Winter Fire Page 7

  I tried to yank my wrists out of his grip, repeating the word over and over again, hearing it die on my lips, fighting the weight of his body as he pushed harder against me. Finally, he released one of my hands only to run his own hand over my stomach, his skin clammy and hot as he searched for the button on my jeans. I considered that this might be a nightmare, but it was too cold, and I was too scared. Never in all my nightmares, even in those that haunted me while my parents were splitting up, had I been this scared. I considered going limp and letting it happen, giving up and getting it over with, but I found that I couldn’t. The sensation was like peering over a bridge. The urge to jump never quite overpowered the survival instinct. So I kept fighting him, kept yelling ‘no’ despite the bite of his fingers, kept struggling beneath his force. But I was losing.

  “Just let it happen,” Tyler said in my ear, as if he smelled blood in the water. “You won’t regret it. Don’t worry.”

  As he took both my wrists in one hand and clamped down so hard I thought he would break me, a guttural scream rose in my throat.

  Then I heard the thud.

  Tyler sat bolt upright and stopped moving. He stared wide-eyed into my face for a few seconds, his mouth open, then fell backward into the snow.

  I was afraid to move or breathe. My wrists throbbed and my ears rang in the silence. When I was finally able to heave in a breath and push myself up on trembling arms, the first thing I saw was Tyler lying unconscious in a drift. The second was a pair of boarding boots, purple, planted wide above his head.

  Skye stood with one hand on her hip, the other arm clutching her board. She stared at me as if she hadn’t noticed Tyler was there at all.

  While she waited for me to stop shaking, for my breath to even out, for my muscles to begin to relax, she scanned the scene around me. Her face was calm, the moonlight glinting in her wide eyes. Poking Tyler’s shoulder with one boot, she crouched down and picked my half-full beer can out of the snow, then stood and held it up to peer at it.

  “If you hadn’t been here…” My voice was wavering.

  “Is it some habit of yours to go off alone with boys you hardly know?” Her eyes shifted to mine as she dropped her arm, the can still clutched in her pale, slender hand.

  I should have been angry at this, at her cold tone and her accusation, but I was still flooded with relief. I didn’t know how a girl her size had managed to knock Tyler out cold – she had nothing on her but her board, and there was no way she could have brought it down with the necessary force – but at the moment I didn’t care. I had been spared something unimaginable.

  “No,” I said. “It isn’t. I know Tyler from school. This was just supposed to be a walk.” I felt like I owed her something else, but wasn’t sure what to say. “The other day…” I started.

  She broke into my words. “There’s a trail across the clearing that leads straight back to the lodge.” She pointed behind me, then dropped her board and slid her front foot in. Crouching to buckle the binding, she glanced at me and held up the can. “Go home Jenna. You don’t belong here.”

  She tossed the can onto Tyler’s chest, spraying beer onto his jacket. Then she locked in her back boot, stood up, and pushed off towards the woods.

  “What about Tyler?” I called after her. I didn’t care about Tyler, but getting charged as an accessory to murder if he died of hypothermia or head trauma would be a little insulting after what he had almost done.

  “He’ll come to in a few minutes,” she said without looking back. “He won’t tell. That’s up to you.”

  Somehow, she found enough of a slope to take off. The violet streaks in her hair seemed brighter in the dark, flashing as they whipped around her head.

  She made a switchblade turn behind a copse of trees, leaning hard, her bare hand grazing the snow, and in that moment I knew she was the rider I had seen coasting toward the strange fire in the middle of the night.

  Chapter 9

  My legs shook when I stood, but I didn’t want to risk being around when Tyler woke up. The emotions boiled inside me like some botched chemistry experiment…fear, anger, embarrassment. Skye thought I was stupid, coming out here with Tyler alone. She was right, I barely knew him, and I had heard about these situations a million times. I wondered where she had come from, that she could have heard me struggling and appeared so quickly. And my mother. She’d be disappointed, and in utter disbelief that I hadn’t listened to anything she’d told me. Then she’d ask me all kinds of humiliating questions. She’d call Tyler’s parents, she’d call the school and the police…my life as anyone normal would be over. And yet, I still wanted so badly to run to her now, to let her hold me and tell me that she was going to take care of everything, that it would all be okay.

