Grandma swung the poker, knocking a tooth loose from the gaping, slobbering maw. The tooth landed at my feet, pale and glimmering with wet blood and detached skin.

“RUN!” Grandma shouted, swinging again and barely missing the skull of the beast. I leaped up, dodging a grasping black paw bigger than my head, and pushed against the back door. My mind was so scrambled I shoved against the door again and again, forgetting to push up the lock.

I stepped back, my mind foggy with terror, and with trembling hands managed to fling the bar up.

I raced into the tall grass around Grandma’s cottage, forgetting everything Pa had taught me in the mindless terror.

A strangled scream rang out through the air. I stopped, everything in me screaming at me to run and survive. Screaming that I had already made this worse. What more could I do?

I clenched my fist around my knife that Pa gave me. He trained me, and he was the best fighter I had ever seen. I may not could do anything… but I could try.

Despite my shaking hands that almost made me drop the naked blade, I turned. And with each step back to Grandma, something came over me. It was almost a numbness of my emotions but a hyper awareness of everything else. I could feel each blade of grass brushing against my legs beneath my skirt. I could hear the snap of twigs in the woods as something fled from the commotion in the house. I could just make out the metallic tang of blood in Grandma’s house. My heart beat became quicker and quicker within my chest as my mind ran through scenarios and each striking point for the Timber Wolf.

And I pushed through the door, seeing Grandma laying prone on the ground, blood on her pale cheeks as she glanced over at me, her eyes filled with pain and horror at seeing me.

I set my feet, keeping a table between me and the wolf hunched over my grandmother.

“I’m the one you want,” I hissed. “Come and get me.”

“Aria… no,” Grandma said, her voice strangled and oddly weak.

The wolf grinned, his gums and teeth dripping with fresh blood that glinted oddly in the firelight, and bunched his feet to leap.

I let him come, and at the last moment, I ducked, using his momentum to drive my knife along his belly and slice him from chest to tail.

Warm blood splattered along my cloak and skin, and I gasped as entrails spilled out.

The wolf whimpered, hitting the wall and trying to get up, but slipping on his own blood.

Something inside me hurt at seeing him in such pain, but there was a respect in his eye, a respect of the wild. Kill or be killed. He stood, towering over me, but his limbs trembling.

It seems you have found your courage, little girl. Use it well.

I was unsure if I heard the voice or just made it up as the wolf collapsed before me. I had seen pain before in animals I had killed, but none with such intelligence. I fought to move from my crouch, but my limbs were weakening as if my lifeblood was also spilling with his.

Send me to the Pack in the Sky, little red rider. Death comes for all.

He bared his neck before me and I choked back a sob as I shoved my knife though his throat.

I cried over him, even though he had killed so many. He was merely a slave to the hunt, a wild animal enjoying the thrill of prey. He could feel no empathy for those he had killed, just as I felt nothing as I sliced a rabbit’s throat for dinner. That was all we were to him… and yet, he seemed to view me differently.

I understand now that he saw me as a wolf challenging a wolf, and when I outsmarted him, it made him respect me like an equal. Ran had explained some of that to me, although I never fully understood it. Still don’t.

You’re stalling, comes Ran soft voice.

I don’t want to see this again, I whimper.

No, but you need to. Let this be our healing, together.

I bit my lip and nodded, letting the memory tug me back.

I rose on shaky legs that threatened to give at any moment. I rushed around the table that had seen so much love and was now splattered with blood.

I crashed to my knees beside Grandma, her eyes closed and her breathing labored. Blood. So much blood. I didn’t know what to do.

“Aria,” she whispered through lips almost as pale as her skin.

I took her hand, feeling as if I were in another world, as if this weren’t real. It couldn’t be real.

“I’m here, Grandma.”

A smile twisted her lips. “I love you, dear girl. Always remember… what I’ve taught you.”

I choked on a sob, feeling more and more like this was real the more the blood soaked into my dress and how weak and frail her hand felt beneath my own.

“I’m so sorry, Grandma. I shouldn’t have left you,” I whispered through a hoarse and aching throat.

“No, my dear. Take not the blame that… is not… yours. Live like your Pa, my dear, and tell them how dear I love them… all.”

“I will, Grandma, I will.”

She opened her eyes a slit, and it took her a moment before her eyes focused on me. “You carry me upon your back every time…. you wear the red hood, little Guardian. Stand brave and true and live… for all of us. Always remember, my love will remain…” her voice trailed off in a gentle sigh as her chest fell for the last time.

“Forever,” I finished, closing her unseeing eyes and weeping over her gaping chest that bled no more.

Claws clicked and clacked against the floor and splashed in the blood, but I could no longer care. If they took me this night, so be it.

A cold nose snuffled along my arm, and I glanced down through my tears to see a snow white pup with saber teeth. Her ears perked when she saw me looking at her. I remembered her, the one I had saved. She was truly beautiful, with her lynx-like ears and white fur that could compete with the most beautiful snow-bear fur. She had a mane about her neck that seemed fluffier than the softest rabbit fur I had ever seen.

I tried to smile at her, sitting a hand dripping with blood on her head. “You are feeling better?” I whispered through the tears clogging my throat.

