Winter (Four Seasons #1)

  Contents

  copyright

  Never forget thy fall

  Important Notice

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Epilogue

  Copyright © 2014 Frankie Rose

  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 noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at frankierose101@gmail.com

  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

  Please be aware that the original version of this book was published under the pen name Nikita Rae back in December, 2013.

  There are significant differences between this book and the original, namely that a number of chapters have been removed, and others have been added from Luke’s perspective. The ending is very different, too, in that there is no cliffhanger. I can’t say any more without ruining the ending for those who haven’t read the story…

  If you have already read Winter and intend to buy book two, Summer, when it is released, it would be advisable to re-read this version in advance. Some points may not make sense in the second instalment of the story otherwise.

  Best,

  Frankie

  Chapter 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—sounds like “Kaylee”—is foreign to me.

  “The what now?”

  She twists her dark auburn hair around her index finger and grins. “Irish for party, apparently. The girls from Upsilon are dressing up as sexy leprechauns. Bitches.”

  I groan, hiding behind my folder. “No way, Kepler.” Sexy leprechauns, my ass. And Greek girls? 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. 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. Most importantly, guys wouldn’t stare at me whenever I passed them in the corridor, making assumptions based on my appearance. Blonde equals easy. Blonde equals stupid. The majority of girls at Columbia with hair my color get it out of a bottle and are known for being all party. I’ve considered going brunette.

  I slap Morgan’s hand away, giving her a tight smile. “I’m no good at cramming. I have to work harder than you to score a good grade. At this rate I’m gonna be a massive failure and no one will hire me. I’m gonna 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, moaning. “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. 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’s an ordinary girl from Idaho. Her extended family didn’t diso
wn her because of her father’s transgressions, and her own mother certainly didn’t dump her on her father’s best friend’s doorstep so she could forget all about her old life to become a coldblooded prosecutor in the city.

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

  I groan again. “But why?”

  “Because I’m a redhead. 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 of girls on their way down the stairs stop talking to shoot us both dirty looks.

  “You’re making people think I’m a complete whore, Morgan.”

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

  I don’t justify that with a response. She opens the door to her apartment and I head straight for her room, 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 hangers 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. My apartment? My apartment is spotless—something my roommate Leslie has been good enough to maintain.

  “I thought freshman year was about figuring out what you wanted to major in. Laying the groundwork for achieving a solid degree,” I tell Morgan. She ignores me, 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?”

  “Jeez, Morgan, I’m not 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. Dear Lord, the girl is so transparent. This isn’t the first time she’s used my mother’s American Express to buy herself a new outfit. “We are not going shopping right now.”

  ******

  As usual, through diabolical and nefarious means, Morgan gets what she wants. Later that night I find myself pressed up against a horny leprechaun-ette and a shirtless guy with a painted green torso. Whether that’s an Irish thing or not I don’t know, but he certainly smells of whiskey. When their make out session develops into heavy petting, I decide enough is enough. Morgan is talking to Tate by the kegs, laughing behind her hand the way she does when she’s flirting. She thinks her smile is bad because her lower teeth are slightly crooked. She should be thanking her lucky stars she wasn’t forced through the nightmarish dentistry ordeals I was as a kid, just to satisfy her mother’s vain pursuit of possessing the “perfect” child. Yeah, that’s right—possessing. Like I was an inanimate object or something.

  Morgan and Tate have had an on-off thing for the past six months, and watching them skirt around each other, pretending to be only vaguely interested, is getting really boring.

  “I’m leaving,” I announce when I manage to shove my way through the crowd towards them. Morgan drops her hand from her mouth and scowls at me.

  “No way, we just got here!”

  “It’s one thirty. We’ve been here three hours, and I’m sick of random douchebags with green face paint grinding on me and calling me darlin’. No one can pull off a decent Irish accent when they’re wasted.”

  “There are a couple of Irish people here. I bet they can,” Tate interjects.

  I hitch an eyebrow. “Regardless of any genuine, bona fide Irish people in attendance at this party, it’s still time to go home.”

  Morgan jabs me with her index finger, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to tell me I’m ruining her chances of screwing Tate. “You’re a complete buzzkill, young lady.”

  “Don’t worry, you can stay. I’m all right to walk back on my own.”

  “No way. Didn’t you read the college orientation and safety handbook? No walking alone at night.” Morgan shoots Tate an apologetic look. “Maybe we could catch up tomorrow night instead?”

  “Sure. We could rent a movie. Night, ladies.” He turns and disappears into the press of bodies leaping up and down to the sounds of “Jump Around” by House Of Pain. Morgan pokes her tongue out at me.

