by Ana Calin
Cradling the glass in one hand and coughing from all the cigarette smoke in the other, I glanced around for Damian. My ears thumping with anxiety, I prayed he just wouldn’t show up. I took another nervous sip of the wine. Damn it! I’d meant to keep myself to a limit, but I'd let things slide in an attempt to get through the evening. Now I had no idea how much booze I’d consumed over the course of this hare-brained scheme.
There he was with his crew by the entrance. I swallowed hard. Get your act together.
Loud-laughing, beer guzzling guys and painted up girls with long red fingernails dotted the room. I managed to keep him in sight, handsome and hulking as he was in his fitted white shirt, even though the smoke stung my eyes.
I stalked closer. A girl in a black low cut jumpsuit openly tried to flirt with him, blowing smoke rings into the air.
The group Damian stood with seemed to be a little tanked. Several of the guys in particular couldn’t seem to take their eyes off the ginger haired floozy as she giggled and jiggled. She leaned in a little too close to Damian at one point and whispered in his ear, her clingy top cut so low that Damian was practically forced to peer down into her cleavage.
I reminded myself that this girl flirted with everyone. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
But the longer I watched, the more I wondered if there was actually something going on between them. Or perhaps the alcohol playing tricks on me—making me lose my nerve.
Eventually he walked away from his group in direction of the makeshift bar where Leona’s skinny boyfriend juggled bottles. My fingers went rigid around the stem of my glass. I closed my eyes and one, two, three.
I dashed from my hideout and pretended to stumble on bottles in my way, faking a fall against Damian’s chest. It was hard, and the hands steadying me seemed large like shovels. My pulse drummed in my ears or was that the base that oozed from the loudspeakers?
“S … sorry,” I mumbled.
He looked down at his ruined shirt.
“It’s all right.” His voice was deep, soft, giving me goose bumps.
I dared to bat my lashes as I looked up at his face. Up close he looked even more handsome with his pale green eyes, chiseled features and strong jaw. Too handsome. Despite the three inch gold stilettos that Leona said showcased my calves, my nose still just reached the level of his chest. He smelled of freshly cut wood, and that worked on my senses like a drug.
With a slightly pissed frown but gentle hands he made sure I could stand on my own feet and turned to walk away. No, no, no!
“Let me take out the stain,” I shrieked over the pounding music and clasped his arm. It felt literally stone hard. “There’s some stain remover in the bathroom.”
He turned to me, the frown lingering on his brow, his deep voice polite but detached.
“I’ll do that myself, thank you.”
I panicked, thinking that he saw through our plot, so I searched for a way to keep contact, and gave him an awkward smile. Reciting the words Leona had forced me to memorize seemed like my only option.
“You need to wash out the wine within a few minutes if you want to save your shirt. I have some dexterity with that, that’s all.”
He glanced around as if assessing who paid us attention. Dancing and drinking people – Leona and George included – stared at us. Then a possibility hit me – maybe he scouted the area for his girlfriend or something.
“A few minutes,” I reminded him of the time ticking until the stain would be forever imprinted in his white shirt. “Let me save your shirt, it’s the least I can do.”
He gave a reserved smile and motioned me to lead the way. We waited in front of the bathroom until a drunken blonde reeled out. Luckily, it didn’t take longer than a few minutes, or I would’ve risked him changing his mind. Girls around us fidgeted and swayed, eyeing Damian. Boys already mistook the hallway and some corners for toilets as they staggered and cursed.
Damian and I didn’t speak to each other, but I was sharply aware of his presence behind me, of his breath above my head. He stood by me, my backside crushed against his thigh as people squeezed us together. I’d never felt anything as hard as his body. My imagination raced with sexual fantasies as we closed the door behind us. Jeez, I’m alone with him! Alone with him in a messy bathroom . . .
Damian began unbuttoning his white fitted shirt. I swallowed hard. Still, to make my indifference to him credible, I refused the sight.
“It’s okay, I can work with it on you, that is unless you have a change of clothes within reach.”
