Tristan (The Ruins of Emblem #1)

by Cora Brent

“What?” The news was outrageous. What did the man hope to gain by depriving the kids of something they’d been looking forward to? Of removing the social outlets they badly needed? “No, he can’t do that.”

  She was sympathetic. “I’m afraid he is doing it. The only reasons the athletics were spared is because the town would erupt without Friday night football.”

  “What a fucking bastard.”

  “Cadence,” Aura whispered. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”

  I should probably care if my boss heard me calling him names but I didn’t. I wondered if Kevin Bertram could feel the heat of my wrath form the other side of Aura Campo’s patio. I doubted it. He was now yawning as Allen Loredo gestured with fat hands while talking up a storm. But Kevin Bertram and I were going to have a talk before the night was over. While I’d be as tactful as I could he’d be receiving an earful.

  Meanwhile, another situation was developing. Rod Ward hadn’t acknowledged either Tristan or me when we arrived. He now decided to remedy that oversight.

  “Here’s the English department representing,” he declared, obnoxiously allowing his hand to land on my shoulder. His eyes flickered over me and then switched to Tristan while I squirmed out of his grip.

  “Mulligan, didn’t expect to see you show up here. It’s been a while since you were running laps on my field.” Rod Ward extended a hand and a shiver went up my spine when I caught a glimpse of Tristan’s face. He stared at his former coach for a few tense seconds then met Ward’s handshake, although the icy glint in his eyes said he’d rather bite the guy’s hand than shake it.

  “Ward,” Tristan said tersely, escaping the handshake as quickly as he could.

  He was obviously uncomfortable and tried to shoulder his way past the coach but Ward blocked his path.

  “So what have you been doing with yourself?” Ward clucked as he checked out Tristan’s black eye. “I have to say, kid, you look exactly the same.” He held up a finger. “Oh wait, I seem to remember the last time we ran into each other your hair was wet. But otherwise, you’re just exactly what you always were.”

  It was a dig for sure, given Tristan’s bruised appearance tonight, although the choice of words was somewhat odd. But I knew Tristan well enough by now to understand he wasn’t especially thin-skinned under normal circumstances. There had to be another reason why he stiffened at my side and shot Rod Ward a glare that was positively lethal.

  “Fuck you,” Tristan said. Loudly.

  Aura gasped. I winced. Ward laughed.

  “Yep, good to know some things never change,” he chuckled, scratching the back of his neck and turning away. “You take care, Mulligan.”

  Now Tristan was the one who wasn’t finished, circling around and forcing Ward into a head-on confrontation. “What about you, Ward?” he challenged. “Are you the exactly the same too? Your dick still get hard from running kids half to death, telling them they’re trash and drowning them in toilets?”

  That day in the hallway, the day when I found Ward with Isaiah Creston, I remembered seeing the coach’s façade slip, fleetingly exposing the face of a furious tyrant. I saw that same face now as Ward stared Tristan down without a shred of remorse. Even if Ward had kept his mask intact I would have had no doubt that Tristan had indirectly told a true story about something that had happened to him, maybe something that turned out to be instrumental in the path his life had taken since then.

  Oh, Tristan.

  My heart hurt for him, for the boy he’d been. I wished he’d confided in me before tonight.

  Ward was visibly irritated. The attention of every single person in the room was now fixated on this unexpected confrontation between teacher and former student.

  “You tried pushing that bullshit story once,” Ward said. “It didn’t do you any good then either.”

  Tristan stepped up to look his nemesis square in the eye. “Fucking deny it then.”

  “Deny it?” Ward’s laugh was hideous. “Do I need to bother? Everyone in this room knows you’re a lying little sack of shit. Always have been, always will be. I’m sure you’ve noticed that big concrete building surrounded by electrified fences in the middle of town. You’ve got some friends wasting away in there right now, don’t you, Mulligan? And everyone in this room knows there’s a cell inside with your name written on it already.”

