Page 3 of After the Fade, Vol. 1 (Asheverse: B-Side)
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Quit being such a baby and get out of the water.”
“I’m going to rip his balls off and then I’ll kill him.”
“His balls? Worry about my balls. They’re freezing.”
With a groan, I hauled myself onto the rock ledge. Freezing air snapped around me like elastic. My whole body tried to shrink.
My whole, whole body.
Austin, dancing in place, glanced up the path. “Come on.”
“I really am going to kill him.”
We ran. The path, which had seemed so smooth before, had a million pebbles and burrs and brittle stalks of winter-dry grass. And pinecones. They seeded the path like landmines.
“Let me talk to him,” Austin said as the cabin came into view. His breath steamed in the March air. His hair hung in icicles across his forehead, and his big shoulders prickled with goosebumps.
“You talk to him. I’ll kill him.”
Austin kept to the frozen dirt as much as possible, tiptoeing across the gravel drive like a cartoon character walking on fire. Maybe it’d be funny, later, seeing a naked Austin tiptoe like that. But it wasn’t funny now. Now, it made me want to see how hard I could squeeze Emmett’s scrawny neck.
What Emmett wanted out of me—what he always wanted out of me—was a reaction. And, nine times out of ten, Emmett got it. He’d show up drunk to a party just so I’d have to ditch Austin and take care of him. He’d show up at my house, thirsty as fuck, just to give me blue balls. He’d cut me off, the way he’d been doing lately, to see if I’d come scratching at his back door like a mutt.
Today, though, the cold air was helping. The fact that I’d just stomped across frozen dirt was helping. My head was clear, and I wasn’t going to give Emmett what he wanted. I wasn’t going to stand there, my balls trying to crawl up into my stomach, my nipples turning purple, and beg for my clothes back.
As Austin went up onto the porch, I trotted up the hill, making for the break in the blackberry bushes. In March, not all the snow had melted. Not even close. And no matter how much I tried, I kept coming down in it, sometimes ankle deep, and my feet first felt like pins and needles. Then they felt like fire. And then they felt heavy and dull. Bad signs. What kind of joke was Emmett playing? This was worse than just a dumb prank; it was dangerous. I’d grab a change of clothes from the tents, and then I’d go back to the cabin and break his nose. Oh these? I’d say it casually. Just some clothes I packed. Extra. Plenty warm, thank you very much. Just wanted to see how you were doing. And then bam. Flatten his nose like a fucking pie plate.
At the break in the blackberry bushes, I stopped and swore. A wind cut right along my ass cleft, and blackberry thorns sliced my shoulders and arms, but I barely noticed.
The tent was gone. The gear was gone.
My stomach flipped; I jogged back down the slope. My feet barely had any sensation, and I slipped more than I jogged, and when I caught myself on the trunk of a ponderosa pine, the bark scraped my palm raw. At the stable, I was shaking so badly that I had to wiggle the door open—my muscles weren’t responding right.
But they were working well enough for me to swear again.
The horses were gone too.