Winter (Four Seasons #1)

WINTER

  Nikita Rae

  Copyright © 2013 Nikita Rae

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places and characters are figments of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. The author recognises all trademarks contained within this work.

  Cover design by Frankie Rose

  “Never regret thy fall,

  O Icarus of the fearless flight

  For the greatest tragedy of them all

  Is never to feel the burning light.”

  -Oscar Wilde

  Contents

  One: Ceilidh

  Two: Rosito’s

  Three: Hangover

  Four: Noah

  Five: Smells Like Sex

  Six: Super Eight

  Seven: It’s A Date

  Eight: Surprise, Surprise

  Nine: Hook, Line & Sinker

  Ten: Icarus

  Eleven: Midnight Run

  Twelve: Addict

  Thirteen: Devil’s In The Details

  Fourteen: Easier

  Fifteen: A Little Early

  Sixteen: Outed

  Seventeen: Last Words

  Eighteen: Need

  Nineteen: Escape

  Twenty: Toxic

  Twenty One: Threats

  Twenty Two: The Truth Will Out

  Twenty Three: Just Call

  Twenty Four: D.M.F

  Twenty Five: Admissions

  Twenty Six: Breakwater

  Twenty Seven: Laney

  Twenty Eight: Sucker Punch

  Twenty Nine: Home

  Thirty: Escape Part Two

  Thirty One: Unexpected

  Thirty Two: Steel

  One

  Ceilidh

  THE NAMES of the men my father killed are a mantra, a twisted beat to accompany the throb of my heart and every single step I take through life. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright. Sam O’Brady. Jefferson Kyle. Adam Bright.

  When I breathe in, it’s Sam. When I breathe out, it’s Jefferson, or Jeff depending on how well you knew him. Adam exists somewhere in the space between breaths, the stretched out moments when I forget to breathe at all. I knew Adam. He was Maggie’s father, the basketball coach at Breakwater High. His brother was the town’s mayor, so everyone had known his face.

  I had this dream that once I escaped the confines of Breakwater, things would change for me, things wouldn’t be as hard, but I haven’t taken any chances. My family name is synonymous with pain and murder no matter where I seem to go, and that’s why I’ve abandoned it. That’s why, when I left my past behind in small town Wyoming to come to college, I became Avery Patterson.

  “Avery! Hey, Avery! Wait up!” Morgan Kepler jogs after me down the corridor as I exit my English class. She either recognizes me by my bright blonde hair, or because I’m clutching my file to my chest, keeping my head down like always. I give her a smile as I hurry out of the School of International and Public Affairs, one of the most infamous landmarks of Columbia University. Morgan, for some reason, has befriended me. She’s wild and outspoken in a way I never have been. Maybe I would have turned out like her if my father hadn’t shot three men dead when I was fourteen years old. But then again, who knows who I could have been.

  Morgan smells like mint gum and Issey Miyake. She flashes me a bright smile when she pitches up at my side, nudging me with her shoulder. “Are you coming to the ceilidh tonight?” The word, sounding like ‘kaylee’, is foreign to me.

  “The what now?”

  She twists her dark auburn hair around her index finger and grins. “Tate says it’s Irish for party. The girls from Upsilon are dressing up as sexy leprechauns. Didn’t you get the memo?”

  I groan, hiding behind my folder. “No way, Kepler.” Sexy leprechauns my ass. I’m not spending my evening hanging out with a bunch of Xanax popping, neurotic bitches. Especially when it’s a Thursday and last time I checked, classes aren’t done ‘til Friday. “I’m not partying tonight. I have midterms next week.”

  “So do I,” Morgan laughs. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t give myself one night off!” She lets go of her own hair to tug at mine, and I find myself wishing I’d given in to the insane urge I’d had to chop it all off a few nights back. If it were an inch long instead of curling loosely well past my shoulders, she would have nothing to grab hold of. And guys wouldn’t stare at me whenever I passed them in the corridor, making assumptions based on my appearance, like I just know they do. After all, the majority of girls at Columbia with hair my color get it out of a bottle and are known for being all party.

