Frostbitten: The Complete Series (9 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DRAMA & ROMANCE

In no time at all, the sun had disappeared without a trace, and darkness once again blanketed the town.

Connor, with his school bag slung over his shoulder, made his way down the snowy streets towards the university campus. He was tired—running off only a couple hours of sleep.

In the distance, he could see Hanna walking towards class. He readjusted his bag on his shoulder, and then hustled to catch up to the shy girl.

“Hanna!” Connor called out as he powered through the deep snow.

Hanna stopped and turned to Connor. She awkwardly looked to the ground as she realized who it was.

“Hey,” Connor said as he caught up with Hanna.

“Hi.”

“How was your night?”

“It was okay.” Hanna looked around self-consciously.

Connor could tell that he was making the girl feel uncomfortable. “Look—I wanted to apologize for yesterday at the bar.”

“What do you mean?” Hanna asked.

“Sometimes I have a big mouth. I was talking your ear off all night—and I think I made you feel uncomfortable. That wasn’t my intention. To be honest, it’s just something I do when I meet new people. Kind of like what I’m doing now.” Connor laughed.

“Oh—No, it’s okay.”

“I feel like you might have gotten the wrong impression from me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to be your friend. You seem like a cool person, and I don’t really know anyone in the class.”

Hanna stared at Connor, unsure of what to think of him.

“When I was blabbing on yesterday, I think you might have thought that I was hitting on you, and I scared you away. I just wanted to tell you—that wasn’t what I was getting at. I was just—chatting, you know? I was just trying to break the ice—make conversation.”

Hanna smiled. “Okay.”

“I heard that you like to write,” Connor said.

“Who said that?”

“Brittany was telling me that she remembers you writing a lot when you were younger.”

“Oh. Really?”

“That’s what she said. I guess you guys went to school together?”

“What else did she say?”

“Um—I don’t know. Nothing, really. She said she didn’t really know you very well.”

“Oh,” Hanna replied.

Hanna looked down the road towards the school.

“I’d like to read something of yours sometime.”

“I don’t really have anything finished,” Hanna said. “So there’s not much to read.”

“That’s okay. I’m not some snobby book reviewer and I don’t exactly have a literary degree. Besides--I’m sure it’s great.”

Hanna smiled coyly.

“So, if you write lots—then you must be good at English.”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“When Mr. Fenner was going off about subjects and nous and perverbs—that must have been a cakewalk for you.”

Hanna giggled. “Proverbs.”

“What?”

“You said ‘perverbs’. It’s proverbs.” Hanna let out another little laugh at the silliness of the mistaken word.

“Oh,” Connor laughed. “My point exactly. I’ll be honest and say that I’m far from being an English whiz. Maybe you could help me out?” Connor asked. “Not to put you on the spot or anything—I don’t want you to think I’m using you or anything.”

“Um... Sure,” Hanna said.

Hanna looked into the smiling Connor’s blue eyes—still on the fence about whether to trust him or not. She wanted to think that this was finally life giving her a break—finally someone who was genuinely interested in liking her as a person.

But at the same time, she’d had her hopes crushed before, and couldn’t help but to remain defensive.

“Maybe before class starts, you can quickly run me through the stuff we learned yesterday. I haven’t quite grasped it yet.”

“Sure,” Hanna smiled. “I’ll teach you all there is to know about perverbs,” she joked.

Connor laughed.

“Did you read those chapters from Tale of Two Cities?” Hanna asked.

Connor’s eyes lit up. “Tale of Two Cities…” he muttered to himself.

“The book we were assigned yesterday?”

Connor put his hands on his head and took a deep breath.

“Uh—I did, but I left the book at my house! I’ll be right back. Tell Mr. Fenner that I’ll be a minute late. Tell him I’m sorry too.”

Connor took off running back down the road, towards his house. With so much going on in his life, it was difficult to keep track of absolutely everything.

Hanna watched and shyly laughed as Connor ran down the street and around the corner.

“Hey,” a different voice said from behind her.

Hanna turned around. Brittany was standing right behind her. Her makeup was meticulously perfected, and her hair had been carefully straightened. She wore a different coat—a short cut leather coat that complimented her different attire. She wore a cutesy short skirt, which flared out over a pair of white tights.

“Hi,” Hanna said.

“What’s your deal?” Brittany asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You could obviously tell that I liked him. I don’t know what I did to you, but to just flirt with him right in front of me? What’s your deal?” Brittany asked again. “Did I ever do something to you?”

“I—I wasn’t flirting with him.”

“Bullshit--At the bar yesterday? You were practically staring at me the whole time you were doing it. Just tell me: Do you have a problem with me?”

“No—I don’t have a problem. I wasn’t flirting. We’re just friends.”

“He asked you out on a date—friends don’t date.”

“He didn’t ask me on a date.”

