Winter Fire Read online

  “Jenna!”

  A squeal somewhere on my right. I turned, along with several other people in my vicinity, to see Brianna coming at me with Dillon and Lauren a few paces behind her.

  “I’m happy you came,” she said.

  “Yeah, I said I would.” I smiled at them.

  “Want an iced tea?” Lauren asked. She had been true to her word and was sipping a Brisk.

  “Or something else?” Brianna raised her eyebrows at me and slid a small bottle of vodka out of her jacket pocket.

  “Not right now, thanks,” I said, staring at the bottle. “You drink that straight?”

  “Mostly, I mix it with Dillon’s Red Bull,” she said, shaking the silver can in her other hand, “but I will if I have to.”

  She looked like she already had a buzz. Her smile was a little dry, her eyes glassy.

  I moved closer to the fire and they all took a few steps to keep the huddle tight. There were no coals yet and it was still chilly.

  “You know what I just noticed?” Brianna said, staring across at Tyler and his group. We turned to look at her.

  “Brian is freaking hot. He’s hot, isn’t he?” She looked from one to the other of us, her grin sly.

  “I guess so,” Lauren said. Then, “he’s huge.”

  “Yeah, but I kind of like that. Makes you feel smaller,” Brianna said. She was openly leering at Brian now.

  Lauren curled a hand around Brianna’s upper arm and pulled her close, speaking in her ear. “You could be a little more subtle,” she said, “he’s going to know you’re talking about him.”

  “That’s okay,” she shrugged. “In fact, maybe I’ll just go and talk to him.”

  Lauren opened her mouth to speak, but Brianna was already walking away, her butt swaying a little too enthusiastically. She threw us a smirk over her shoulder about halfway around the fire. When she reached the boys, she took a long swig of her drink and stepped between Tyler and Brian. She said something to Brian and watched as he fished in his jacket pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and held it out to her. She slid one from the box with her long nails and held it to her lips while he lit it. Tyler peered behind her and then glanced across at us, his eyes settling on me again. I shrugged. After all, what was I supposed to do with her? He shrugged back and rolled his eyes, but it looked like Brian was already realizing the potential. He was smirking at Brianna over the top of her vodka bottle as he took a long gulp. Handing it back to her, he ducked and said something in her ear.

  “Doesn’t anyone from the lodge ever come up here and check on things?” I asked.

  “Tyler’s father’s good friends with Mr. Neil,” Lauren said. “They leave us alone.”

  “But the resort could get in a lot of trouble,” I said, watching as Brianna and Brian strayed a few paces from their group.

  “Tyler’s father is good friends with just about everybody,” Dillon said.

  “I have to go talk to Lexi for a minute.” Lauren threw her can into a blue barrel nearby, and then it was just Dillon and me. We watched the fire for a few minutes.

  “So,” I said, the heat finally starting to seep into my outer layers. “I think I’m learning how to ride…a little.”

  He turned to me and smiled. “Really? That’s awesome. You’ll be able to come with us now.”

  “Soon. Maybe.” I said.

  “Who taught you?” He asked. There was an odd tone in his voice.

  “I mostly taught myself.” I didn’t need anyone telling Brianna that I had had anything to do with Bren. Girls like her were made of glass. Any tiny crack made them sharp and dangerous.

  Dillon huffed, his smile resigned. “Okay,” he said. “You taught yourself, good for you. Just be careful.” He glanced over at me. “You know, about what you're getting into.”

  I sighed. I was tired, and it was obvious he didn’t believe me. “What are you trying to say Dillon?”

  “I’m saying the guy’s as hot as they come, I get it.” His eyes shifted to mine once more to make sure I wasn’t going to play stupid. I waited. “But he’s strange.” He said. “They’re all strange. You should see them up there, on the mountain. Some of the things they do. It’s dangerous, and some of it doesn’t even look remotely normal. The uncle makes all their boards and I think he does something to them. Maybe that’s why they don’t compete…” his voice trailed off for a moment as he thought about this, then his eyes found mine again. “And they disappear for hours and never come down, then just show up later like they’ve been making runs all night.” He closed his mouth, opened it, closed it again.

  “What are you saying? That they’re into something illegal, or…” I thought now of the first day I’d seen Bren on the mountain, how he’d seemed frozen in the air, how he’d seemed to control the seconds.

  “I don’t know. I…” He shook his head. “Have you noticed that when you ask Bren a question,” he said, “he never really answers you? He just sort of stares at you, or asks one back. It’s too weird.”

  I couldn’t argue.

  “How did you know?” I asked him. I didn’t want to say ‘how did you know I liked him’ or ‘how did you know I had been hanging out with him,’ so I left it at that.

  Dillon crushed his Red Bull can in one hand and tossed it into the barrel behind us. “The first ski club after break, when we were all out on the deck. The way you two were deliberately avoiding looking at each other. I didn’t know if it was because Brianna was there or what. But she saw it, too. That’s why she flipped out.”

  “I don’t think she flipped out.”

  “That’s because you don’t know her that well.”

  “Well, it looks like she’s moved on,” I said, gesturing to where she stood with Brian. They were getting very friendly now. His hands were on her waist and she was gripping his collar.

