Page 32 of Red

Jack shook his head. “Hate to say it, but it might not take. Except temporarily.”

“Then we put the pieces of him through the portal,” Amma declared, one hand on her hip.

“He’s not a murderer, Amma,” I reminded her.

Jack shot me a look—and I could’ve sworn it was one of gratitude.

Her eyebrows went up. “You think leaving him to rot in a pocket dimension is so much more ethical?”

Oh. Um. “… Well. No.”

“It’s more ethical than letting him continue to hunt,” Amma declared. “That’s all I care about right now.”

“Me too,” Jack said with a nod. “But I don’t want you to be bait. We’ll come up with some—”

“I’ll do it alone. How’s that?” Amma planted the other hand on her hip too, so she looked well and truly determined. “I’m old anyhow. If I live, I live here and spend centuries doing what I love. If I die, it’s worth it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Absolutely fucking not.”

Jack’s eyes widened, as if he couldn’t believe I was talking to my grandmother like that.

Amma, on the other hand, laughed.

But even if she was mad, Amma’s willingness to be a sacrifice sparked something inside me. All that time she’d spent protecting me. Protecting my mother. Being our safety. Feeling like she was never enough.

It was my turn, goddammit. I took a deep breath and said, “He wants me. I’ll do it. Just me.”

Jack made a face. “You’re not so quick on your feet right now.”

“I only have to be quick for thirty seconds, if I wait for him at the top of the stairs. I can manage that.” I smiled, but it felt weak. “If I scream, come running with the axe, yeah?”

Amma snorted. “So what am I here for?”

“Moral support,” I said without hesitation.

She made a clucking sound all Indian aunties perfect at a young age. But I could tell from the look in her eye she was both surprised and proud of me.

My entire being coiled tighter and tighter, like a spring desperate to pop; the sickeningly familiar sensation of my ragged nervous system kicking into overdrive. I tried to breathe it away, to focus on the ancient stones and their solidity to keep my head from spinning. Tried and mostly failed.

One of Jack’s crows fluttered onto the wall just behind me, keeping watch. I shot it a grateful glance and it cocked its head at me, black eyes glistening with intelligence.

Having it with me wasn’t like having Jack with me. I’d feel a lot less weak and scared if it did. But I appreciated it all the same.

I took a few steps back and leaned against the wall, pretending to admire the sky. Fluttered my red scarf, trying to look nonchalant about it. I’m just a boy who came to visit his grandmother, and is now enjoying some peace and quiet in the magical ruin she’s excavating by herself. Nothing to see here. Just a poor, defenseless, human boy, waving this scarf like a matador dying to get gored…

The crow above me cawed once, piercing and insistent. My brain spun, but I managed to keep my body still. Admiring the clouds.

Footsteps, light on the stones, movement in my peripheral vision but on the other side of the ruins. Nowhere near enough, yet. Then his voice, half-disembodied, like it’d sounded when I’d first awakened in the Greenwood, wet and terrified. “There you are, pretty little deer…”

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. Otherwise, remained still. Watching the clouds as if I hadn’t heard him.

“Ohhhhh, do you think you can pretend me away, boy?” The voice wound itself through the ruin, bouncing off stone and grass so that by the time it found me, it was distorted. Creepy as fuck, like an echo that shouldn’t exist. “Just because you got away once?”

I couldn’t do it anymore; I lowered my gaze, desperate to figure out where, exactly, he was.

Halfway across the ruin, maybe less, Wulfric made a hulking, crouched figure. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was walking on his tiptoes. I’d also say he was a fucking yeti, considering the way hair sprouted from his very, very ripped-up preppy sweater.

He hadn’t changed. Where had he gone to lick his wounds? Surely not into town. Into some secret pocket dimension all his own, where he could let his rage heal him? Or had he just stood outside the portal in Ferry Vale, waiting for me to stumble through this whole time?