffaele
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Henry, Christina, 1974– author.
Title: The girl in red / Christina Henry.
Description: First Edition. | New York: Berkley, 2019.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018043169 | ISBN 9780451492289 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780451492296 (ebook)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.E568 G57 2019 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043169
First Edition: June 2019
Cover art by Pep Montserrat
Cover design by Judith Murello
Title page crossed axe art © IvanDbajo/Shutterstock.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.