  “Stop!” Aura cut in. She inserted herself between the two men and her angriest expression was reserved for Rod Ward. “That’s enough childish insults for tonight.”

  I took Tristan’s arm and began to pull him away. “I’m sorry, Aura. We’ll go.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “No, I wish you guys wouldn’t leave. You don’t have to.”

  “We should,” Tristan said. “Or at least I should.”

  He stalked to the door without another word, leaving me hanging on his arm as I tried to keep up. I heard murmurs and then Aura’s husband asking what all the yelling was about.

  I closed Aura’s arched front door. “Tristan.”

  He kept walking, refusing to respond to the way I kept yanking on his arm.

  “Tristan, wait. The things you said about Ward, that was for real, wasn’t it?”

  He stopped. He looked at me. “If I was going to make up a story I’d come up with something more creative than getting my head flushed down a toilet while being called white trash prison meat.”

  “And that happened back when you were at Emblem High?”

  “You think that guy would still be standing on two legs if it had happened yesterday?”

  I didn’t have an answer. We were near Tristan’s truck and he opened up the passenger side. I climbed in and waited for him to join me.

  “When?” I demanded. “When did that happen to you?”

  He sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. “I didn’t mark it on my calendar but around the time my mom got arrested, right before Curtis showed up and moved me and Breck to the valley.” He started the ignition. “It’s not a big deal. I shouldn’t have let him get to me tonight.”

  “Of course it’s a big deal. You were abused by a man who was supposed to offer you guidance and leadership.”

  “Oh fuck.” He exhaled loudly and tilted his head back. “I’m not one of your damn students, Cadence. So just leave heavy hitting words like ‘abused’ off the table. Ward is a bastard to be sure but he’s not worth all this carrying on.”

  “But he’s still there,” I argued. “He’s still teaching, he’s still coaching. You think he’s not treating other kids the same way he treated you?”

  That stopped him cold. He stared out the windshield with a miserable expression.

  “Even all these years later you should tell the administration what happened to you. Tell Bertram.”

  “I did tell,” he said, so quietly I almost missed the words. “Bertram wasn’t the principal then. That cocksucker Packer was in charge but they knew. I told them.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing. They didn’t want to hear any criticism of their golden good old boy coach. I got treated to a five day suspension for making threats. And that was that.”

  I wanted to hold him but his hands were clenched on the steering wheel. “Is that why?” I asked. “Is that why you didn’t want to have anything more to do with school? Why you-“

  “Ended up like this?” He finished, shooting me a strange look. “No, Cadence. I’m not who I am because of Rod fucking Ward. I made my own choices. There’s no one to blame but me.”

  “Tristan, I’m falling in love with you.”

  I hadn’t planned to say it. The words came from someplace instinctive and uninhibited, the most honest kind of words of all. Was it even possible to fall in love so quickly, so tumultuously? I didn’t know. I’d never really been in love before.

  All the air went out of him. He leaned forward and his forehead touched the curved top of the steering wheel as if he was suddenly exhausted beyond reason.

  I could see the l
ights of Aura’s house from where we sat in the parked truck. I swallowed. “We shouldn’t sit here all night.”

  He lifted his head and nodded without even glancing at me. He didn’t have to say the words back. But it would be nice if he at least looked at me. I crossed my arms and huddled against the far side of the seat as the dark side streets of our town scrolled by.

  Tristan parked in front of my grandfather’s house and set the brake but didn’t cut the engine.

  “Are you waiting for me to get out?” I said, now officially hurt by his indifference.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” he said.

  The silence between us was the sound of my heart shattering.

  “Well that’s just fucking great,” I grumbled and reached for the door handle.

  He stopped me, grabbing both my wrists and forcing me to twist around to face him.

  “You don’t understand,” he said.

  I tried to wrench away. “Trust me, I understand.”

  “No, Cadence. I made a promise to myself.”

  “What promise?”

