Chapter 6 The winds are changing #2
“Mommy, I hope you’re not joking right now because it would be very mean to joke like that, and you always tell me to be nice, so I need you to be nice too and tell me you’re not joking,” Emett rushes out all in one breath as his voice pitches higher and higher toward the end of it.
I let out a soft laugh, his excitement warming my chest and shake my head. “I wouldn’t do that to my favorite son now, would I?”
“I’m your only son, Mommy,” he deadpans, the sound way too old for his age but that’s my Emett in a nutshell. “You gotta say it.” He pops his eyes out at me, and I laugh harder.
“I’m not joking. We are going to see my best friend Electra and your favorite hockey player, Exton Quinn.”
The loudest, highest pitched noise ping-pongs from every rusted wall of our car as Emett screeches and jumps in his car seat, nearly undoing his buckles. “OHMYGOD!”
“Emett!”
“I’m sorry, Mommy! But do you see all these emotions?
I have way too many right now and I can’t keep them inside!
OHMYGOD!” he yells out again, and I shake my head, smiling, while mentally cursing Stella.
I swear, that grandma of his is going to be the death of me if she keeps teaching him her stash of inappropriate vocabulary for a four-year-old.
I should’ve expected this blow out of excitement, though.
Ever since I told him about an opportunity to have a training session with Exton, he’s been nagging me to go see him.
And never in my wildest dreams did I think that could ever be possible but then a week ago, a best friend I haven’t seen in years walked into Blade’s—the bar where I work—along with Exton Quinn behind her, pushing the wheelchair she’s now in.
If they say you’re the maker of your own fate, then how come both Electra and I couldn’t escape the shitty ones we were dealt from the days we were born?
No, instead, it dangled that pretty, charmed life in front of our noses for a little while before laughing in our faces as it sent us back to reality.
Electra did leave for Boston that day five years ago, and she made it big in figure skating.
She made it so big, she won every trophy there was.
She had one of the best partners-turned-boyfriend.
She was just steps away from taking the Olympics when one wrong move sent her crashing to the unforgiving ice, breaking far more than just bones in the process.
I haven’t spoken to my best friend since that day she left.
I know she was busy with her training and setting up in the new city and I—well, I wasn’t one for company for a while there and then our lives took us in different directions, so there’s no one to blame for our falling apart, no matter how much Electra is trying to blame herself now.
But I kept an eye on her career. Knew what was going on, especially since Stella took off to Boston as soon as we heard about the accident on the ice and brought Electra back home to Iris Lake, so she could heal the broken soul she was left with.
When I first saw Electra in Blade’s it wasn’t the wheelchair that shocked me. No, it was the look in her eyes.
So gone. So lost. So terrified but also living on another planet.
Physically, she looked like the best friend I once knew. Emotionally…mentally, she was just as broken as I was. Albeit, for different reasons. The only times you could see a resemblance of life in them were when her stupidly hot, hockey player babysitter—Exton—was getting on her nerves.
It was almost amusing to watch. Until Stella barged in and pressured the said hockey player into seeing my son for a practice. I have no idea what she has on him to make him jump at a mere word, but honestly, I’m not surprised she does. That woman will go to war for one of her own.
I was really reluctant at first. I hate hand-outs. I hate to be a burden and won’t ever make the mistake of making my son one for anyone in this life.
However, nothing about Exton said he’d be doing charity work. There wasn’t a single pitying look in his hard eyes as he offered to train Emett for the time being and I took his offer and ran with it.
Hence why we’re pulling into their long driveway covered in white, glistening snow on the outskirts of Iris Lake. This house is yet another new thing about Electra. Back in the “before,” she’d chosen to live in the middle of our small town. Somewhere close to people and noise.
Today, she’s as remote as you can get, in her small wooden cabin at the edge of the lake itself. The lake that’s covered in a thick layer of ice.
“Is this it?” Emett unbuckles himself before I even have the chance to set the car on park, plastering his little face and hands to the window.
“Emett, honey, we talked about staying in your car seat until I come around to get you.”
“Mommy, these hands and legs are out of control, I’m telling you!”
