Glacier

by Violet Blaze

  I resist the urge to shove the groupie away from me and glance over my shoulder.

  Smoky's grinning at me, but Royal's fucking glaring like this is any of his goddamn business.

  I look back down at the girl and she takes her hand away from my cock just before I reach the breaking point and get violent with her. Her fingers curl around my own and pull me towards the corner, towards this curved couch that the other Wolves like to sit on to get their dicks sucked. It's just about the right height for a woman to kneel on the floor between your knees and suck you good—or so I hear. I've never bothered to try it before.

  I let this girl push me onto the couch and watch her kneel down in front of me, her tight dress riding up her thighs and flashing the entire room with what's underneath—as in nothing at all.

  If doing this sort of thing in private was awful, then doing it out here, with Alpha Wolves and Omegas all around me, it's even worse. Why the fuck are the boys so obsessed with this shit?

  The redhead leans between my legs and starts undoing my belt.

  I just sit there, my back against the black velvet of the sofa, my heart—so still and silent just a few seconds ago—starting to pound, to thunder and race.

  I can't do this.

  I don't want this woman. What's the point of sex just for sex? I don't understand it at all. A weak rush of hormones because of some hot mouth on my dick? Why would that bring me any pleasure at all? It's going to take a lot more than some random girl on her knees to melt the ice around my heart.

  I'm about to push her away when Serenity walks into the bar, her eyes focused straight ahead, towards her mother. As soon as I see her … my entire body turns to white-hot fire. My breath catches sharp and strange in my chest, this weird pain that I can't identify, that I don't know how to control.

  For a second there, I'm mesmerized, just long enough for the groupie girl to unhook my belt and unbutton my jeans. That's when Serenity pauses, following the giggles and stares of the other Omegas clustered at the bar, her blue eyes swinging my direction.

  The second she sees me, registers what's happening, there's a visible shift in the air.

  “I'm gonna make you feel so good,” the redhead purrs as Serenity looks so deep into me, I feel like I'm cracking. In less time than it takes the woman to unzip my jeans, Serenity's there, standing over her, breath coming in wild, frantic gasps. Her pulse is thrumming so quick, I can see it in her neck like a live thing struggling to get out.

  “Get your fucking hands off of him,” she whispers and the redhead pauses to look up.

  “Who the hell are you?” she snaps back, shoving red curls over her shoulder. “We're a little busy over here, kid.”

  “Don't call me kid,” Serenity whispers, her voice just loud enough that only the three of us can hear it. In the background, some rock band plays, guitar riffs and drums layered over the tense thickness of the air. I should probably do something, shove the groupie away like I meant to all along, but … this, I want to see.

  “Ren!” Fauna calls from the bar. “What the hell are you doing over there? Come here.”

  “If you touch him again,” Serenity whispers, very matter-of-factly, “I will fucking kill you.”

  She stands above the groupie in her midriff shirt, the rings in her belly button winking in the light, arms crossed over her chest, a no-fucking-nonsense glimmer in her eyes.

  “Are you screwing the kid or something?” the redhead snaps as she leans away from me, this look of disgust flashing across her features. Before she can even rise to her feet, my right hand is snapping out and grabbing hold of her jaw, holding her face still so I can stare into her eyes. Whatever she sees there makes her shiver.

  “If you spread that fucking rumor,” I breathe, “I will know about it. I will know it was you, and I will slit your throat while you sleep.”

  I release the woman and she falls back, onto her bare ass, scrambling to get to her feet. Without looking back, she crosses her arms tight over her chest and flees the bar area, heels loud against the hardwood floors. Several of her friends follow, casting me wary glances over their shoulders as they go.

  “What is wrong with you?” Serenity asks as I sit back up and thread my belt back through the buckle. Without responding, I stand up and push past her, our bare arms brushing with this whisper of electricity and heat. I need my crossbow and my bike.

  And I need them now.

