Red and the Wolf (Future Fairytales)

by Kate Rudolph

  “He thinks he has all the answers, that somehow his ways are better. But give me one night and I can prove to you that I’ll make a—”

  “That’s enough. I don’t know what you’re offering, I don’t care.” Red imbued her voice with steel, strong and unwavering. “But let me make this clear. There is no you and me, there is no us, and there never will be. Even if Wood were to fly into the sun tomorrow, you and me aren’t happening. You’re creepy and I don’t want to spend time with you. So run along and go frighten some old ladies or small children.”

  Wolf stood up to his full height. Red had never realized just how tall he was, nearly a whole head more than her. He was probably taller than Wood. It was a little intimidating, but she wasn’t about to back down. Wolf glared at her before turning on his heel and walking away.

  Red watched him go, sure he was going to turn around and do something stupid if she took her eyes off of him for a single second. But once the door closed behind him, she gathered up her tablet and took off for her office in the center of the greenhouse, walking quickly and not bothering to check in with anyone. Wolf was gone for now, but something told her he would be back, and the next time she saw him, she doubted he would leave as easily. She didn’t know what she would do if she was stuck alone with him, and she didn’t want to find out. But she wondered again where Wood was and hoped that he would get over whatever reticence he was dealing with. Between her grandmother’s illness and Wolf’s advances, she could use a shoulder to lean on. But the only one she wanted was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter Five

  “Oh my God, are you okay?” The words burst out of Red’s mouth when she spotted the figure crouched in front of the door to her quarters. At first she didn’t realize that it was Wood; she’d never before seen him so unkempt. His top was wrinkled and askew and there was a rip in his trousers. The skin around his left eye was a deep mottled purple and his knuckles were swollen and bruised as if he’d been in a fight.

  Wood tilted up his head to stare at her and a dreamy smile crossed his face for a moment before he wiped his expression clean and stared at her unblinking. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here.” He hoisted himself up, the movement looking slow and incredibly painful as he used the wall behind him to climb to his feet.

  Red rushed forward. “No, no, no, you’re hurt. Please don’t leave. I have a first aid kit in my quarters. Let’s at least get you seen to, okay?” What was it with everyone in her life becoming sick or injured? At least cuts and bruises could be easily dealt with, unlike whatever her grandmother had. A little regen gel and Wood would be all better.

  “I’ll be fine,” Wood insisted with a little shake of his head. “This was a—”

  “It’s not a mistake to ask for help.” She didn’t know why he was running so hot and cold, and at the moment Red didn’t care. She would deal with that once he was no longer bleeding on her doorstep. “What happened?” she asked as she unlocked the door and let them both inside. She pointed Wood to the small table set up beside her kitchenette and glared at him until he sat down, holding one bruised hand up in surrender.

  “I had a slight misunderstanding. Everything is fine now.” His voice was muffled since Red had crouched down and was rooting through a cabinet under her sink to find her first aid kit. Once it was in hand she approached Wood slowly, as if he were a scared wild animal liable to run if she made any sudden movements.

  “Did you get in a fight?” He and Wolf had been spitting mad at each other the other day, but Wood’s wounds were too fresh to be days old.

  When she held up the regen gel, Wood reached out to take it from her. Red grabbed his hand instead, flattening it against the table and gently applying the healing cream. Wood’s eyes met hers and he looked a little sheepish. “I know you don’t like fighting.”

  Red’s hand paused what she was doing before she quickly resumed. “Did you have a good reason?”

  “Yes,” and the conviction in his voice told her how much he believed that.

  “Did you win?” Depending on who he had been fighting, a black eye and bruised knuckles might have been signs of victory.

  But this time Wood looked away. “Some fights can’t be won with fists,” he admitted.

  Red knew that, it was why she had stepped between Wood and Wolf when they had seemed determined to rip each other’s throats out. “If you couldn’t win, why did you do it?” She hoped she kept any judgment out of her voice. She didn’t want Wood fighting, didn’t want him to be hurt, but if he did and if he was, she wanted him to come back to her at the end of the day. She wanted to be the one to tend his wounds and to sit beside him while he healed.

  “I don’t know if I could explain it,” Wood said after a long pause. He pulled his hand back once it was slathered in regen gel and silently offered her the other one.

  “Try me.”

  He was silent for several moments, but it was clear that he was trying to gather his thoughts, trying to find the right words to explain whatever he had done. And Red was sure that this was more complicated than a simple tussle. “The place I come from can be brutal,” Wood began. “Lots of fighting, lots of jostling for position. I thought I left it all behind me a long time ago. I thought living with regular hu—regular people would mean that I wouldn’t have to deal with all that bullshit. I thought this world would be civilized.”

  “What kind of colony is civilized?” Red couldn’t help but ask. It took a certain kind of person to be willing to leave their planet behind and live with a small group on an inhospitable world.

  Wood offered her a weak smile in response. “I suppose that’s true. But it’s still some kind of civilization. There are rules beyond the rule of the strong and the trampling of the weak.”

  “Were you raised in a cult, or something?” What he was talking about didn’t sound at all like the world that Red had been raised in.

