5
“Boo, please don’t,” I beg, reaching out to grip the back of his jacket as he turns toward the door. “It’s only been three days, you’re not ready to go back.”
His right eye is nearly swollen shut as he peers down at me. “Stop it. If I miss one more day, they’ll fire me. I have to go.”
“No, you don’t,” I insist. “You should’ve told them what happened. Medical leave is a thing, right? They would’ve given you time to heal.”
“God damnit, I can’t keep having this conversation with you,” Boo snaps. “I can’t tell them what happened and I can’t tell you why, either. Just fucking trust me, okay?”
He wrenches out of my grip with a grunt. There’s no denying how much pain he’s in, and with injuries like this, his reflexes are nowhere near up to par. If The Sons come after him again, they’ll kill him .
I’m so, so fucking tired of being afraid. The fear coiling in my chest is as familiar to me as our peeling yellow wallpaper, and just as unwelcome as I watch him walk out the door.
The gust of frigid air chills me to the bone as he slams it behind him.
Fine.
I’m not sitting at home waiting for him to get killed.
Sliding my boots on and grabbing my jacket, I pause only long enough for his cruiser to disappear out of the driveway and around the corner. If he doesn’t want to tell me what he’s up to, he doesn’t need to know what I’m doing, either.
The engine of my grey 1992 Ford Ranger reluctantly roars to life. As the defrosters work overtime to clear the windshield, I double back to the garage to grab my ice skates and the thickest pair of gloves I own. I notice — not for the first time — that little tufts of down are falling out of my coat sleeve, and do my best to shove them back inside as I make my way back to the truck. Giving the chains on the tires a once over, I climb back in and flip the wipers on until the ice on the windshield is almost completely gone .
I really shouldn’t be doing this.
I know what Boo and Hayes would say: “Don’t be stupid.” “What exactly is a tiny little girl going to do about it that grown men can’t?” “Are you trying to make this harder on us?” “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Maybe. But I’m not stupid enough to confront any of The Sons directly. Carter Jennings has a sister my age who I was friendly with in high school, and if the rumors I’ve heard are true, Holt Turner’s little brother Tristan just started hitting the party scene.
On a night like this with no blizzards, a nearly full moon, and violence in the air... they’ll all be at the quarry.
––––––––
I flip my high beams off as I descend down the hill to the quarry entrance and park my truck. There are dozens of vehicles here, and I’m pleased to see Carly Jenning’s glitter-wrapped 4Runner is one of them. I spot her wildly curly red hair zipping past a group of drunk guys as she skates along the frozen pond, but decide not to confront her right away.
It’s been months since I’ve been down here. Nestled in the hollowed out crook of a limestone mine, the teenagers and twenty-somethings of Cape Frost have been making this quarry a party spot for as long as I can remember. Powered by two small generators, there are white bubble lights hanging from the rock face and looping around the water, spotlights shining into the sky, and speakers blasting music that echoes through the chasm. Coupled with the tiki torches everywhere and the open fire pits, it’s really not a bad place to hang out — even if my brother made me promise never to come back after he caught me last time.
Nerves mount as I slip out of my truck and make my way over to the barrels full of whiskey bottles and coolers full of beer. Two guys I vaguely recognize are plopping tabs of acid on their tongues while the girl standing between them looks like she’s been tripping for a while.
Good for them.
“Do you mind?” I ask, gesturing to the cooler full of spiked tea and grabbing one when the taller one shakes his head. The bottle hisses when I twist the cap off.
“Chug it,” he yells over the music. “That’s the rule.”
Oh, that’s not dangerous at all .
I try to laugh it off, but the playful grin on his face vanishes.
“I’m serious. Chug it.”
Raising my eyebrows, I take a sip and hold the neck to my lips for a few extra seconds, blocking the opening with my tongue. I’m not much of a drinker, and I can’t afford to get sloshed off of a single drink when I came here for a reason.
Things get more complicated when that reason walks up behind Tripper #2.
“What’s going on?”
“New girl doesn’t know the rules.”
Tristan Turner eyes me with dangerous, calculating amusement. He looks so much like Holt with his hunched shoulders, thick eyebrows and sharp nose that it’s hard to remember they’re years apart in age, not twins. “That’s my booze, new girl. If you want it, you have to earn it.”