She whined, darting back and looking around. I glanced up to find four Timber wolves all around. They didn’t attack, not yet. They just stood there and looked at me through eyes conveying a bit of shock and fear. I could imagine it would be quite the shock to find a mere slip of a girl had killed a Timber Wolf as large as a bear.

The little wolf darted back to me, and when the other wolves peeled back their lips and growled deep in their chests, she made a yipping bark growl that was high-pitched and scrawny compared to them.

“No, don’t. No more death, little one. Let them kill me,” I said through numb lips.

She looked back at me, stubbornness growing in the depths of her eyes as she nipped at the hand I had put along her back.

Her needle-like teeth drew blood, and I yelped.

The wolves stepped forward, blood squashing beneath their paws that had glistening claws as long as my finger.

The little wolf growled again at the much larger wolves, and it was like seeing a fox stand up to a grizzly bear.

But I admired her courage and again felt that kindred spirit within her.

I set my hand down on her back, intending to put her behind me and fight instead of her, but when I touched her, a blinding light pulsed from where I had touched her and threw the wolves back.

She whimpered, and I tried to remove my hand, but I couldn’t.

And then… I started feeling her. Felt her fear, but also her courage. Her stubbornness that the wolves not harm the one who had saved her. She claimed me as pack, which I wouldn’t understand for many, many years.

That was a sacrifice, and somehow our wish for each other to be safe bound us tightly until I could feel her spirit like a bright ray of sunshine deep in my chest… and she could feel me.

Plus, I think feeding her my blood had something to do with it.

Ran snorts in my mind before focusing back on the memory.

The wolves slowly rose, their ears perked forward and horror taking place of any other emotion in their eyes. They whimpered, staring, their tails tucked.

Then one came forward, a female who was a white streaked with grey, almost like grey stripes. Her saber teeth were long and lithe, her form feminine but with muscles rolling beneath her fur. She looked down at me and the wolf huddled together and did… something.

I felt it through the little wolf like a searing, burning pain deep in my soul. The little pup released a strangled howl as above the pain a voice spoke.

You have chosen the human over the pack. Your courage has gained her life but destroyed your own. If you want the human so much, you can have her.

The voice was feminine, haughty, and disdainful.

And then the voice and all feeling from all the wolves was cut from the tiny wolf who writhed and whimpered in pain.

I glared at the grey wolf whose eyes were hard and flinty… but somewhere deep within, I felt her pain and sorrow as if it were my own.

Take care of her, little wolf-heart, for she will take care of you, something whispered in my mind, similar to the disdainful voice of before… but yet this time it was filled with the pain I felt in the large grey wolf.

And with that, the wolves howled, their voices reaching high and wide as one, a haunting cry of sorrow, pain, and loss.

And then… they were gone. And I was left with a wolf whose pain and sorrow I could feel as my own.

Pa found me the next day. I had covered Grandma with one of her hand-stitched quilts, but the blood had dried into a crusty film and I didn’t know how to move her. Feeling the cold, rock hard skin made my stomach churn as I knew she should be soft and warm, like her hugs for as long as I could remember.

Pa’s eyes were stricken as he burst into the cottage to find me huddled in the corner near the dead fire, shivering with the wolf in my arms. It had been a long night, wondering at every creak if the wolves were coming back.

Pa pried the blood caked knife from my hand, and then squashed me to his chest with such strength I almost suffocated before he pulled back. He brushed the hair caked to my forehead and chin, looking me up and down.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, searching my body for any cuts, bruises, or bites.

I shook my head, my teeth chattering so hard I couldn’t talk.

“My brave cub. You’re safe. You’re safe.” His words broke something deep within and I collapsed against his chest with great, heaving sobs.

He rocked me in his arms, the wolf smashed between us but not complaining. Fleetingly, I felt her own body trembling with all she had lost and the warmth of my father’s arms also transferred from me to her, giving her comfort.

Days later, I stood as Grandma was taken to a grave just outside the city. Father forbade me from coming to the funeral, and it broke something in me. I didn’t understand why, and he tried to explain that there would be people there that could hurt us… but it would’ve been worth it to be there to pay her respects.

But the following days and weeks there circulated rumors about me, rumors that I had killed a Timber Wolf. Rumors that Pa had. Rumors that a woodsmen had saved us all by fighting off an entire pack of wolves.

Another even said a wolf had shifted into Grandma and ate me.

It wouldn’t be years until I could show my face in the market without stares and whispers of there she goes, hiding behind a hood. And others that weren't so nice. So I kept to myself and raised Jack and Jill while Momma worked in the city and went to market. And later, the whispers changed from hiding hood to red hiding hood to red riding hood.

Don't ask me how or why. These things get convoluted in time.

I didn’t have many friends because most wanted to get near to me for the story and not for me. Ran became my closest friend and Pa taught me and her how to survive, how to hunt, and how to blend in, both in the city and in the woods.

Bow and arrow, bow staff, sticks, and then short swords became my life as I learned all I could from Pa to prevent what happened to Grandma from ever happening again.

Do I wish I had obeyed when Momma told me not to go?

Could Grandma have survived if the wolves hadn’t cornered me and she was forced to save me? Maybe. And I regret that. But I don’t regret seeing Ran. Bonding to her.

Never can I regret that.

Good came of my bad decision, but I still swore to listen to wisdom after that day so that I would not be caught in such a position again.