  Wood shrugged. “Something like that. But that’s why I fought, and that’s why I can’t win.”

  It was on the tip of Red’s tongue to ask who he brawled with, but a part of her knew that there was only one answer, and she wasn’t completely sure that Wood would tell her the truth. “Wolf came to see me again today.”

  Wood tensed. “When was that?”

  Yes, it had been Wolf that he’d fought. “A few hours ago. I told him to get lost. He was being weird, said something about not being claimed. Do you know he’s talking about?”

  Wood lapsed into another one of those long silences. Before Red could lean forward to apply the regen gel to his eye, he grabbed the tube from her and slathered some on carelessly. “Wolf was raised in a world similar to my own. He still thinks that way. To his mind if someone is not strong enough to fight on their own, they must be owned… claimed… by someone who can fight battles for them.”

  “Are you talking about slavery?” It wasn’t legal on Earth or on any Earth colony, but there were plenty of places in the universe where people were bought and sold. And Red wasn’t naïve enough to think that there was no black market selling people in her own solar system.

  “Not exactly. In an ideal situation, it’s more like a family. There are those who provide and those who are provided for. But not every situation is ideal, and when you have men like Wolf you can almost guarantee the system will be abused.”

  “Did you know him before you came to Mars?” He hadn’t answered the question the other day, but now Red was learning more about Wood’s past than she ever thought she would.

  “No, but I know his type.”

  “So do I,” Red deadpanned. And she didn’t need to be raised in a creepy cult to understand it. “So let me guess, Wolf wants to claim me and he won’t back off until he wins or until someone else beats him to the punch, right?”

  Wood hung his head in his hands, careful to avoid angering his black eye. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. You’re not a part of this.”

  “A part of what? I’m a big girl, Wood, I can deal. Just tell me
what’s going on so I can understand. I can’t fight something—metaphorically, I mean—if I don’t know what it is.” She knew that Wood wanted to protect her, and a part of her got the warm fuzzies from that fact. But for a long time it had just been herself and Grandma Sylvie, and she was used to fighting her own battles. She wasn’t about to sit back and let someone else deal with her problems. Wolf was obsessed with her, she didn’t know how to stop that, but she didn’t want Wood getting hurt in the process.

  “This has to do with our people’s stupid politics. Politics that I hate and am trying to stay away from. I’ll deal with Wolf. Please trust me to do that.”

  Red wanted to argue, wanted to shake Wood until he saw reason, but he had already bled for her, defending her, and he seemed determined to see this thing through. If she pushed any harder he was going to run away, and that was something she really didn’t want. “Let’s watch a vid while the regen gel does its job, okay?” She stood up from her seat at the table and offered him a hand.

  Wood looked at it as if it could bite. “I should probably head back to my rooms. It’s getting late.”

  “They haven’t even stopped dinner service yet, it’s not late. Please just stay for a little while, so I know you’re healed up?” He seemed so skittish at times, like he was afraid that he would go too far with her, and Red didn’t know how to make him believe that as far as he wanted to go, she was with him the entire way.

  “Okay. Just until everything closes up.” He placed his hand on top of hers, but they had to be careful about clasping them if Red didn’t want to get gel all over her own fingers.

  They settled in on her couch and Red cuddled up next to Wood, soaking in the heat of his body and enjoying the hard press of his muscles against her. His arm went around her shoulders and they sat comfortably there while they watched an old comedy on her vid screen and relaxed into the night. The pressures of the day washed away, and Wood’s fight was forgotten, as well as Red’s confrontation with Wolf. A niggling worry for her grandmother was ever present in the back of her mind, but for these few hours she was able to push it aside and convince herself that everything would be okay. Red let herself imagine what it would be like to have nights like this, cuddled up to Wood like it was something normal, something they did every day once they were done with their duties in the colony. She imagined private dinners together and shared jokes and nights of passion unlike any she’d known before.

  At some point the heat and comfort of his body was enough to lull her into a light sleep and when Wood’s body relaxed beside her, she snuggled in close and surrendered to slumber. A loud sound from her vid screen woke her up some hours later and Wood startled awake beside her. They shared a look, one that somehow conveyed that neither of them admitted to falling asleep and yet sleeping beside each other had been so peaceful that neither of them could regret it.

  Red waved her hand and the vid screen turned off at the command, plunging the room into a gentle darkness, the only illumination coming from recessed lighting along the floor of the hallway. It was romantic in its own homey sort of way and with Wood there beside her the moment was perfect. She reached her fingers up and traced along his temple, confirming by touch that the regen gel had done its job and his bruising was gone. She leaned forward and brushed her lips along where he’d been injured, trailing them down his cheek and across his jaw until Wood made a desperate sound and tilted his head to capture her lips with his own.

  This kiss blew every previous one out of the water, including the one she’d shared with Wood in the greenhouse. It was like he realized they were alone and now all bets were off, all trappings of civility had abandoned him until he was a man intent on claiming her, whatever that meant to him. Maybe it should have worried Red, but she was right there with him, her fingers digging in and holding him close as she reveled in his tongue invading her mouth and tasting her. He pushed her back until they were lying on the couch, her legs around his waist and the thick press of his cock hard against her stomach. She wanted that, wanted him, and she would thank any God willing to take the credit for putting him in her room right now.