  “She never moves on,” he said. “She collects.” He nodded across the fire. I followed his gaze and saw Kevin nod back at him.

  “I thought she said he was a freak.” I said.

  “Probably because everyone else thinks he is. And because I doubt he’s the kind of guy who’s going to cater to her." He shrugged and gave me a sheepish grin. "I also figured you liked him when you blew Tyler off.”

  “Excuse me,” I said, turning to face him. “Blew Tyler off?”

  “You know he likes you.”

  “No,” I said, feeling like I had missed a whole chapter in a book. “I don’t know that. He has never done anything to…”

  “First he tried picking on you, then he moved on to flat out gawking, and if you haven’t noticed, he’s been over there trying to get your attention since you got here. So I figure, if you’re not into a guy like Tyler…”

  I couldn’t help glancing over at Tyler. His eyes flicked to mine again.

  “It’s not like he’s just some dumb jock,” Dillon said. “He’s actually pretty smart. And he’s funny as hell.” He shrugged again, hand in his pocket. “Maybe you should give him a chance.”

  “What are you? His pimp?” I said. He didn’t hear me. He was gazing across the fire again, but it wasn’t Tyler he was focused on, it was Kevin. Kevin gave him a flat, sad-eyed smile.

  “Something going on there?” I said. I didn’t know how else to say it.

  “Nope,” He said.

  “So he’s not… I mean Kevin. He’s not…” It was strange how comfortable I had always been with the word ‘gay’ until this moment.

  Dillon shrugged. “You never really know that about a person until they say it. And that’s their call, you know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “And you’re not seeing anyone?”

  “No,” he said, watching Kevin crack another beer.

  “And you’re picking on me?” I said.

  That broke into his thoughts. He looked at me and laughed, hit my arm with the back of his fingers. “I’m going to get another Red Bull,” he said, “and maybe stop by Brianna’s bar for a shot, you want to come?”

  “Mayb
e in a few minutes,” I said.

  I was glad for the chance to just stand and watch the fire, listen to the conversations blend around me, a word or phrase breaking through here and there. The voices were louder now, and people were moving around to talk to each other or get more beer from their snowy stashes under the low boughs of the trees. I glanced around at them. A few couples were huddled in each other’s arms by the fire. A girl with her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder made me think of Frieda and Dag, and once again that lonely feeling welled up inside me.

  As my eyes lifted to follow a trail of hot sparks rising above the heads of Dillon and the others, I noticed the pale flicker, deep in the forest. It was small and high up on the hill, and barely gave off enough light to reflect against the sky. This was the fire I had seen earlier, and the one I had seen the night I fell asleep at the picture window. Someone was up there.

  I thought of the girl I had seen riding in the night, of the way she had curved off toward the flame. I thought of what Dillon had told me about Bren and his family disappearing for hours before they came off the mountain. Maybe they had their own bonfire of sorts, a place only they knew about where they could close the door on the world. If so, I wondered if Skye had been invited in.

  “Hey.”

  I was startled out of my thoughts. Tyler. I hadn’t heard his footsteps.

  “Oh, hey Tyler.”

  “I was getting bored over there. Why are you standing here all by yourself?” His voice was quiet. He didn’t seem drunk, but he held a beer in each hand. One hadn’t been opened.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s quieter over here.”

  We glanced across to the little group - Brianna, Brian, Dillon, Kevin, and Matt – all laughing hysterically at something we could only guess at - and smiled at each other.

  Tyler held out the unopened beer and raised his brows.

  “I don’t really drink,” I said. And other than wine on the holidays, that was true. My mother had always been home, and I was never allowed to go anywhere where there wasn’t a parent, so I didn’t even know if I would’ve been a drinker, if I’d had the chance.

  “A beer won’t kill you,” he said. Then he pulled it back a couple of inches. “Not to push you. I’ll drink it if you don’t want it.”

  I studied Tyler for a moment. He didn’t look much like his friends. For one thing, he wasn’t a beast. From my best judgment, he was a little over six feet, and solid, but not bulky. He had a refined appearance, an angular jawline and visible cheekbones, and if he replaced the varsity jacket with a pea coat and scarf he’d be ready for the Ivy League…or Hogwarts.

  He dropped his arm, let the can dangle from his fingers and glanced at the fire. The light danced on his skin. When he looked back at me, half his face was thrown into shadow.

  “It’s probably a little uncomfortable for you,” he said. “All these people you barely know all buzzed and obnoxious.”

  “A little,” I said.

  “We could go for a walk, if you want. There’s a trail near here that’s usually pretty clear. Just to get away for a few minutes.”

  I didn’t want to leave the warmth of the fire, the little comfort I took from the light and the few familiar faces. But then my eyes strayed to the flame on the hill again, winking as the wind blew through the trees, and it seemed so far away, so unreal.

  “Okay,” I said, nodding.

  Tyler raised his brows again. “Okay?”

  “Sure. As long as you’re not going to get us lost.”

  `He smiled. “Nah. I’ve been down this trail a hundred times.” He hesitated, then held out the beer again. “Did you want this, or….”