  “Serenity!” Fauna shouts again as I storm through the empty room and down the hall towards the staircase. It leads up to the second floor and the dorm rooms. I need to grab my shit before I leave. Royal comes up to me, clearly pissed off and follows me up the steps.

  I don't have the patience for him right now.

  “You said this shit was over,” he snaps at me, but I don't respond. What am I supposed to say? “Glacier, goddamn it.”

  I turn on the top of the staircase and resist every urge I have to get violent with this man. We went to high school together. It was just Royal, me, and our friend Landon. But now, Landon is dead because of all this cartel bullshit and there are six men in the woods that need to die, too.

  I'm going to be the one to take them down.

  “Don't make me pull my pistol and shoot you, Royal,” I say as he grits his teeth, nostrils flaring. “Your wife would probably like to see you come home in one piece.”

  And then I spin on my heel and head towards the first door on the right, straight into the room where I fucked Serenity's virginity away. I grab my crossbow and my day pack, sling it over my shoulder and get the fuck out of there before I kill somebody I actually like.

  “Where did you get this stuff?” I ask as I wave my hand at the cloud of smoke in front of my face and cough a little. I've grown up around cigarette and pot smoke my whole life, and I'm still not used to it. It tickles my lungs and makes my chest feel tight. Still doesn't stop me from smoking a little weed myself.

  I accept the joint from Rayna and draw in a long, smoky breath, holding it tight inside my lungs for as long as I can and then coughing so dramatically that my friends laugh and Rayna pats my back in little circles.

  “Bought it off this guy I met last week at a party,” Loren says, looking over at me from across the surface of the red plaid blanket we spread out over the dewy grass. It's so damp that I can already feel wetness wicking its way into the woolen fibers.

  “Seriously?” I ask, because I know how the club works. They control all—and I mean all—drug related transactions in Humboldt County and the surrounding areas, including Del Norte and Trinity. Of course, none of the members actually sell drugs themselves; they have lackeys to do the dirty work for them. But I know for a goddamn fact that the Alpha Wolves voted to hold their dealers to a very specific set of rules. One of which is not to sell to underage kids. It'd be nice to think that the club actually cares about kids doing drugs, but really it's just a smart move to keep law enforcement off their backs. Some old druggie ODing is one thing, but a high school kid—like Mrs. Ferrera's son—draws a lot of unwanted attention. “What did the guy look like?”

  “Dunno,” Loren says, still looking at me from eyes as dark as Glacier's are light. Heavy, weighted. We've been friends since forever, since first grade when my dad forgot to show up for 'Bring Your Dad to Work Day' and I cried myself silly in the girl's bathroom. Loren came in, climbed under the stall door and gave me a hug. “Tall, dark haired, kind of shifty, I guess, but aren't all dealers?”

  “Can we get something a little better than pot?” Rayna says, looking at her joint like it's all of a sudden less fun now that California's legalized recreational smoking. Of course, most people around here still buy it illegally since it's cheaper. “Like coke or something?”

  “Yeah, probably. The guy gave me his number.”

  “You met him at a high school party?” I ask, and I hate that I'm thinking about the club while I'm hanging out with my friends. It's like this giant hand with fingers wrapped around my throat. The club, the club, alw
ays the club. My dad's been putting the club ahead of me my entire life and here I am, trying to ruin what's turning out to be a pretty awesome night by getting involved in their bullshit politics.

  “Oh my God, Serenity, just stop,” our other friend, Aletha, says, sitting next to her boyfriend, Otto, on the left side of the circle. There're six of us in total: me, Loren, Tom, Otto, Rayna, and Aletha. We've been friends for a long time, the six of us. Basically, these are the only people in the world I have that I can talk to.

  Only … I haven't talked to them about Glacier.

  Glacier.

  I dig my fingers into the blanket and notice Loren raising his eyebrow in question. But how can I possibly tell him what happened without opening up a seriously nasty can of worms? Loren … I never felt like he cared about me as anything more than a friend until recently. Lately, something's changed between us. I can feel it. The way he looks at me … Basically, it's the way I wish Saint would look at me.