Not one part of me wants to, but if I can get Tristan talking, I might be able to discover something useful. “Rules are rules,” I say lightly, bracing myself and squeezing my eyes shut as I chug.
Fuck, I’m happy I chose something that isn’t carbonated.
It still leaves me breathless when I’m done, but Tristan snatches the empty bottle from my hand and replaces it with a full one. “You’re the cursed girl, aren’t you? I recognize the shitty energy you’re putting off.”
God, I hate it here. “That’s me. You’re Holt’s little brother, right?”
“I’m nobody’s little brother.”
Ahh, so there’s a bit of a complex there. I can use that. “Sorry. You’re Holt’s brother?”
“More like he’s my brother. Stupid fuck doesn’t deserve to be put first just because he’s...”
“He’s what?” I push.
“Older.”
The sour look on his face tells me that’s not what he was going to say. There’s something in his eyes, maybe resentment? Humanity? Again, things I can use.
I take a sip of my second drink as I pull out my phone, pretending to check a message. Instead, I open my voice memo app and start recording. “If it makes you feel any better, he’ll probably end up in jail soon.”
Tristan takes a long, lumbering step toward me, crowding my space. The flames from the nearby fire flicker across his cheekbones and the stench of beer comes off his breath so strongly, I cower back. He looks like the devil. “You don’t know anything,” he says in a low growl. “So I suggest you shut your fucking mouth unless you want me to shut it for you. Now chug.”
It’s hard to breathe with him this close to me. I turn slightly to walk away, but Tristan grabs my arm, takes the bottle from me, then wrenches my jaw open and starts pouring. I choke, sputtering the spiked tea up so it splashes all over his coat.
“Jesus fuck,” he hisses. “Messy bitch. Do it right.”
I nearly drop the bottle when he forces me to take it. The apple clearly didn’t fall far from the tree.
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” I say quickly. “I won’t be drinking anymore.”
Suddenly, the air around me changes. Shadows stretch over the snow-covered ground, telling me silently that I’m surrounded. Maybe this is why Boo has always told me to stay away from the quarry and the people who come here.
“Oh, I don’t think you’re going anywhere just yet. Ed, grab the Everclear. We’ll make her have a little fun if it kills her, cursed or not.”
The only thing that gives me any solace at all is knowing this entire thing is being recorded. If they hurt me, I’ll have proof — and some stubborn little part of me is still convinced that if I can get to Carly, maybe she’ll tell me something I can use.
So, I chug the second tea and take the bottle of Everclear when it’s offered. Again, I try to plug the opening with my tongue and only let enough through to stain my breath, but Tristan’s thugs tip it up higher and send burning, awful alcohol straight down my throat.
They’re laughing at me, I can hear them. I choke back the irritation in my throat as much as I can, but then the bottle is clinking against my teeth again and it’s all I can do to swallow.
It dribbles down my chin and slides down my neck, settling on the collar of my shirt under my jacket. The wind whips past me, chilling the wet fabric enough to make me shiver. Please, please be done.
They’re just about to make me take another swig when the stereo abruptly cuts out, causing groans and loud cusses that draw Tristan’s attention. In the moments he’s preoccupied, I slip out.
Fuck Carly, fuck those boys, and fuck all of this. I want to go home .
But with every step I take toward my truck, I feel the alcohol hitting a little harder. I can’t drive home like this. Boo made me promise above everything else that if I ever drank, I wouldn’t drive. Not on these roads, not in this town. Not ever.
So I call him.
“What the fuck are you doing there?” he demands before I even get the words out. “Sam, I— fuck. Just sit tight, okay? Someone’s coming.”
The line goes dead before I can ask who ‘someone’ is. I don’t have the time to dwell on it either, because I hear Tristan’s pissed off voice drifting through the quarry.
“Where’d that little bitch go? Find her. Bring her back to me, I wasn’t done playing with her.”
Fuck. My head is swimming and it’s suddenly very hot in this coat, but I know better than to take it off even if the dark color makes me stick out like a sore thumb against the pale ground. The moonlight is too bright to hide, anyway. All I can do is hope to stay out of sight until that ‘someone’ finally comes.
I shouldn’t have come here.