“I don’t.” Again that deep voice that I couldn’t believe I was finally hearing, spoken only for my ears.
I snatched the stain remover from a pile of tubes and boxes on the washer, and rinsed the stain – half his shirt, that is. After spraying some water on it from the tips of my fingers, I began rubbing the wine into instead of out of the fabric with one hand, keeping it stretched and away from his body with the other. The large spot soon turned transparent, I could see a blur of his abdomen and his happy tail through it.
“I’m Damian, by the way,” he said.
“Alice.” I could barely keep my voice from shaking.
“I must say, you’re quite observant, Alice.”
Clumsy grin. “Am I?”
“I’m impressed you noticed the stain remover and remembered it when you spilled on me.”
Shoot, he knows what I’m doing . . .
“I brought it, actually. Today. George is a little messy and, well, you know how parties can get.” George would support my allegation, he was “my people” and deep enough in this with me as not to complain I’d accused him of sloppiness to save face. He’d organized the party, and we were in his dorm.
“I see.” Damian’s eyes glittered with some kind of cunning. “Have I seen you before, Alice?”
I shrugged, sinking into my cool new aloof persona.
“Maybe. In the cafeteria, or at the Marquette. That’s where I seek refuge from my persecutors.”
“Persecutors?”
“The Inquisition, isn’t it obvious?” I pointed at the haycock on my head, which earned me a weird, animalistic grin that probably wanted to be a smile. It was the strangest expression I’d ever seen, and it took me aback. I dropped my eyes to the stain again to avoid the awkwardness, which seemed to help Damian grow even more comfortable.
“You claim yourself a witch?”
“I claim nothing without my lawyer.”
“Fair enough. And our host, George? Is he one of your allies?”
“You could say that. He’s dating my best friend, Leona.” As for me, I’m available and all for you, mister.
“Now I remember,” he said as if he truly just realized, “I saw you at the Marquette with him and some others. You never miss the chance to have fun.”
He saw me? “I’m forever in search of it. As are you, I noticed.” That’s right, I saw you, too. My heart pounded faster as I risked the hint at my interest in him.
“Hardly. I supply the beverages.”
“What do you mean?” My head snapped up.
“It’s just an activity that pays bills. And what brings me to the Marquette and to parties.”
“So you’re no real friend of Bacchus’?” I realized I’d never seen him with a beer in his hand, or any kind of alcohol for that matter.
He laughed a rusty laugh. His features transformed into that animalistic grimace once more, as if he weren’t used to expressing amusement at all.
That moment I think I knew – this man would be dangerous to love.
***
“There are easier ways to kill yourself,” Damian hissed.
George picked his brochure of Carpathia’s Northern Adventures back up off the cafeteria table. “What? You don’t like the idea?” he asked meekly. “B-but this is the ultimate challenge . . .”
Damian frowned, his arms folding across his chest. He didn’t say anything. George hunched under the pressure of the alpha’s obvious disappro
val.
Leona nudged George in support. That seemed to reignite his passion.
“What’s not to love about hiking in the Northern Mountains. No safety nets, no cell phones, no excuses.”
“Well, I doubt the girls see the fun in that.” Damian said as he looked at me. Blood rushed to my cheeks.
Time to make an impression.
“I’d love to go,” I heard myself say.
Leona’s jaw dropped, George’s head practically spun around on an axis, while Damian simply raised his eyebrows.
All eyes were on me now. My heart raced as if I were part rabbit.
“What? I’m all for adventure,” I lied blatantly. My eyes settled on Leona. “You tell’em.”
We left on a cold day. The snow fell outside the train’s window in sheets, like powdered icing. I hugged my knees to my chest, mindlessly rubbing the fur that lined the top of my black Sorel boots, glancing every now and then over at Damian.