  I stared around the clearing, remembering the path Skye had pointed out, and at first couldn’t find it. Finally, I looked up into the sky, scanning the stars, imagining what they looked like as I stood on the deck outside the lodge, and began to orient myself. I started walking.

  The adrenaline still lingered in my veins and kept me warm as I tried to force my breath into slow rhythm with my footsteps. I was calming a little now, my mind beginning to sort thoughts and feelings from the rubble. Nothing happened, I told myself, it could’ve, but it didn’t. And Skye was right. Tyler wouldn’t tell anybody. He would wait to see who I would tell…what I would say. I didn’t want to think about it now.

  The evergreens closed in thick around me and I felt hidden in their darkness. I couldn’t see the lights of the resort yet, but the path was clear and there were worn, rounded footprints of all sizes and treads in the trampled snow. As the wind blew, white drifts from the high branches swirled down and circled me. The flakes landed in my hair and on my clothes, and I imagined being buried in them, camouflaged, transformed into part of the wintery night. It was a peaceful thought, and in it I found my first steady breaths.

  I unzipped my jacket, stopped and closed my eyes. Nothing happened, I thought.

  After a moment, the crunch of footsteps broke the silence.

  Tyler. My heart tripped. My eyes opened wide. Relief.

  Bren stood a few feet away, searching my face, his eyes blazing. He didn’t have his board, but he was wearing his boots and a thick blue hoodie, unzipped, sleeves pushed up. His hair was windswept, his cheeks red.

  I sighed and closed my eyes again, then stared back at him.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” I said. I had forced a casual tone into my voice, but what I wanted more than anything was for him to hold on to me, to feel his soft sweatshirt against my face, to know what he smelled like. Maybe I shouldn’t have wanted anyone to touch me after what had just happened, but there it was.

  “Are you all right?” He said. His teeth were ground together, the muscles in his jaw flexing.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I was just at the bonfire. I’m headed back toward the lodge.”

  He scanned my body all the way to the ground and back up, his gaze stopping on the waist of my jeans, the collar of my sweater, my hair. Then he took a gentle step closer to me, as if he was trying not to scare a rabbit, and looked into my eyes.

  “What happened?”

  My stomach clenched. How could he have known? How could he have gotten to me so fast?

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked him. “Where’s your board?”

  “What happened, Jenna?” The forced softness was gone from his voice. He held my gaze.

  “Nothing, it was stupid.” I said.

  I watched the slow rise of his chest as he took in a long breath. He waited.

  “I was at the bonfire,” I said. “And it was getting loud and a little wild, so this guy I know from school asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. To get away from the noise for a few minutes.”

  He was still as stone, his stare so heavy I felt like I would buckle underneath it. When he didn’t speak, I went on.

  “So, stupidly, I went.” I shrugged, grasping for words. “I didn’t th
ink he was drunk,” I said. “I mean, he didn’t seem it. Anyway, we ended up in this clearing, and we were just sitting on a rock talking, and then all of a sudden , out of nowhere, he just, you know, he tried to kiss me.”

  I didn’t want to relive what had happened, not one word or thought, not ever again. But Bren’s glare, the set of his jaw, the force of his gaze, the way he loomed so huge in my vision…not even my father could have commanded that kind of obedience. So I went on.

  “So I said ‘no’ and he didn’t stop. I tried every way I could to say ‘no,’ but he didn’t stop. And then Skye was there and she…I don’t know, I think she hit him with something. She knocked him out.” I opened my mouth to say that he was still there, for all I knew, and thought better of it. “And now here I am,” I said instead.