  “That I’d give you up before I dragged you down to my level.” His voice cracked, a sound of grief that I’d never heard from him before. “And now that I might have to follow through I can’t fucking deal with it.”

  “Tristan.” I slid my wrists out of his grasp and reached for him, trying to brush my fingertips over his face in the same awed and tender way I did every time I awoke before he did and rolled over to watch him sleep. But now he was wide awake now. He didn’t want anything gentle touching him.

  “Come inside the house,” I pleaded. “We’ll talk.”

  “We are talking.”

  “Damn you, don’t shut me out!” I yelled, just to get a reaction. “I don’t understand why you do this out of the blue. You close yourself off. To me, to your brothers. You and Curtis aren’t even speaking. And Brecken…” I stopped.

  But now he wanted to know. “What’s wrong with Brecken?”

  “Nothing. Brecken’s great.” I was getting a headache to match my heartache. “Why would you say something like that? Dragging me down to your level, what does that even mean? Sounds like something Ward came up with.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Fine, it isn’t.” I reached out with both hands and grabbed his shirt like I was some tough guy about to treat him to his second beating of the day. “You’re the one I want. You’re the one I never stop thinking about. You’re the one I’m falling for whether we make sense or not, whether we planned it or not.”

  He kissed me. He pulled me into his lap and pushed his hand under my shirt and kissed me with as much impassioned hunger as ever and I gave it right back to him, sliding my tongue over his and then moving my mouth to his neck while my hands sought the snap of his jeans.

  “I was yours from the beginning,” I breathed into his ear. “Before I even knew it.”

  He pulled back, cupping my face in his hands, running his thumbs down my cheeks, searching my eyes with soulful understanding.

  “You’re perfect,” he said but then only lightly brushed his lips across mine. Then he carefully but insistently returned me to my own seat.

  “Does your grandfather have a gun?” he asked.

  “A gun?” I was still burning from his kiss and the last topic I felt like exploring was guns. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “They know who you are,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Stoker and his boys. I’m not sure if they know your name or where you live but they know you exist, they know you work at the high school and they know you’re my girlfriend.” He pushed the button to the glove compartment and removed an object, setting it in my lap.

  “Take this.”

  Everything made sense now. He was afraid. Tristan didn’t shrink from fighting his own battles but he was afraid for me. That was why he’d said what he said, why he was going to deposit me at the safety of my grandfather’s house and drive away tonight.

  I stared down at the heavy object in my lap, scarcely able to make out its deadly shape in the darkness. I picked it up by the barrel, suppressing a shiver at the feel of the cold metal, then very gingerly put it back where it had come from.

  “No,” I said, snapping the glove compartment closed.

  He snorted and shook his head. “So goddamn stubborn.”

  “What are you going to do now?” I asked, terrified of the answer.

  “I’m going to watch you walk into that house and lock the door and be grateful that you’re safe in there.”

  “Come inside with me,” I said because I had to try one last time.

  Tristan took my hand and pressed it to his lips. “Good night, schoolteacher.”

  He wasn’t going to change his mind. Something crumbled in my chest and rose, bitter and overwhelming, into my throat. I was going to cry. I was going to shout at him. I was going to climb back into his lap and force him to understand that I couldn’t give up on him without annihilating my own heart.

  I pushed open the door of his truck. “You’re not fucking allowed to give me up, Tristan Mulligan. Don’t you dare try.” I slammed his truck door closed and ran to the house.

  My grandfather looked startled when I exploded through the front door.

  “You okay, honey?” he said, rising from the couch and wincing when his knees cracked.

  I wasn’t okay. “Where’s Karen?”

  “Quilting meeting.” He resettled himself on the couch. “It’s just me and a Harry Potter marathon tonight.”

  I swallowed my tears away. “You mind if I join you?”

