Requited

Can your name decide your fate?

I was named after Gerwalta Faust, and if that means nothing to you, then you don't know the real story of Little Red Riding Hood. It is my birthright to lead the House of Red, my destiny to be the next Grand Matron of all hoods. But as the namesake of the Betrayer, am I also doomed to repeat her crimes? Maybe. I too have fallen in love with a werewolf, and that alone could get us both killed. I don't want to be his enemy, but I also can't imagine living without him. Soon, I'll have to make a choice: my heart or my hood. Or can I rewrite history and become the Gerwalta who can have them both?

onight, the harvest
moon would rise to tempt those who walked the night into its light.
IN ANOTHER THREE DAMNED HOURS. I still had nine minutes of my shift left, minutes which felt like sandbags. On the other side of the hour lay freedom, dancing, fires, and clan chanting. So much chanting. Too much. I looked at the Reagan-era clock that hung over my desk inside the ranger booth and grabbed the walkie from its charger on the window ledge.
“What do you want, Jeri?”
“No one else is coming in. You and I both know this.”
The speaker registered a few clicks before the main office hailed back. “The second we say okay to you closing early is the second Joe Detroit and his two-point-five kids roll in and want a campsite for the night.”
I pressed the send button and my luck. “It’s after Labor Day, Rick. The two-point-five kids are back in school and Joe Detroit is working a double at the stamping plant. Besides, it’s freezing out. No one is going to want to get out of their cars and stare at a waterfall when it’s this cold.”
“It’s Michigan, kid. You know how the camp crowd is. Neither rain nor sleet nor common fucking sense...”
The silent buffer filled the space between us.
Finally, I heard a click over the radio when my boss hit the send button. “Look, Red, if you want to leave early, just say ‘I want to leave early, Rick.’”
“I want to leave early, Rick. You know you do too.”
He groaned over the air, and I could practically picture his scruffy face crunching from the annoying reminder of how the moon pulled us both: me to my clan, and he to his pack.
“I guess you could...”
I didn’t hear the rest. With speed that would have shocked a hummingbird, I had the shade down, the RANGER STAND CLOSED sign out, and my backpack slung over my shoulder. By the time I crossed the parking lot and entered the gift shop through the employee’s entrance, Rick had shut down the main office too. Guess Joe Detroit was S.O.L. if he decided to show.
I quirked an eyebrow. By-the-regulations Rick wasn’t the type to close-up shop early. A moment later, a scent on the breeze gave away the reason, but I played along. “Have I been that much of a bad influence on you?”
“Your mother was worried it was going to be the other way around, if I recall.” He jerked his head towards the breakroom door. “I know you said you didn’t want us to do anything, but you knew we weren’t going to listen, right? It’s not every day we send one of our kids off to the big city to go to school.”
My hands flew up. “Shhhh!” Sneaking past him, I snuck a look around the edge of the door and tried to figure out based on sound and smell who was in the breakroom. My senses might pale in comparison to Rick’s, but I knew this landscape well. If someone uncommon was on the premises, I’d pick it up.
Three bodies, all human. All other workers at the state park. None of them my mother’s informants.
Rick wore a know-it-all smile when I shrank back into view. “Still haven’t told her yet, huh?”
“You know what my mom is like, and how pissed off she’s going to be. I already get enough flack for me and Cody being friends.”
“Friends? Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” Unconsciously, he crossed an arm over his chest and rubbed his opposite upper arm. “Don’t take this the wrong way, kiddo, but I don’t think I’ve ever met another woman more befitting of the name Brünhild.”
“Amen to that.”