  He stared at me for what seemed like a long time, every muscle frozen. Then he closed his eyes and exhaled in a slow, controlled stream. When looked at me again, his focus was still intense, but less furious. A second later his eyes flashed to a place over my shoulder. I followed his glance to the path behind me. It was empty.

  “He’s probably back at the bonfire by now,” I said quickly, then added, “There are a lot of kids up there.”

  His jaw tightened again as he eyed me. Then a tiny, contemptuous grin curled his lips.

  “He’s not getting away with it,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to do anything.”

  “I didn’t ask you.”

  “I mean it,” I said, a twinge of panic in my voice, “I haven’t figured out how I want to handle it yet. And nothing happened. I mean, it was stopped.”

  “But he wasn’t. Do you understand that?” He started to lean toward me but pulled himself back.

  I did understand. But my legs were shaking and I was, literally, not out of the woods yet, and this decision was mine and I needed it. I needed it to lean on, to keep me from falling face first into a breakdown.

  I hadn’t answered him, but he made some small gesture - not a nod, exactly, but a reluctant acceptance. He hissed through his teeth, then put his hands on his hips and shook his head at the ground.

  This small breath of control that he relinquished to me on the cold, still air seemed to rush inside me like a first gasp, as if I had almost drown in my own helplessness. For the first time, I felt what Tyler had tried to take from me. What I had almost lost. Where would I have been in this very moment, who would I have been, if things had gone differently? My heart raced again. Tears blurred my sight. I tilted my head to try to keep them from brimming and watched the stars stretch into silver streaks above me.

  “Jenna.” His voice was a close, rough whisper.

  I lowered my gaze, a tear falling onto each cheek as he entwined his fingers in my hair. His skin was so warm, his eyes so grave as they locked onto mine. He grazed my jaw with his thumb and leaned back to search my face.

  I clamped my teeth together to slow the tears and trembling. I wanted him to crush me into his darkness and heat. I wanted to hide where he lived beyond the reach of the world.

  His lips parted as if he was going to speak, and then his expression stilled. His face was a sketch by moonlight - his eyes deep wells with shimmering pools, his hair slashing his forehead in dark jags, the lines of his mouth full and frozen on an unformed thought - and I imagined his arms around me, my face against his shoulder, the drifts from the trees falling white and soft around us.

  For a moment he shook his head back and forth almost imperceptibly, then he grasped my shoulders and pulled me into him so that I lost my breath and didn’t care if I ever got it back.

  I closed my eyes and let my head drop onto his shoulder, wound my arms around his waist, flattened my hands against his back. Beneath the soft padding of his sweatshirt he was solid and strong. I breathed him in. His scent was pine and mint, but sweet like Christmas. As a tuft of his hair brushed my forehead, I smelled wood smoke and something exotic and herby. He tightened his hold and I pressed my fingers hard into his shoulder blades. His heart was beating fast, mine faster. He slid one hand up my back and into my hair, his body warming me like red coals. I let myself rise and fall with his breath.

  “It’s okay now.” His words vibrated against my ear.

  I nodded against him. My cheek was still wet. Sniffling, I swallowed some final tears.

  “I know.” My voice was thick. I was afraid to say anything that would make him pull away. As if he had heard my thought, he curled his hand low around my waist and tugged me closer. The gesture was instinctual. There was more than consolation in it, and my stomach fluttered. Before I could stop myself, I let out a hard, fast breath against his chest.

  He took half a step back and moved his hand to my upper arm, pressed his face into my hair. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  I was quickly chilled by the space between us. I lifted my head to look at him. It felt like it weighed a million pounds.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I…”

  “No, it’s okay.’

  “You’re shaking.”

  I looked down at my hands. He laced his fingers through mine. A snowflake fell between us, then another. We glanced up at the sky, still an endless deep and full of jagged, glinting stars.

  “I’ll walk you back,” he said. He released one of my hands and began to lead me forward by the other. I didn’t want to go back, but as cold as it was, the moment itself did not freeze.

  I started to crunch along with him.