He sat flanked by a bearded dude with a guitar, and Svetlana Slavic, a platinum blonde beauty queen to whom I could never compare. Her grin was white and large, taunting me with it. I tried to take comfort in the fact that she was not his girlfriend either. Everyone knew she danced in a private booth at the Marquette for a bald, rich, fat guy – a mobster, or so some people speculated. Unfortunately, he wasn’t here now, so the farther we moved from Constanța, the closer she got to Damian. I ducked into my quilted grey parka and pulled my wool scarf up to my nose, watching in frustration as she leeched onto him.
“Come on, Novac,” she said, her pitch too high, “I won’t bite, I’m just cold.”
He rested one arm loosely around her shoulder and turned his eyes to the window. She attempted to curl closer but he maintained his distance, which made me feel that not all was lost. I wanted to slap myself for the way I ogled him, but I couldn’t help it. Damian was almost too good-looking with his tousled dark hair, luminescent eyes, and stubble that gave his chiseled face the look of a young barbarian. It was easy to see why he attracted such attention.
They would have made a striking couple, Svetlana and Damian. I told myself to stop it as Svetlana caught me staring. Even at my best, I would never compete with the likes of Svetlana with her long shapely legs, nipped-in waist, porcelain skin and tumbling white-blond hair. And she always dressed to kill, even now. She wore a bomber jacket, heeled boots and yoga pants – even in the freezing cold.
As if on cue, Svetlana pulled her knees up and cuddled to his chest. I doubted she did it because she saw any kind of competition in me – that was out of the question – but because she felt powerful and probably enjoyed my suffering, knowing I would’ve done anything to be in her place. She closed her eyes and pretended to fall asleep with a triumphant smile on her face.
Cottages slid by as the train—barely more than an old cart from communist times—moved lazily down the track. Its low whistles lost in the night as it took us to the middle of nowhere. Not even an hour later the train got stuck in what appeared to be Siberian snow, a floral pattern of ice spreading like a rapid disease over the pane. Everyone shook violently and breathed out steam as if we were frozen dragons, and that’s when I realized I could no longer feel my feet. Damian must have sensed my pain, for he gazed at me with a frown.
“George,” he said, lifting his arm and waking Svetlana, “where’s the Vodka I gave you?”
George’s sleepy eyelids fluttered open. He brushed sandy brown tendrils of hair off his forehead and removed his own arm from around Leona, who shivered at his chest. Her eyes were hooded, and her lips shrunken. He reached to the overhead rack and dropped a bag on her lap by mistake.
“Sorry, Leo,” he mumbled, and took down a ragged backpack. Something clanked inside. He staggered, and I almost laughed in delirium. He’d always been a thin guy, but his legs in this moment suddenly reminded me of a spider’s legs, especially in comparison to Damian, who stood to support him.
“Jesus, you look like you might break into ice shards,” Damian said.
“I’m afraid my brain’s already splintered. I should’ve been the first to think of the liquor,” George replied with a stiff grin that meant to be friendly but rather gave the impression of a frozen fossil.
Damian opened the backpack and took out three small bottles like the ones Russians keep in the inside pockets of their sheepskin coats. He handed one to Svetlana and one to George.
“Pass that around,” he told them, then took a seat by my side with the third bottle.
I blinked and barely refrained from rubbing my eyes. I couldn’t believe he was so close to me, by his own choosing this time.
“Drink this,” he said softly, holding the open bottle to my mouth. A sharp smell made me crease my nose and push his hand away.
“Vodka. It’ll help warm you up,” he insisted.
I sniffed at it a couple of times and finally took a sip that went like a flash of fire to the pit of my stomach. I grimaced, but Damian only chuckled and looked at me as if I were a playing puppy. Again, he had that strange expression on his face, like a predator cornering its prey. I tried a shaky smile back, my heart drumming.
Then my eyes fell on the open mouthed Svetlana, and I realized why he must’ve switched to my side, I was the only one without a pair of arms around me. Damian was just looking after the less fortunate.
“Thanks, I’m good now,” I grumbled and drew away, pulling my knees up.