  “I could strangle you sometimes.” She grins as she says this, though. Bitch is fickle. She’ll have forgiven me before we reach our building. We don’t get that far, though. Halfway down the steps leading from the frat house, a police car pulls up on the sidewalk, the red and blues rotating, throwing tall shadows across the street. The girls in tiny green mini skirts and high heels smoking outside scatter when the siren buzzes, squealing like morons.

  “Shit!” Morgan wrings her jacket in her hands. “Can we get by without them talking to us?”

  “Don’t freak out. It’s probably just a noise complaint.”

  “No, Ave. I don’t wanna get caught up with these guys tonight.”

  Morgan doesn’t exactly have a healthy respect for the law, but there’s no reason she should be so worried about a three-second telling off. “Don’t freak out, it’s gonna be fine.”

  I immediately regret my words. That happens way too frequently these days. When the doors of the police car open and the two officers step out, my stomach falls through the floor. “Oh, shit!”

  “What? What?” Morgan clenches the top of my arm, fingernails digging into my skin. She looks absolutely terrified.

  “Nothing, it’s just …”

  Luke Reid.

  Luke Reid is what. I haven’t seen him in his uniform in almost four years, but not much has changed. He still looks smoking hot in it. Luke was the all-star hero of Breakwater High. Girls dropped at his feet like swooning maidens in distress in the hope that he would catch them as they fell. I’d been dazed by Luke in the same way most fourteen-year-olds are dazed by god-like seniors. People had actually mourned when he’d graduated, students and teachers alike. He’d passed on a full ride to college courtesy of a football scholarship to join the police force. He kept in touch with me after he left for one reason and one reason only. A reason I don’t want to think about right now. A reason I’ve tried to forget all about in the three months since I moved to New York City and successfully managed to avoid his ass.

  His black hair is shorter than usual but still a little longer than a cop’s probably should be. Same deep brown eyes, though. Same strong jaw line. Shock registers on his face when he catches sight of me. He pauses for a second as he walks around the car, taking a moment to rein in the surprise of me tripping down a set of frat house steps in one of Morgan’s impossibly short tube dresses. I cringe at the look on his face. He doesn’t seem too impressed.

  “Iris?”

  My whole body shrinks away from that name. I glance at Morgan and see the surprise in her eyes. I told her my real name, but she’s never heard anyone use it. “Iris?” she hisses. “Does this guy know you?”

  “I’ll explain later,” I whisper. I take a deep breath and face Luke, trying to pretend I’m sober. That doesn’t work, of course. My breath smells like Bud Light and the plastic cup of warm whiskey I found on the sticky kitchen counter an hour ago. “Hey.” I give him a weak smile. “Been a while.”

  “Yeah…” He looks quickly from me to Morgan and b
ack again, clearly trying to piece everything together in his head. I feel strangely sorry for him. Ironic, right? Of the two of us, I’m the pathetic one in our odd relationship. Luke sends me a twisted smile. “I went back to Break a couple of months ago. Stopped by Brandon’s but he said your mom had shipped you up here to college. I did a search but I couldn’t find you registered anywhere.”

  My cheeks redden. It never occurred to me that he’d actually look for me when he couldn’t find me. People move on with their lives all the time. They move away from home. They get new jobs and they run from their shitty pasts. Even regular people do that. I kind of figured he’d shrug his shoulders and move on. Maybe be glad of the fact that he wouldn’t need to feel quite so responsible for me anymore. Instead, he searched the police database to find out which school I was attending? Does the police database even contain that kind of information? I don’t know what to think about that. I shiver and pull myself closer to Morgan. She is as stiff as a board, staring straight at Luke. I nod, biting my lip.

  “Yeah, you wouldn’t have. I changed my name. I didn’t want … I didn’t …”

  “I understand,” he says, saving me from saying it. Loud shouts and cheers leak out onto the street as the doors fly open and three girls teeter down the steps behind us. They immediately freeze, their hyena-like laughter paused as soon as they land eyes on Luke and his partner. At first I think it’s because they’re cops, but the tallest one, a brunette with smoky, dark, fuck-me eye make-up squeals and rushes forward, placing a well-manicured hand over her ample cleavage. “Oh my god, you’re Luke Reid, aren’t you?”

  Luke looks seriously uncomfortable. Like he just got caught with his pants down in a big way. His partner rolls his eyes. “Here we go again.”

  Luke clears his throat. “I’m on duty, ladies. Have you been drinking tonight?”

  The smile drops from the brunette’s face. Her two blonde friends grab her by either arm and start guiding her down the stairs. “No! No way, officer. We were just leaving,” one chuckles nervously. From the look on the brunette’s face she might just be willing to get busted drinking underage if it means she gets to stay and talk for another minute. She’s walking backwards, mouth open, as her drunk buddies drag her away.