Brittany was tense, and full of pent up anger. “I don’t know if you remember, but I was the one who was nice to you in school. I defended you when people called you a psychopath.”

“I didn’t ask for you to defend me,” Hanna said.

“I defended you because you needed it—not because you wanted it. I was the only person who had your back. Did you like having dog shit thrown in your face?”

“I need to get to class,” Hanna said, trying to walk around Brittany.

Brittany stepped in front of Hanna, stopping her from getting any further. “You knew that I was defending you in high school, and you never even said thanks. I didn’t even know you, and I lost friends over you.”

“I’m sorry,” Hanna said. “Don’t make me feel guilty for something I didn’t ask for. High school wasn’t a great time for me.”

“High school isn’t a great time for anyone!” Brittany snapped. “I’m not asking a lot. I’m just asking that you let me just have this. Just leave him alone—please. You at least owe that to me.”

Hanna looked sheepishly down at her feet. “He doesn’t like you,” she muttered.

“What was that?”

“He doesn’t like you.”

The anger in Brittany’s body intensified. She wasn’t to slap Hanna right in the face.

“How would you know?” Brittany said.

“I need to get to class,” Hanna said again.

“I can’t believe I ever stood up for you,” Brittany said.

“Whatever,” Hanna muttered.

Then, without any warning, Brittany slapped Hanna right in the face. The contact was hard—Hitting her right in the mouth. Hanna grabbed her mouth as tears began to form in her eyes.

Brittany turned around and walked to class, leaving Hanna standing alone in the snow.

Hanna removed her hand from her mouth. She was bleeding. She placed her backpack down on the ground and started to dig through it.

She pulled out a tissue, and started to wipe away the blood. After a moment, she continued her way towards class.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1969 FORD MUSTANG MACH ONE

Kane sat in his car, idling outside of the university. He was waiting for the last minute before he went inside for class.

He held his black pea coat jacket tight to his body, keeping himself warm as the freezing air penetrated his rusty old car.

1969 Mustang Mach 1: The Holy Grail of muscle cars.

The car was painted black with a thin red pinstripe down the side. Kane drove one of the greatest American cars every built.

How did a kid, barely out of high school, afford such a fine piece of machinery?

He didn’t—and it wasn’t exactly the finest piece of machinery out on those icy Snowbrooke roads.

Kane’s car was worn down to the bone. The paint was faded and patches of rust had overtaken the wheel wells, the bumper, the original rims and almost every single piece of exposed metal on the vehicle. The engine was miraculously still the original, with a near impossible half-a-million kilometres logged.

Over the years, parts of the car had stopped working, or completely fallen off. Kane replaced them with whatever he could find—from different models, companies and years. It was very possible that there were parts under the hood that weren’t even made for cars, but instead for small planes and boats.

The car’s internal mechanism was a grotesque Frankenstein machine of mismatched pieces. Inside, the upholstery was worn, torn and ripped. What was once classy black leather was now a chewed up grey mess.

Magically, the car still ran seemingly well—and could still reach nearly one hundred and thirty miles per hour, in true Mustang Mach 1 fashion.

Kane’s father bought the Ford beauty back in 1969—right from The Ford Factory. He drove the beast for twenty-five years before retiring it to an old rusty shed on the family farm, where is remained hidden and forgotten for over a decade.

When Kane finally found it, it became his project. He knew nothing about cars, but something about that rusted old Mustang spoke to him.

Kane learned everything he came to learn through trial and error, swapping parts out over and over until they finally worked.

The family farm backed onto an old junkyard, and there was a hole in the fence that Kane used to sneak over. Once in the junkyard, he would steal parts from rusty old cars.

It took him a whole year of persistence before the car would even move, and another year before he could take it out onto the farm’s little dirt road.

His father was oblivious to his hobby—not realizing that Kane even knew about the Mustang in the shed.

Kane’s father was a lazy man, rarely leaving the house and rarely leaving the television set.

The only reason he ever found out that Kane had been modifying his old car was because he recognized the classic beauty on his television—when the thirteen year old Kane had gotten into a twenty-five minute-long police chase after robbing a corner store.

When the flashing sirens appeared in the teenaged Kane’s rear-view mirror, he panicked. Instead of pulling over, he drove faster—as fast as he could.

Fifteen minutes of frantic speeding later, a dozen more police officers joined in—as well as every news outlet within one hundred miles.

Kane ended up losing control of the car. He crashed it hard into an car that was stopped at a red light—seriously injuring the driver, who happened to be an undercover cop.

Armed robbery, grand theft auto, driving without a license, destruction of police property, assaulting a police officer, mischief, resisting arrest, possession of an illegal firearm, and speeding in a school zone—You name it, the thirteen year old was charged with it.

The Mustang was impounded and Kane was sent to juvenile hall.