Whiskey, Winter, and Worst-Case Scenario
The Stark mansion had been quiet. My room had been quiet. The kind of quiet you tell yourself is good but it still settled deep in your bones, heavy and suffocating.
This place? The opposite.
The towering wooden cabin downtown loomed ahead as Caleb drove closer to the crammed makeshift parking lot. Colored lights spilled from the building's tall windows, illuminating the sea of people sparsed onto the porch and yard.
The air pulsed with bass-heavy music, I could feel it despite still being locked in the car. It almost marched my thundering heartbeat. Thank goddess for gloves or the entire car seat would be as frost-coated as the trees. I was unraveling.
“Let's get the Christmas debauchery started,” Tyler quipped as he swung the car door open from the passenger seat at the front.
“They're teens Tyler, not minx strippers in Vegas,” Caleb threw the concerning comment. I ignored it.
“Thanks,” I muttered to Tyler who'd taken it upon himself to open my car door. Perhaps he sensed my urge to bolt for the front seat and drive back where we came from or maybe he was being polite.
It didn't really help. I stepped down and the scent of spiced liquor, charred cinnamon, and the cold December air met to party in my nose.
Thick garlands twisted around the railings and surrounding well-cut shrubs. Strands of white lights curled up the wooden pillars, their soft glow fighting against the darkness.
However, despite the festive decorations, there was nothing warm about the party. It reeked of bad decisions and worse company.
I took one sweeping look at the crowd and clocked two things immediately. Everyone was underdressed. Short skirts, thin dresses, unbuttoned shirts. A complete disregard for winter.
I was definitely overdressed. Leather jacket. Long sleeves. Actual layers of tights. It confirmed my theory of being extra sensitive to the cold because of my powers.
Perhaps the perks of being a warm-blooded animal didn't completely stretch my way given I was also a cold-blooded sorceress. But I could tell how it would look. The omega wasn't immune to the cold because she was weak like that.
“Damn,” Caleb muttered, stepping out of the driver's seat and flicking his gaze over the crowd. “So much for silent night, holy night.”
“Christmas lost to alcohol,” Tyler remarked with a grin, adjusting his rings before he shoved his hands into his pants pockets.
I kept pace between both men, exuding confidence I wasn’t entirely sure I had. It was easier with them beside me, Caleb's sweet muted charm, Tyler's open-sexual energy.
If I rubbed elbows with them, I could borrow pieces of their confidence, wear them like armor, and fake mine until my covered hands stopped trembling.
Why was facing them somehow harder now? I could stand up for myself when I was seemingly weak. I was stronger now yet my fears seemed to have grown. It was upsetting.
We slipped through the crowd, brushing past different emotionally stricken countenances. Some I recognized instantly. There were people I disliked and some I usually avoided in school. Others blurred together as they'd been nothing more than background noise in my high school hell.
Somehow most of their gazes seemed to dawdle on me like they'd seen a piece of meat dipped in a foreign sauce. Was it familiar, or was it not?
I scowled at them.
The wooden floorboards jerked beneath my boots, thrumming with the music. Ice rattled in paper-thin cups, voices slurred with cackling and gossip. It was all too hot, too taut, too loud.
Tyler leaned in slightly by my right. “See? Beats staring at those horrid wall decorations in your room.“
I let out a breath through my nose, scanning the room. “We just got here. Of course, things are looking great”
And not to jinx it but I hadn’t seen them yet. The ones that mattered. The ones who had taken it upon themselves to make life more unbearable.
Maybe they weren’t here. That would be pleasant but then, chances were they set up the party. Everyone was probably here. Even...Becca!
The thought hit me hard. It was a name sharp enough to pull me from my head. The last time I saw her was days before the attack. I had woken from my coma and not long after, she had been there to check in on me.
I caught glimpses of her I hadn't really seen in our friendship before and I hated that I had to get on the run right after. I never called her. Never texted. I was a horrible friend.
I knew I should have but I was too much of a coward to know if she even wanted to hear from me.
My gaze swept the crowd, searching, until I caught a familiar silhouette. My stomach tightened. I didn't realize I was moving until I heard Tyler’s voice behind me. “Harlyn?”
“I'll be right back,” I quickly rushed out.
I was already slipping through the bodies pressing too close. I dodged a couple tangled in a messy drunken kiss, before weaving past a redhead laughing too loudly into her empty cup.
The person I hoped was Becca left the building through what looked like a backdoor. The air shifted as I pushed through the same doors. Colder. Lighter. She was nowhere to be seen. My heart sunk low as my shoulders slumped.
The sound of the party muffled behind me. I and some other randos seemed to be in a garden of some sort. Golden lanterns lined the wooden fence, their soft glow flickering against the thin sheet of snow dusting the ground.
The garden stretched ahead, the trees bare and brittle under the weight of winter. The muted sound of chatter teased the wind but I paid no attention. I didn't want to listen in. Goddess forbid I heard something horrid.
Becca had to be here. I knew her. Knew how she hated people, knew how she’d slip away from the noise to catch a break.
I turned a corner, my pulse knocking against my ribs. “Becca—” The name barely left my lips before I froze.
A sight had me still. I had found the last person I'd ever looked for. Higan.