  He happily patted the seat on the couch. I sat beside my grandfather and watched Harry Potter’s struggles and triumphs until he dozed off and I prodded him to go to bed, saying nothing about tonight’s events. Maybe I should be worried about this Stoker character but I could only manage to feel a vague sense of anxiety that he might show up. The overwhelming majority of my fears were reserved for Tristan.

  Hours later I still couldn’t fall asleep. I kept checking my phone every thirty seconds though I didn’t expect to hear from him. Once I had the fleeting idea that maybe I should call his brothers. Curtis knew everyone Tristan knew. He’d drive down here in a heartbeat if I told him Tristan might be in danger.

  The plan fled as quickly as it was conceived. Tristan would be beyond furious and anyway Curtis had a life now that didn’t include Emblem. His job was to take care of my sister and their future child, not risk his neck in the malevolent shadows of the Emblem underworld. Calling Curtis would be the worst choice I could make.

  I turned off all the lights in the house and paused by the kitchen window. I couldn’t sleep without knowing if he was all right. I couldn’t even think.

  Then I saw the truck.

  About three houses down, deliberately parked in a location to give him a view of the house and anyone who might approach it. I’d been agonizing over Tristan’s whereabouts for nothing. He was right out there, watching over me. He’d never left.

  Before I left the kitchen I pressed a finger to my lips and kissed it, hoping there was some kind of cosmic chance he felt the gesture.

  And that he knew I’d meant every word I said to him tonight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tristan

  I woke up in the driver’s seat of my own truck with my cheek cemented to the window and my back sorely stiff from yesterday’s damage.

  Straightening up with a groan I spotted a half empty pack of gum on the floor behind the passenger seat and popped three sticks into my mouth to jar myself awake and take stock of the situation. My phone was dead, the batteries having expired last night while I was using it as entertainment to keep myself awake while I watched Cadence’s house. I wasn’t sure what time it was when I nodded off.

  Globe Street was silent. The sky was growing brighter every second and the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. A scraggly stray cat crept warily across the street with a dead rodent hanging from
its mouth but aside from the cat the street was as empty and quiet as anyone would expect on a lazy Sunday morning.

  I started the truck and rolled slowly past Cadence’s house, trying to glimpse the square side window that I knew belonged to her bedroom. The shades were drawn throughout the house and the occupants were almost certainly asleep. Yet I was sure that if I tapped on the window loud enough she’d gladly wake up and open it for me.

  “Tristan, I’m falling in love with you.”

  The best and worst sentence I’d ever heard.

  She said she wouldn’t allow me to walk away. At some point last night I suffered the cold realization I might not give her a choice even though I knew I wouldn’t get over her, wouldn’t recover, and wouldn’t ever find another reason to plant both feet in the legitimate world and keep them there.

  My twenty-two years of life unfurled behind me as I navigated the streets of my hometown and paused at the intersection of Main and Horner. I’d never felt so fucking old.

  Whatever I had set in motion with Tim Stoker was already a chain around my neck that I couldn’t easily unlock. I didn’t know if he was looking for me and I didn’t know what would happen when we inevitably came face to face again.

  The only certainty my miserable brain could count on was that I would lie down in traffic to protect Cadence Gentry. I wouldn’t even hesitate.

  And so I had to begin thinking in a new direction. Or, more accurately, an old direction. At the moment no one had my back. But there were still bad dudes around who wouldn’t mind having me join their crew even if they weren’t operating under the gang rules of old times. Raf Rivera for example. I couldn’t stand the guy but if hooking up with him and his boys kept Stoker and his groupies far away from Cadence then so be it.

  On my street the row of squat little houses, all of them in need of significant repair, looked slightly less ugly in the soft early light. I pulled up to the curb behind Dover’s flashy Nissan.

  A moment later I’d barely stepped through the front door when Dover pounced on me. “Dude, where the fuck you been?”

  “Sleeping on a street corner,” I grumbled.

  My roommate scratched his messy hair. “Huh?” He looked at me more closely. “Is that a black eye?”