  When he's not getting blow jobs from club whores, I think and then I just want to scream. My mother thinks I'm completely insane, confronting one of the guys while he's getting busy in the corner. She said I should just get the hell over whatever weird crush I have on Glacier, that she's noticed me flirting with him at club events. But she has no idea, none at all when it comes to how I feel about that man.

  This is not a crush; this is passion.

  I suck on my lower lip for a minute.

  “I'm just curious about this guy that hangs out at high school parties and sells crack, that's all. Because if you're telling the truth, this dude is in serious trouble if the club finds out.”

  There's a small groan around the circle, and Tom ends up throwing some potato chips at me. My friends hate the club almost as much as I do. Unfortunately, my hate is kind of a love-hate thing and it totally sucks. I feel compelled to defend those people, defend my family, even as I'm resenting them and their decisions.

  “No more club talk tonight,” Tom declares as he leans back, pale brown hair sliding across his face as he stares up at the stars. We're sitting in the middle of Lost Coast Park, enjoying the quiet and the false whisper of freedom. We can all hang here and pretend as much as we want; the only one of us that's over eighteen is Rayna and she's still stuck under her father's thumb. “Call this guy, Loren, and let's get trashed.”

  “You sure about this?” Loren asks, sitting back in his red hoodie and staring straight at me, like he's asking my permission most of all. I shrug loosely, burying my hands in the front pockets of my own hoodie. After the day I've had … the week I've had, I don't really care at this point. Glacier. I can't stop thinking about that look he had on his face when I glanced over and saw him sitting on that couch, some … some stupid fucking bitch on her knees in front of him.

  I almost killed her, even though I know it's not really her fault. How many girls has he fucked since that night we spent together? I can't even think about that or I start to go crazy inside. Glacier is mine, mine, fucking mine.

  “Text him,” I say and Rayna cheers, passing the joint back to me as she tosses some red hair over her shoulder, reminding me briefly of the groupie girl again. Actually, I feel sorry for those girls, the ones the boys call Omegas and treat like whores. I mean, I understand that they're there of their own free will, that they can walk away at any time, but I can only wonder why they decided to come to the clubhouse in the first place. Maybe bedding a bunch of bikers and getting free food and drink and drugs is better than whatever hellhole they came from?

  I hate the club; I hate it.

  “He wants us to meet him in town in an hour,” Loren says, the bright white screen of his phone lighting his face up from below. “Which works out well because my cousin's in town and he already agreed to get us beer. Hit up the market then?”

  “Fuck yeah,” Tom says and then we're all climbing to our feet, heading over to Rayna's van and piling inside. In the back of my mind, I realize that this is a probably a really bad idea. This dealer, whoever he is, if he's not working for the club then he's probably really bad news.

  But I'm pissed and jittery and Glacier's turned me into a crazy person, so I go and I try to make myself have a little fun. After all, I'm only seventeen. Isn't this what I should be doing?

  Loren's cousin, some guy I've met like twice before, meets us outside the grocery store and takes our orders, coming back out with several cases of beer and a couple bottles of hard liquor, passing over our goodies and leaving us to wait for this dealer-dude.

  We stand in the alley next to the market and smoke joints, listening to the police scanner I stole from my dad, just in case somebody calls the cops on us. But it's a quiet night tonight, the city of Trinidad breathing deep and lying low, trying to get over the craziness that happened last month, when my mom got shot in the parking lot of this very store.

  I lean back against the stone wall and glance to my right, out towards the dew covered cars, remembering the shock of pain I felt, the helplessness. My mom could've died here on this dark, wet pavement, and it would've been all for nothing, shot by some asshole who simply wanted the club's turf to sell drugs. That's it. Just drugs.

