Girl in the Red Hood Read Online Free

vineyard was in, and she wasn't stopping until
she got there. It didn't matter that she could no longer see more
than five feet in front of her, nor did she care that she had no
supplies. All Liesel could think about was going home, running into
her grandmother's arms, and leaving this wretched forest behind
forever.
    But soon it was too dark, and Liesel's skirt
caught on a low branch, causing her to trip. Her hands stung as
they scraped against unseen sticks and dry pine needles, and she
stubbed her toe on a rock. Wet earth stuck to her as she began to
rise, but something made her freeze halfway up. Her breaths were
ragged and heavy from her run, but she tried to quiet them as she
strained to listen. She was almost sure she'd heard breathing that
was not her own.
    Turning slowly, still on her hands and
knees, the girl nearly fainted as she realized she was not alone.
The silhouette of a creature stood out against the shadows. A growl
slipped out, so slight she wasn't even sure she'd heard it. Fear
made her blood turn cold, and all thoughts of the damp ground and
her scratched palms forgotten, Liesel took off again, even faster
this time. A tiny voice in her head wondered what she was doing,
why she was even in the forest, and screamed at her that no sane
girl of thirteen years would be where she was, but she ignored it
completely.
    She'd only taken a few strides, however,
before she was flat on her stomach, the creature crouching on her
back. For the first time, Liesel found her voice, screaming as
loudly as she could for help. A heavy paw was shoved expertly onto
the back of her neck, shoving her face into the ground, cutting off
her cry for help as a snout with gleaming white teeth lowered
itself down beside her face to growl a warning. It occurred to
Liesel that she was going to die.
    A part of her wondered if this was the
Maker's way of secret mercy, saving her from a long miserable life
in that horrid village without her mother. The rest of her,
however, was terrified. What kind of pain could a creature like
this inflict upon a human, particularly one that wasn't yet fully
grown? What kind of gruesome things could those teeth do?
    In the brief second before the bite, Liesel
wondered which side he would attack her from. The neck? The side? A
warm pang from her right hand surprised her, however. Without
thinking, she turned her head as best she could to look through the
darkness at her hand as the warm blood trickled down it. It hurt,
but it wasn’t the killing lunge she’d been expecting. And even
stranger was that the animal wasn't continuing the attack. As soon
as he bit her, he'd moved few feet away, a low growling still in
his throat.
    Despite the blackness of night, she could
make out the contour of a wolf, the biggest she'd ever seen. His
coat was silver, and it almost gleamed in the gray haze that filled
the dark woods. Liesel had seen wolves before, but only from a
distance, and with the comfort of her grandfather's expert crossbow
nearby to protect her. His claws were difficult to see, but they
looked longer than anything Liesel had ever imagined.
    At that moment, she locked eyes with the
beast, and as soon as she did, she began to shake. The eyes into
which she gazed were unmistakably human.
    She didn’t have time to linger and ponder
his unusual eyes, however. One second, the wolf was watching her
intently, as if surveying its strange work, and the next moment, it
was lying lifelessly on the ground, an arrow in its heart. Liesel
watched in horror as the human eyes closed.
    "Are you alright?" a man's voice called from
a distance. As heavy footsteps approached, Liesel found herself
incapable of answering him. She couldn't even lift herself up off
the ground. She just lay there trembling uncontrollably, scrunching
her eyes shut as though that would make the horror disappear.
"That’s a nasty cut there," the deep voice kindly said. Gently,
Liesel felt herself lifted by strong arms and cradled like a child.
"Do