Red Rider RIsing: Book 2 of the Red Rider Saga by D.A. Randall (ebook e reader .txt) 📕

“No. The crying.”

“… Why?”

“I don’t want anyone to know. And I don’t want to remember.”

“Everyone cries, Red.”

“I’ve cried enough. I’m through crying.”

He narrowed his eyes, not sure what to make of me. “Listen, Red. I’ll let Papa know you’re here and tell him what happened. You’re 150

welcome to stay. I’ll make up the cot for you upstairs and get some blankets so you can rest.”

I nodded obediently, feeling numb. As if all the emotion had been drained from my soul. At least, all the emotion I could reveal. My rage, my fear, the storm building inside me – I had to keep these reined in, lest they be fully unleashed.

“Let me just add some more wood,” he said, stepping to the large center furnace and grabbing a poker to pull open its grate. A blast of light and heat emitted from within.

“You sure you need more fire in there?” I asked dully.

He grinned at me over his shoulder. “It’s supposed to storm tonight. Never know when you might need some extra heat.”

He chucked a couple of logs into the opening, letting the mighty blaze roar at us before he shut the grate again. He lit a lantern and strode past it to the ladder at the rear of the shop. I followed him up to the loft with wooden movements.

We emerged through the square opening.

Pierre’s lantern lit the long-forgotten room in a dusty haze. Cobwebs connected the enormous wardrobe on the far wall to a standing mirror, covered in a dusty film. Near the shuttered window stood a cot. I longed to collapse onto it and sleep for hours, as Pierre suggested. My mind and strength were spent.

He set the lantern on the nightstand and clomped to the wardrobe, his boots leaving footprints in the floorboard dust as I sneezed twice.

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He opened the double doors, peeling cobweb strings apart, and bent to lift two thick blankets from a bottom shelf.

Among the coats and dresses that hung above the blankets, something flashed a brilliant red.

I stepped to the wardrobe and pushed the other garments aside. Behind coats, nightshirts and tunics, covered with dust and age, hung a long red hooded cloak. Just like the one Grand’Mere Marie made for me when I was little. The cloak I was forbidden to wear after the attack.

I pulled it out.

“That was Mama’s,” Pierre said.

I kept staring at it. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“No, it’s all right. It’s beautiful, I know.

Like the one you used to – uh, here. You should be warm enough with these.”

The hood and cloak looked roomy, slightly too large for me. But they would fit. “I want this.”

Pierre turned to me. “Huh? Oh. Sure, I’ll ask Papa. No one’s using it, so it shouldn’t be –.”

“I want this,” I repeated. “I’ll give you anything you want for it.”

“Red, you can have it. But you should get some rest.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the cloak. The red hooded cloak. I had not worn anything red since before I started hunting. Since the wolves took all peace and happiness from our lives. Now they had taken our lives, too. Grand’Mere and Francois and my parents. Even Suzette. For the first time, I had known some of the joy my mother 152

always wanted for me. To feel like a mother, or at least a big sister. And they had taken it away.

I clutched the cloak to my chest. Then I moved to the cot. “I’ll use this as well. To keep warm.”

“All right,” Pierre allowed.

I sat on the cot. “Father Vestille will plan a service for my mother and – my sister. Can you find out the time and have someone wake me?”

“Of course.”

I clutched the cloak in my fist and admired it once more. “I’ll wear this to the service.”

Pierre frowned. “We might have a black veil you can use. I don’t think you can wear red for a funeral.”

I flashed on him. “Don’t tell me what to wear.”

He studied me, then shrugged: “Red it is,”

he said. “Get some sleep.”

I lay down, wrapped the