THE AMBYS 2021 Runner-Up in Fantasy
REWIND THE CLASSICS 2021 Honourable Mention
***
An Urban Fantasy Reimagining of Snow White
***
When Jacintha Wight's husband died, the multi-million dollar cosmetics company Skin Deep wasn't the only thing she inh...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I sit at the head of the table, my thoughts twisting in tendrils too insubstantial to do anything but torture me.
The directors drone on around me. I hold my breath every time the chairperson's voice rises above theirs, only releasing it when she mentions something other than the CEO position.
I can't focus on anything but the phone on my lap. I glance down at it whenever the screen lights up, my heart hitching in case it's a message from Orion.
No news is good news, right? That's what I tell myself after checking my phone for the millionth time.
The boardroom door opens, distracting me from my internal agony for a moment before plunging me into horror as a man twice Orion's size shoves him into the room while bracing his arms behind his back.
My stomach lurches.
No.
This wasn't supposed to happen.
The director halts his feedback from the sales department as all eyes in the room turn to the spectacle. Six gigantic men enter behind Orion, dispersing to reveal a woman at the centre of their formation, holding them together as a magnet would scraps of metal.
Her eyes fall on me. Her smile is a frost that kisses my flesh, turning me ice-cold.
I stand, staying behind the table so Snow can't see my knees shake.
I faced more formidable threats those nights I went home to the Bronx after a late shift. A spoilt brat doesn't scare me.
"What's the meaning of this?" My voice rings through the room, as commanding as ever.
Show no fear.
"Maybe you can answer that, stepmother." Snow holds out the lip gloss with the apple-shaped lid.
My mouth goes dry.
"Why was your bodyguard leaving the restaurant right after I found this in my purse?" asks Snow.
The lie rolls easily off my tongue. "I asked him to get me a bagel."
It isn't unrealistic for me to send my bodyguard on errands, after all.
Snow raises her eyebrows. "Divine doesn't make bagels."
Dammit. How could I have forgotten that?
I fumble for a recovery. "He must've walked into the wrong restaurant by mistake."
Snow's smile tells me that she knows. She knows me better than anyone in this room; well enough to tell when my feathers are ruffled.
I straighten my spine. I will not let a child intimidate me into forfeiting my empire. I would make her look ridiculous first.
"Why are you making a big deal of this? It's just lip gloss."
Snow isn't dead, which means she doesn't know what the lip gloss can do.
