Part One
The Monster
Chapter One
BEFORE SHE MOVED TO MINNESOTA, CLAIRE DIDN’T KNOW the inside of your nose could freeze, that cold like this even existed. It started at your feet and climbed up your legs, seizing your chest, until every part of your body was completely frozen.
Before, she didn’t take the bus, which appeared at the corner, its headlights cutting through the haze of the morning snow falling in silent clumps.
She used to love the snow.
Waking up, finding the world covered. Refreshing the browser on her laptop and jumping when the phone finally rang, the automated voice saying those sweet words of freedom—Catawba County schools have been cancelled. . . .
Nothing short of a miracle, nothing better. Not even Christmas.
But that was before, and now the snow was just another thing that disappeared.
The bus stopped on the corner and Claire turned up her music, loud enough that the other students at her stop—laughing like they’d never had as much as a paper cut—wouldn’t talk to her.
The doors shushed open, just like always. And just like always, the slow march toward the yellow bus started. Claire tried to join them. Tried to make her body move, but it was as if the snow had gone solid, seizing her feet.
She looked into her bag, letting person after person pass (breathing, breathing), trying to ignore the panic as it began to swirl, rushing into her ears like storm water.
She looked up, realizing she was alone.
The whole bus was a choir of stares and whispers, and the driver was giving her a look like, I’ll leave you, I swear, so instead of making him choose, she shook her head (breathing, breathing) and started to back away. She expected that first step to require a Herculean effort, something to crack concrete. But it didn’t and the force—the snow, the ice, all that cold—brought her down hard on the sidewalk.
The stares and whispers turned to laughter.
Before those kids would’ve been her friends. Before it wouldn’t have been impossible to get on the bus. Before she had friends and she would’ve laughed as she sat in the cold, the snow, rubbing the pain out of her ass and barking for everybody to shut the hell up, or else.
Her brother found the carriage house online and rented it sight unseen before they’d even arrived in Minnesota. They were still in North Carolina then, only days after, the panic swallowing them both. It was as if everything familiar had suddenly sprouted a fuse, already burning.
So, they left.
They left nearly everything, save a few boxes of clothing and pictures—their entire life crammed into Derrick’s small hatchback. They didn’t stop until the ground was flat and white, and when they pulled up to the carriage house, behind a legitimate mansion in the heart of St. Paul’s old-money neighborhood, Claire was sure it was a dream.
Mark-O, one of Derrick’s best friends from his skating days—and the owner of the Lair, a local skate park—had promised a job and enough money to cover the carriage house, which was bigger and nicer than any place they’d rented in North Carolina.
She had her own bedroom, her own bathroom; the entire place was heated by an antique woodstove that wrapped her in a warm embrace every time she came in from the cold. At first glance, the house was perfect, just like the job at the Lair was perfect—a chance for Derrick to focus on skating again finally. And, maybe, if you weren’t looking closely, you’d even think their life had snapped back to the way it had always been before. Perfect? Well, no. But safe. And when was the last time she’d actually felt safe?
She knew the exact minute of the exact day.
Claire kicked the snow from her shoes and opened the door. Her brother was staring at a table full of opened bills. As if he was summoning the courage to begin paying them. At first, he didn’t look up, and when he did, it took a second for the usual concern to flip onto his face.
Derrick was older by eight years, enough that he was already out of the house and living in Los Angeles when their parents were killed in a freak car accident. He ditched LA, a skating career that was about to take off, to make sure Claire didn’t end up in foster care or, worse, with one of their backwoods extended relatives who dotted the hills and hollers of West Virginia. Sometimes Claire wondered if it would’ve been easier if their parents were still around. If she and Derrick hadn’t run away as hard and fast as they could.
“What happened?”
To Derrick’s credit, he didn’t sound angry or even tired. At this point, either would’ve been justified. But his tone was patient and kind—as always.
“I couldn’t get on the bus and then—” She motioned to her pants, the damp circles at her knees.
Derrick stood up and ran his hands through his long, brown hair, not looking at her, which was a good thing because Claire couldn’t look at him, either. It had been a year and she was still sabotaged by the simplest things. Walking through the hallways at school. Ordering food at the mall. Getting on the bus. She wasn’t okay, she wasn’t better, and the weight of it had pulled Derrick underwater with her.
Claire stared down at her jeans. She’d had them for years, rescued from the rack of a thrift store in Chapel Hill. A one-day adventure Derrick let her tag along on. There was a fray on one of the pockets, small enough that you’d never notice it. Been there from the start. Claire would mindlessly pick at it during class, at lunch, while watching television. But now, as she stared at it, she realized it was just the start of something bigger.
“Hey,” Derrick said. “It’s good. We’re good. Okay?”
Claire forced herself to look up. To say, “Okay.”
Chapter Two
CLAIRE HELD HER BOARD ON HER LAP AS DERRICK DROVE. The Lair was on the other side of the Cities, tucked between steel-sided buildings that housed manufacturing companies and office-supply distributors. When they pulled up to the entrance, there wasn’t another car on the street. Derrick shot her a smile.
“The benefits of skating at eight a.m.”
Claire didn’t mention how many other random times they’d shown up here. Before sunrise, after midnight—the benefits of having a key to the building. And she didn’t mention how skating had become their way to escape, to momentarily forget, to never actually talk about why they were at the Lair at two a.m. on a school night.
Because skating worked.
It didn’t matter if she couldn’t get on the bus or off the light rail, if somebody’s puffy jacket froze her to the carpeted hallways at Central High School, or she simply woke up and found herself unable to function. If she needed it, they skated. For as long as it took to empty everything out of her.
Before they got out of the car, Derrick hesitated as if he wanted to say something. Claire braced herself, staring at her board, which had been left behind by some long ago LA girlfriend. Before, Claire would’ve asked Derrick why he still had it—needled him until he smiled and told her to give him a break.
But he didn’t say anything, just cracked the car door and sat there for another second as Claire felt the cold wind kick through the car, a rogue snowflake floating in and disappearing almost immediately.
The Lair didn’t have hours, not really. Instead, Mark-O would open the doors as early as he got there and close them whenever he finally tapped out, which usually was hours past midnight. Mark-O liked to say that a skate park with its doors closed was useless, especially in a place like Minnesota.