  I stared at the can. My father drank a lot of beer, but I didn’t recognize the label. I reached out, meaning to take it and get a better look, but Tyler popped the top with one finger before he handed it to me.

  “My dad likes these microbrews,” he said.

  “You were supposed to drink this,” I said, lifting the can at him as he began to lead me away from the fire.

  “I have two more in my jacket,” he said over his shoulder. He reached back and took my hand, pulling me along.

  We crunched on the packed snow for a few minutes, listening to the noise of the bonfire weaken and die out. Brianna’s cackle carried on the air one more time before the night went quiet and we laughed softly, our breath white against the darkness.

  “Interesting girl, Brianna,” Tyler said, his voice almost a whisper. I heard him crunch his can. He slid another beer out of his jacket pocket and replaced it with the empty. I took a small sip of my own beer, the cold radiating from the can already seeping through my mitten.

  “That’s a good word for her,” I said. “Interesting.” Then I quickly added, “She was nice to me when I first got here. Letting me sit with you guys and everything.”

  “Yeah, very sweet.” He said. “Anyway, I’m sorry about all that. You know, teasing you about New Jersey and stuff. I was just kidding around.”

  “I know.”

  He took a long guzzle of his beer and I sipped mine. A few moments later, we came to a small clearing with a few evergreens dotted through the middle. The snow was a bit thicker than on the trail, but had been packed in some places by skis and boards. Moonlight shone unhindered here, dusting everything in silver.

  “This is part of The Glades,” Tyler said. “It’s a system of ski trails that leads through the trees all the way to the bottom.”

  “Looks dangerous.” I couldn’t imagine trying to navigate through a forest on a board.

  “It can be,” Tyler said, leading me to a huge boulder beneath a thick tree. He sat on one side of the rock and then pulled me down next to him. “They’re expert trails, and they’re not even open at night. There’s no light, and even if there was it’d be a mess.”

  “I can imagine.” And I could; the carnage of people dangling upside down from boards, their edges stuck in trees, skiers wrapped around trunks and caught in evergreen boughs, their calls for help mere echoes in blind patches of dark. I laughed at myself and took another sip of beer. Tyler did too.

  “What are you smiling about?” He asked. He reached out and smoothed a long strand of my hair between his thumb and forefinger. When I turned my head to answer, he leaned over and kissed me. It was slow and wet for a closed-mouthed kiss, and as practiced as a textbook football play, and although I had kissed only two other boys in my life - short-term boyfriends during my Sophomore year - the cold, sinking feeling in my stomach told me it was wrong. That, and the image of Bren behind my closed eyes. But I hadn’t seen Bren in a week, since the angry blonde had found us together on his porch, and pushing Tyler away wasn’t going to change that.

  Still, the clammy feeling in my stomach was too much to ignore.

  I broke away, but I couldn’t seem to make eye contact, so I leaned back and looked down at my beer. Tyler brushed my neck with the backs of his fingers, then lifted my chin and kissed me again. This time, he tried to push his tongue into my mouth and I pulled back.

  “Wait,” I said.

  "Sorry,” he said. “You’re so pretty, I just…” He sighed hard and took another long sip of beer, shaking the last drops of the can into his mouth before crushing it as he had the other one and cramming it into his pocket.

  I raised my beer to my lips, but found I didn’t want anymore and lowered it again. Tyler took this as some kind of cue. He smiled.

  “Ready now?” He asked.

  “Hmm?” I would have been relieved if he’d wanted to go back. In fact, I was fighting the urge to jump up and run, stopping only when I got past the doors of the hotel and all the way back up to the suite. I imagined having tea with my mother and making up some harmless account of my blast of a night. The comfort of the thought only brought a wave of panic.

  “Ready now?” Tyler said again, and before I could answer he grabbed my face with both hands and kissed me hard, this time succeeding in pushing his tongue all the way into my mouth. He t
asted like beer, smelled like second-hand ash and cologne. I tried to pull away from him, pushing at his shoulders as he wound his fingers into the back of my hair.

  “Stop it Tyler,” I said. He dragged his mouth down my neck, his hand holding mine down. My beer fell to the ground. Then, unbelievably, the first day I saw Tyler grew sharp in my memory. He had thrown something at a girl and she responded in the same way I just did. She said, “stop it, Tyler,” and threw something back at him. She played the game with him, and he laughed at her.

  “Stop,” I said again, and then I screamed the word as loud as I could.

  Tyler grabbed both my arms, his fingers biting into my flesh, and shook me.

  “Stop screaming,” he said through his teeth.

  I continued to fight him and he shook me harder. My arms numbed under his grip.

  “You’re hurting me,” I said. “Let go.”

  He leaned in until his mouth was against my ear. “Then stop,” he said, as if I had missed the most reasonable solution to all this. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” He let his lips brush against my neck again. “Unless you want it to.”

  I felt the trunk of the tree against my back. I had not considered that I might be trapped between it and Tyler. Now he had his hands cuffed around my wrists and was pushing his body against mine, pinning me, my lower half against the rock, the rough tree bark digging into my spine and shoulders.

  “No.” I said, the word occurring to me like some magical command. But it held no power. It only made things illegal, which made no difference in this moment.