  We were quiet. I wondered what he was thinking, ached already with the memory of his body against mine, his breath in my hair. I wanted to walk forever, to feel my hand in his, to be alone with him in the stillness of the woods. But then we rounded a curve in the path and the lights of the resort began to emerge. They reflected off the smooth field of snow unrolled before us.

  I stopped before the last stand of trees. Our arms stretched as Bren took another two paces, turned toward me, and stepped back again.

  “What is it?” He asked.

  I shook my head. “I just don’t want to go back.”

  He watched me struggle for an explanation.

  “My mother…” I said when the silence had gone on too long. “I just don’t want to see anybody right now.”

  “You don’t have to explain anything tonight. Not if you don’t want to.” His voice was gentle.

  “It’s not that. I feel better now.” And I did. Standing here with Bren, with the resort lit up and glowing just beyond us, the whole incident with Tyler could have been a bad dream.

  I didn’t know what to say to him. The truth was that I didn’t want to contaminate my thoughts - my world - with anything ordinary right now, that I wanted to burn everything I could remember about these last few moments with Bren into my mind. I knew I couldn’t ask for another chance. How could I betray Skye after what she had done for me?

  “Why don’t you want to go home?” Bren asked. And before I could answer, he narrowed his eyes and peered right into mine, as if trying to draw out some detail.

  “What?” I mimicked his expression.

  “How much did you drink tonight? Is that the reason you don’t want to see your mother?”

  I gaped at him, caught off guard. “I wasn’t drinking.” And then I thought of the beer I had taken from Tyler. “Not really.”

  He raised a brow.

  I flushed, thinking of the way it had tasted and smelled on Tyler. Crude and unstable. “I only had a few sips.” I sounded pathetic. “Not even half of one.” Pathetic.

  He stared at me, unblinking, the muscles in his jaw flexing as they had before.

  “That stuff is garbage.” He said.

  “I don’t drink,” I said, shrugging one shoulder. “I never drink. I don’t even like beer.”

  “Then why were you drinking tonight?”

  I fixed him with an annoyed glare. The truth was that I was drinking because I was angry that I hadn’t seen him in days, that some beautiful pixie had just strolled up and claimed him with a fe
w sharp words and a pissed off flip of her hair. And more than any of that, that he hadn’t even bothered to look for me since. I had been drinking out of spite. Yes. Pathetic.

  “You’ll just poison yourself with that stuff.” He said.

  And just like that he had scaled my defensive wall and was standing in the toxic garden of my temper.

  I stepped toward him and glowered up into his face. “What are you, some kind of walking Losers Anonymous meeting? I mean, aren’t all you snowboarders supposed to be drinkers and potheads? I hear them talking about it all the time around here. They get stoned on the lift. They get drunk to cure their hangovers. I mean, where’s your team spirit? Your whole culture is depending on you.”

  “My culture?” When he was finished laughing, he took a step closer to me. “Jenna, I’m going to tell you something that is going to sound every bit as arrogant as it is.” He took another step. “I’m not like them.” He lifted his arms, palms up. “I am awesome. And my awesomeness is not fueled by alcohol and pot.” He paused, then let his arms drop.

  “Thank you for that public service announcement.” I said. “I can see now that there is really no room in your body for illegal substances, what with the size of your ego.”

  He ignored the sarcasm. “It’s true. You just have to believe it.”

  “Then why isn’t everyone awesome?” I gave the word a dramatic hiss.

  “Fear.”

  “Fear.”

  “Right. Look what you’ve been through trying to conquer your fear of one small mountain.”

  Immediately, the bruises on my body begin to ache, the pulled muscle in my neck, the strain in my ankle.

  “Most people want to take the easy way out…change something outside of themselves first. Like, you might have thought the mountain was too steep, or too icy, or whatever. But the problem is, the mountain is exactly what it’s supposed to be. So if you change yourself, lose your fear, you can be what you’re supposed to be, and then the mountain changes.”

  I huffed. “You had me until ‘the mountain changes.’ It doesn’t change. It’s exactly the same.”