Fairest in the West- Chapter Two:

“Delilah tells me you’ve been causing trouble.”

Whenever Snow thought of her stepmother it was always the same image- the woman pausing a moment to catch her reflection in one of the many mirrors she had lined the walls of the ranch with. It had always been a favorite pastime of hers, staring at her own reflection, admiring her own beauty.

“I- I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered. She found it cold all of a sudden and she fought to keep her teeth from chattering as goosebumps crawled up her arms.

“I’ve never liked liars, Snow,” he said, his tone soft and gentle, as if she were a frightened animal or a child. Perhaps that was how he saw her, how he’d always seen her. “So let’s be honest with each other. You’re in Delilah’s way and that makes her unhappy. And when she’s unhappy everyone’s unhappy. Especially me.”

She had known what was going on between the sheriff and her stepmother behind her father’s back for some time now. But she hadn’t breathed a word of it to anyone. She’d barely even thought on the matter much herself since she’d discovered it.

“You’re going to have to go.”

The words- or was it just the cold- sent a shiver down her spine. She drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest, making herself as small as possible. “You’re going to kill me?”

Of course he was.

She didn’t want to die. No one ever really wanted to. But to have the sheriff do it was worse than the dying itself. He hadn’t always been coldhearted; when she was a girl he used to bring her penny candies from town or let her feed his horse apples while he talked to her father.

That was before he’d fallen for her stepmother, before the woman had worked her charms on him and gotten him under her spell. It always happened sooner or later when a man came in contact with her. Snow just hadn’t expected the sheriff to fall so hard when he did.

“I don’t reckon there’s much else I can do,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

She pressed herself against the trunk of the tree, shrinking down even further. “Please,” she whispered, her voice tiny. She wasn’t even sure if he could hear her over the wind and the rain. “She doesn’t have to know. I don’t want to go back there and I promise I won’t. You’ll never have to see me again, I promise. Please, don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. She’ll never know, I promise.”

She knew she was babbling as the tears fell freely now. And she knew she was having no effect on him, her words falling on deaf ears. She let them die in her mouth, closing her eyes, and taking a deep breath.

“Just get it over quickly then. Please.”   

She sat there for what felt like far too long before she finally worked up the courage to open her eyes. The sheriff had dropped the gun and it now lay there beside him on the mossy ground, resting in a puddle of water.

“Do you promise?” he said, his voice husky.

She didn’t ask what he meant, didn’t have to. She nodded. “I do. I swear it.”

He nodded as he swallowed hard, stumbling to his feet. The last words he said to her were low and she almost didn’t make them out. “I’m sorry.”

She rose to her feet then too and darted away, her skirts causing her to stumble and hindering her from moving too fast. But she needn’t have run at all because this time sheriff didn’t give chase.