  I slap Morgan’s hand away and give her a tight smile. “I’m no good at cramming. I have to work harder than you to score a good grade. You don’t want me to crash and burn, do you? I’ll be a massive failure and no one will hire me. I’d have to come live with you for the rest of my life. You’ll be forever wishing you’d let me alone so I could concentrate.”

  “Pssshhh.” She tips her head back and moans. “Please! We’re going to be living together after college, anyway. And besides, you’re never gonna be home. You’re going to be some hotshot journo that gets invited to all the celeb parties, out all night harassing the A-list elite for the inside track on their failing marriages and boob jobs.”

  Morgan has entirely the wrong idea about why I want to become a journalist. The very last thing I have in mind is reporting on the society and celebrity columns. “Yeah, real funny.”

  “Avery!” Morgan hooks her arm through mine and pulls me off my path toward the Low Memorial Library, instead guiding me off campus, towards Morningside Heights, where we both live. “You have to start enjoying yourself.” She gives me the look she reserves only for me, the one that says I’m losing myself again. I told Morgan about my dad by mistake; she is the only person at Columbia University who knows. We got so drunk one night that I threw up into a trashcan on Broadway and blabbed the whole story—the shock of being told my dad had committed suicide after he’d killed three other members of the Breakwater community; that I’d been a social pariah since that day, and had been kicked and punched and bullied through the last four years of high school.

  I barely knew Morgan at the time. I was seriously lucky that she was a loyal friend from the outset, because I almost killed myself creating this new persona. I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t be someone new here. Avery Patterson is an ordinary girl from Idaho. Her extended family hadn’t disowned her because of her father’s transgressions, and her own mother certainly hadn’t dumped her on her father’s best friend’s doorstep so she could forget all about her old life and go become a coldblooded defense lawyer in the city.

  Morgan draws her eyebrows together, arching over piercing grey eyes. “You know we have to go,” she says.

  I groan again. “But why?”

  “Because I look killer in green. And you need to get laid.”

  I thump her arm as she pulls me through the entrance of our building on 125th Street, guiding me up the first flight of stairs. “That’s the very last thing I need. I don’t have—”

  “If you say you don’t have time for sex, I am literally going to scream!” A group o
f girls on their way down the stairs stop talking to shoot us both dirty looks.

  “You’re making people think I’m a tramp, Morgan!”

  “So what? You’d find life a whole lot more fun if you were a bit more ‘free’ with your attention.”

  “A bit more…ugh!” She opens the door to her apartment and I storm passed her, throwing myself down onto her bed. My shared apartment is another three floors up, so we usually hang out at her place between classes because it means less cardio. Unfortunately, we weren’t lucky enough to score each other as roommates in the housing lottery, and no one was brave enough to trade off the books.

  “You haven’t been on a single date since the start of college. You realize that’s what your freshman year is for, right? Meeting guys? Everyone knows this.” Morgan begins hunting for clothes. She’s one of those people that appears tidy and organized on the surface but in reality is all over the place. That certainly explains the row of empty hangars and the towering pile of scrunched up satin and lace in her closet. And under her bed. I like how carefree Morgan is, but sometimes her messiness makes me nervous. Everything in my apartment is spotless, something my roommate Leslie has been good enough to maintain.

  “I always thought freshman year was about figuring out what you wanted to major in and laying the ground work for achieving a solid degree,” I tell her, ignoring the fact that she’s throwing random items of green material at me.

  “Yeah, but you’ve already done both of those things. Oh!” Her head appears around her closet door. “You know, I can find someone to take you if you like?”

  “No! Jeez, Morgan, I’m not even going!”

  “Yes, you are. Hey, is your mom still paying you a ridiculously huge allowance each month to make up for the fact that she’s a bitch?”

  My shoulders slump. I turn and look at her. Dear Lord, the girl is so transparent. “And I am not going shopping, either.”