“Uh-huh, well, please tell your hands and legs that if they don’t get a grip, the car might get a mind of its own and start driving back.”
Shaking my head but with a smile on my face, I take a step outside, tightening the pink knit scarf I made earlier this winter around my neck as cold, icy wind meets my tired flesh almost immediately. The force of it almost knocking me off my feet for a second.
I shiver…where did this wind come from? It wasn’t here just a bit ago when we left our house.
Quickly, I open the back door, letting my son and his overly eager extremities out and bend down to make sure his parka is zipped up all the way. Hopefully, the wind settles down a bit when he gets on the lake.
“Mommy,” Emett groans. “Can we go already?”
“One second, let me make sure you’re nice and warm.”
“I’m toasty,” he deadpans. “It’s not even that cold.”
I gape at him. “Are you kidding me? This wind is full of icicles, I’m sure of it.”
Emett frowns, watching me. “Mommy, what wind?”
I open my mouth to tell him to stop playing around, but suddenly, I realize he’s right.
There’s no wind. The naked branches on the trees surrounding us are not swaying in the slightest. There’s no howling I swear I heard just seconds ago, and it’s my turn to frown.
“Huh,” I muse to myself. I guess all the sleepless nights are finally catching up to me and I’m losing it. Great.
Blowing out a long breath, I straighten and take Emett’s hand. “Okay, Mr. Toasty, please promise to behave and be careful and forget all the smart-butt words your nana taught you.”
“Don’t worry, Mommy, they won’t know I was raised by the wolves for like ten minutes for sure.”
“So much for forgetting all the smart-butt words,” I grumble. “God help me.”
“You are so silly…”
Emett is still talking. I hear him laughing and words spilling at rapid-fast pace, but I can’t understand a thing because I feel something entirely else.
A chill runs down my spine. The hairs on my back raise as I suck in a sharp breath, because this chill? It has nothing to do with the temperature. This chill is the one I’ve felt only once before, five years ago.
I stop dead in the middle of the snowed-in driveway.
The memories of the last time slamming into me all at once and I brace myself.
The wind hasn’t whispered into my ear for half a decade, and all these years I went on thinking what I heard back then was a figment of my imagination yet now as I stand here, I know it’s not the case.
Because the whisper brushes against me like a gentle caress, as if we are long-lost friends reconnecting after years apart.
The winds are changing…
SEVERIN
My phone rings in my pocket as I make my way to my car.
Clearly, today’s not my day if all my nightmares decided to claim my attention at once.
The ringing ends and starts anew because there’s no giving up in the Mineav family.
“Fucking hell,” I curse, about to block my mother for the next few days of peace when I hear Anze calling my name.
“Hey, Sava.” I turn my back to see him jogging up to me.
“What’s up?”
“Heard you’re going to see Axe today.” It’s not a question, but I nod anyway. “Good. Tell that fucker to get his shit together. I’m done playing defense.”
And with that, he stalks off past me toward his blacked-out bike. His leather jacket swaying with each move.
I shake my head—that right there is all you need to know about Anze.
Or all we do know.
The guy drives his bike and wears that jacket no matter the weather outside. He doesn’t do friendly and doesn’t participate in any bullshit.
Sometimes I’m envious of his ability to be so unabashedly himself, and other times I wonder if it’s another brand and make of the same mask I’m wearing.
But I’ll make sure to pass along his message to Exton word for word, even if it’ll have little effect on my idiot friend.
Something changed—flipped—in him since he was tasked with being a glorified babysitter. I thought he’d kill the poor girl for unwillingly being the one to take him off his beloved ice, but instead, she was the one who tackled his heart.
The funniest part is, he doesn’t even realize it yet, but I’ve seen it as clear as a day in his eyes when I visited them a couple of weeks ago. I may not be a fan of love and all it entails, but it seems to have unlocked something in my friend. Something he’s been burying for too long.
Shit, look at me talking like some Jedi over here when I’m no better. The only difference, I don’t have hearts in my eyes. I’ve lost the ability to form them. But if Electra manages to bring him back to life, I’ll get her much more than what’s in this box on my passenger seat.