  “You alright?” Loren asks, coming over to stand next to me, leaning his back against the wall as I brace my right boot against the stone and smoke the joint in my fingers. Ugh. Why did I agree to smoke pot tonight anyway? It always makes me feel so … weird. “Because you've been acting strange lately, ever since that night …”

  I snort, but Loren isn't easily deterred. He's known me too long for that, coming around to face me, putting his hands on either side of my head and penning me in against the wall. I look up at him, at the dark scruff on his chin and around his lips, his dark eyes, the pinched bridge of his nose.

  “Is this really still about your mother?” he asks and I shrug, ducking under his arm and grabbing a beer from the case on the ground. This is my second one tonight and it's mixing with the pot, making me feel a little off. I kind of wish I hadn't come out here, kind of wish I'd stayed home. “Serenity,” Loren says again as I head back to my spot against the wall and reach into Loren's hoodie pocket to steal his house keys. He has a bottle opener on his chain that I use to open my beer.

  Across from us, sitting against the opposite wall, Aletha and Otto are making out … more than making out, really. Rayna and Tom are flirting and sharing a beer, pairing off like they always do, even though they've both sworn they have no interest in each other. It just seems natural that Loren and I should pair off, too, turn our group of six friends into a group of three couples. I know everybody else here ships me and Loren.

  But I … my heart beats for Glacier. It has since I was fifteen and he took me out on his bike, showed me how to ride, since he first laid his hand on my arm and I felt this violent spark take hold, burning my soul to ash. It might not seem like such a big deal, but for a man in an MC to let a woman drive his bike, that's practically suicide, something your brothers could kick your ass and take your colors for. He risked a lot for me that day. But why?

  I exhale and flick the remnants of the joint aside. It's likely he doesn't even remember it.

  “Serenity,” Loren says again and I roll my eyes, leaning my head back against the wall and closing my lids. “Talk to me,” he begs, and I can feel his breath against my mouth, like he's getting way too close. “Please.”

  “There's nothing to talk about, Loren,” I tell him, knowing instinctually to keep this whole Glacier thing to myself. Let my friends make virgin jokes about me, tease me mercilessly. I don't care. If Loren finds out about Glacier … I could see him doing something really stupid like calling the cops or hell, even confronting the man. I might not be afraid of Glacier, but Loren should be. I think about what he said to that redhead today, how he told her he'd slit her throat if she talked. And I think he meant it, too.

  “Nothing at all?” Loren asks experimentally, like he's testing the waters. I can feel his hands now, settling on my hips. Fuck. He wants to
kiss me. I open my eyes and see him leaning in, slowly, tentatively. When I don't move away, Loren presses his mouth to mine, slides his tongue between my lips. I think of Glacier and that groupie and I kiss Loren back with a hint of that rage and anger inside of me.

  But you know what?

  It doesn't feel right. None of this feels right.

  My mouth … it was made for Saint, for his lips, his tongue.

  Footsteps at the end of the alley draw my attention. Somebody's coming this way, skirting around the back of the market and past the doors they use for freight deliveries, their footfalls heavy like they want somebody to notice them.

  My eyes crack open, expecting to see some shifty-eyed dude in baggy jeans or something.

  Instead … it feels like I've just been gutted.

  A flash of blond, a flicker of color.

  I shove Loren back and blink several times to clear my head, but … there's nobody there.

  “What's wrong?” Loren asks, breathing hard as he watches me, follows a few steps behind as I make my way toward the end of the alley, pausing and trying to keep my stomach from leaping into my throat. Was that … Did I just see … I must be going crazy, imagining things. But I could've sworn I saw Glacier.

  I run my hand over my face and glance over at Loren, my heart thundering, feeling dizzy and disoriented all of a sudden.

  “Did you not like that?” he asks me tentatively and suddenly, I just feel so awful—for him, for me, for Saint. Not Glacier, no. Fuck him. But Saint, Saint is just the broken boy trapped inside the monster.

  “I just … need a minute, okay?” I say and then I start toward the end of the alley as fast as my feet can carry me. I toss my beer into a dumpster as I pass, suddenly not so interested in it anymore.