  Red reached for the hem of his top and yanked it out of his pants, desperate to find naked skin. She made a mewling noise, something caught between frustration and a moan that seemed to wrap around them and make their potential joining all the more real. But when her hands landed on the skin of Wood’s torso he pulled back as if he’d been stung. He let go of her, practically vaulting over the couch and shaking his head, running his fingers through his hair, his lips shiny and swollen from their kissing.

  “We can’t do this,” he said, pouring ice over Red’s desire.

  “Why not?” Red thought she deserved credit for how even she managed to make her tone. She deserved a medal for not screaming in frustration. “I thought we were… I like you, you like me, right? What’s the problem?” If this were an issue of Wood not being attracted to her, she knew she’d feel differently, but she felt his cock right there, had tasted him, had heard the sound of desire he’d made. It wasn’t a lack of attraction that was holding him back.

  “There are things about me you don’t understand,” Wood insisted.

  “You said that before.” She remembered the greenhouse now, remembered how it ended. “So tell me. Stop treating me like I’m some child.”

  Wood blinked slowly. “I promise you, I would not treat a child like this.”

  Red rolled her eyes and had to press her lips together tightly to keep from smiling at the utter seriousness in Wood’s tone. “Of course not. I’m not talking about the kissing. I’m talking about what seems to come after it every time. Is this about the Wolf thing? All that claiming bullshit he’s talking about? He has nothing to do with us.”

  “It has everything to do with us. With me. I can’t simply…” He shook his head and growled in frustration. “There is nothing casual about the relationship I can offer. You have to be sure.”

  “I am sure that this is what I want. What’s so confusing about that?” Red wanted to take a step closer, wanted to touch him, wanted to prove to him that she knew what she was talking about, but she stayed rooted in place. He was one breath away from running again, and she didn’t know how many times her heart could take that.

  But he was going to test her again. “You need to think about this. There were plenty of men out there, plenty of people, without nearly so much baggage. Think about choosing one of them. If you walk away now I can let you go.”

  “And if I don’t walk away?” There wasn’t another person in the colony, wasn’t anyone back on Earth, that Red wanted more than she wanted Wood. She just didn’t know how to make him understand that.

  “Then I have to. Because next time… Next time I can’t.” And with that he turned on his heel and walked out the door, leaving Red a frustrated, aching, hurting mess behind him.

  Chapter Six

  The large container of soup in her hands was half apology and half payment. Red had let the days go by and had barely had time to stick her head into her grandmother’s quarters to see how she was doing. But now that her emotions were all in a jumble from Wood’s abrupt departure last night she couldn’t stay away any longer. She needed her grandmother’s guidance, needed her no-nonsense attitude towards men and dating. And really, she just needed a shoulder to cry on while she figured out what the hell had happened.

  He liked her. Every single indicator he gave said that he did. He kissed her like the world was ending and only their lips could stop the apocalypse. So what was all that nonsense about needing to walk away? Did he think that she only wanted something casual? Did he? Because Red knew if something started between them, she would take everything he had to give and beg for more. Wood was the kind of man you didn’t let go. And yet he ran.

  Her eyes were puffy and her entire body felt like it would shatter into a million pieces if the tiniest bit of pressure was applied. She’d barely slept the night before, her mind racing with all the questions that Wo
od hadn’t stuck around to answer. Somewhere in the early hours, she’d surrendered into a fitful sleep, but even that been filled with nightmares of her grandmother’s illness, of Wolf and whatever shit he intended, and of Wood turning his back on her and walking away.

  She thought life on Mars would be more peaceful than Earth. She had never expected this emotional tumult.

  Her grandmother’s quarters were in the oldest section of the colonial apartments. Her grandmother had been on Mandela Colony since its founding seven years before and she had never bothered to move when the newer resident quarters were built. By the time Red made it to her door, her hands were burning from the heat of the soup. She let herself in and closed the door behind her and came to an abrupt halt when she saw the state of her grandmother’s apartment. Shock loosened her fingers and she would’ve dropped the soup if she didn’t act quickly, placing it on the small table beside the door. That was the only thing standing upright.

  The couch had flipped over onto its back, the vid screen hung askew on the wall, and one of the table legs on the coffee table was broken. A faint sour smell hung in the air, like rotten food or an unwashed, sick body. Grandma Sylvie was not meticulously neat—she didn’t mind a little clutter or a little dust—but the state of her apartment right now went far beyond anything that Red had ever seen before. It looked like the place had been ransacked.

  “Grandma?” she called, hoping for an answer, hoping she wouldn’t find something terrible, something that would give her even worse nightmares. What was wrong? Had Grandma Sylvie become delirious and trashed the place? Or had someone taken advantage of her sickly state and broken in?

  There was a scuffling through the door to her grandmother’s bedroom, the shuffling of sheets and creaking of the bed frame as someone moved around. A throat cleared and the sense of wrongness intensified. Red was one second away from backing up and calling security, but a high pitched voice, muffled and nasally, came through from the back of the apartment. “Red, is that you, my dear?”