Suddenly, the train began to wobble like a ship on a stormy sea. Girls shrieked, guys glanced around with wide eyes and, as the lights flickered and finally went out, I burst into a fit of screaming too. A hand wrapped around my arm and pulled me to a broad chest, my nose sinking in a fluffy pullover.
“Earthquake,” Damian’s voice sounded above my head. At the next jerk, he dropped back in the seat with me on his lap.
“Maybe someone is just…just digging us out of the snow,” Svetlana babbled.
“That’s not a shovel moving the train,” the guy with the guitar croaked.
The train came to a brusque halt in its swaying, and Damian jumped to his feet, sheltering me with the sides of his open coat. I pushed my face deeper into his pullover as he slid the compartment door open with his elbow.
“What are you doing?” George squealed.
“We need to get out of here,” Damian replied. His tone was even, but not devoid of stress.
“What if it starts again?” His bearded guitarist friend said. “We’re deep in the mountains. We could get killed in an avalanche or something!”
“And you think we stand a better chance if an avalanche traps us in this rust box, Hector?” Damian retorted, and rushed with me down the aisle. He only put me down as we reached a fast-growing clutch of shrieking people by the exit. Fear gripped me, and my heart punched hard against my ribcage as I stretched my arm to keep him close. To no avail, I lost him as he made his way through.
In the chaos of screams and bodies squashing me between them I freaked out, but I was unable to make a sound. The door snapped open and a winter gush wheezed through, lashing my face numb as people poured out of the train and drifted me forward with them. I sank to my knees in the glistening snow and waved my arms to keep from falling into the forested abyss that loomed before my eyes.
A huge, warm hand clasped mine, steadying me, and the instant I looked into Damian’s focused face I understood he’d only left my side to break down the door. I forgave him on the spot.
He turned to help the others out of the train but missed one, who bumped hard against me and sent me like a ball down the slope. I rolled and rolled, my mind and skin frozen as snow infiltrated under my scarf and sleeves. A front clash with a tree trunk knocked the air from my lungs, and the last thing I saw was a shower of white that filled my mouth and nostrils. I choked under the mountain of cold that gagged me, desperate to breathe in.
My head began to cloud with lack of air, and I felt my pulse give up. That moment I knew the sense of safety was a mirage, as if some tiny fai
ry at the back of my mind urged me to keep fighting.
I saw a bright sphere, but I knew it wasn’t the moon. It was the light at the end of a black tunnel—a light that sucked me toward it like a vacuum cleaner would a fly. I fought against the pull, and by some miracle it actually stopped. I came close to the bright sphere. Weight started to press rhythmically on what I now identified as my chest, and I started to spin backwards, as if something drew me with the same force farther and farther from it. As it became smaller, it warped into the shape of a child-like face with eyes bright like lasers, piercing me through the darkness. A crystalline voice like tinkling icicles filled my head. “You need me . . .”
Chapter Two
Every breath hurt as if my sternum had been smashed with a rock. The blur cleared to Leona’s face, her chocolate eyes wide and worried above mine.
“She’s awake!” she called. More faces popped into the picture, looming above her head.
I tried to get up on my elbows, but the pain punched full force into my chest. With a groan that hurt too, I fell back on something soft that smelled of piss.
“Don’t strain yourself.”
“It hurts,” I whispered.
“It’s the CPR. Damian might’ve pressed too hard on your chest.”
“Damian?”
Leona smiled. “He launched after you when you fell. He carried you here, too.”
I looked down at myself, and saw I was wrapped in two coats – my own and a new fat one, my scalp itching under what could’ve been a busby, yet none of it helped much. I still shivered as she tucked me under a blanket, leaving my arms out.
Muttered voices and flitting shadows twirled about the room, only Leona’s olive-skinned face constant in the picture. I registered a friendly, “Water by the bed,” and George’s, “Bug off, here’s the vodka.” Someone placed a candle on a nightstand by my head, as if I were dying. Still, candles were the only source of light in the room as far as I could tell – causing the eerie shadow play.