I look over to the big box with a red bow and grin. Exton will lose his fucking shit.
The phone starts ringing again, and with a sigh, I finally hit the block button.
Three hours later, my forest green truck is blending in with the snow-covered evergreens from every side.
Iris Lake is truly a picturesque little town in Northern Vermont.
The streets are small and quaint, the shops and restaurants all seem welcoming and ready for you with a smile.
Nothing like the busy metropolis where I was raised.
Not Moscow or New York. Maybe if I’d spent my childhood here, I wouldn’t have turn out so jaded.
Nah, who am I kidding, my father would manage to invade my world with his black mold even if I was in a covenant.
Electra Monroe, my friend charge, decided to live on the farthest side of this town, hiding away from everyone’s prying eyes—because let’s not forget, it’s a gossipy small town after all—and I can’t blame her. I’d do the exact same.
I’m not an attention whore like my best friend is.
It’s not that I don’t like it, I simply don’t crave it.
I’m not interested in being gushed over, because they are gushing over a fictional character, Sava—the Brick—a hotshot goalie, not Severin Minaev, whose hands are covered in blood and instead of a heart, a storm rages inside.
A storm that I’ve been keeping at bay all these years and plan on keeping it up for all the rest of them.
A few more turns, and the sprawling Iris Lake itself comes into my view. Electra’s house that looks like a cross between a cozy cabin and a modern getaway, is nestled right at the edge of it, overlooking the icy surface and behind it is a thick, lush forest, still asleep in the early springtime.
The owner herself spots me as soon as my truck comes into view. She’s sitting in her wheelchair at the edge of the lake with a small smile on her face directed my way. Her brown bangs peeking from underneath her knit hat.
I’m still surprised how easy it is to not have to pretend to be someone I’m not around her and Exton. Sure, I still sugarcoat a few sides here and there, but my smiles are not forced, my mood is not faux, and my reactions and conversations—those don’t come from learned behavior.
Electra is a good one, and didn’t deserve the shitty hand that she was dealt.
She was at the top of her game, best of all, up until her partner decided to be a cocky idiot and made a mistake at the final program that cost her the use her legs.
Or more accurately, her spine. The news were brimming with their story in those days.
One slipped blade cost Electra a chance at Olympics while Erik went on as if nothing happened.
As if he didn’t cause that accident and abandoned his girlfriend in a wheelchair.
See, like I said earlier, ice doesn’t take in fools.
Only I wish in their case, Electra wouldn’t be the only one paying the price for her partner’s ego.
It’s a good thing I love to help the universe right the scales from time to time, and Erik Shishkov—the said partner—will get what he deserves. In time.
I spot Exton himself playing on the ice with a small boy, both of them wearing full gear, and my eyebrows lift in amusement. Well, would you look at that. How the mighty grump has fallen.
Finally, I park my car and climb out of it. “Electra!” I shout, my voice ricocheting off the ice and mountains around us, and shoot her a blinding smile that even my oblivious friend won’t miss but I don’t focus my attention on him yet.
Electra sends me a wider grin as she waves, gesturing for me to come over.
There’s someone sitting next to her, hidden behind her chair.
Presumably it’s the little boy’s parent, but I can’t see the person from this angle and decide I don’t care enough about it to strain my neck and figure out who it is.
But just as I go to pull my attention away from them, a gust of searing wind slips under my jacket, shirt, and finally my skin, and an invisible shudder runs through me, despite not a single branch on the trees around me moving even an inch.
The force is so strong it nearly knocks me off my feet just before binding me to the snow-covered ground, teetering me to the place as if my fate was just decided—or fallen into place—and I have no say in it.
My breath picks up, the air flowing in and out of me filled with warmth I don’t have much experience with.
In fact, I’ve only ever felt it once… Before I can gulp it in as much as possible, to draw every starved breath in…it disappears.
Not fully, not completely gone, but the strength is wavering, and I find myself desperately grabbing onto it, halting it.
To everyone else, no more than two, maybe three, seconds have passed, but for me…ions had shifted.
What in the fuck was that?
And that’s when I see it…her…
My nightmare personified.