Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale Book 3)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “Oh…ummm…” My mom paused. “I don’t off the top of my head, but I’m sure I can find it somewhere.”

  “Yeah, can you look?”

  “I can. Is this for the assignment?”

  “Yeah, you know me and having every little detail.”

  She exhaled, still not totally buying my story.

  “I better go. Thanks, Mom.”

  “Of course, sweetie. When do you think you’ll come for a visit? I think Alice and Matt are coming a week from Sunday. You and Scott will be there, right?”

  “Uh. I don’t know. We might be working.”

  “As much as I love you being fiscally responsible, don’t waste your youth, Dinah. Don’t forget to live and enjoy it too.”

  “Sure, Mom.” I gritted my teeth. “Love you. Bye.”

  I didn’t even wait for her to respond. Hanging up, I took in a shaky breath. Neither of my parents could handle it if I went down the same road Alice did. I couldn’t do that to them. I was the one they could count on. Dependable and solid.

  Without second-guessing myself, I pulled the bottle out of my bag. Popping the lid, I tossed a pill into my mouth, swallowing it.

  I would do everything I could to stop this…

  Whatever it took.

  Pushing open the door to my apartment, all I wanted was to take a shower and go to bed, forgetting this entire day.

  But boisterous laughter and giggles hit me like a punch to the face as I stepped in, irritation stabbing my shoulders. Lounging on our sofa and chairs, drinking and playing video games, were Scott and his friends David, Marc, and Leanne.

  They were nice enough, but I was in no mood to have people over right now. They all worked with him and shared similar interests. Leanne was the nerdy girl who had been friend-zoned, but if they took a moment, they would realize she was funny, smart, and totally cute under her unisex khaki work pants and polo shirt.

  The only thing rubbing me the wrong way sometimes was I had no doubt the girl had a huge crush on Scott. I didn’t think for a moment she’d do anything, nor would Scott, but their close friendship sometimes bothered me. Not jealousy exactly, but it was more that I got tired of their inside jokes and teasing each other. She was on the same nerdy level as him, and they got each other’s humor, always laughing about things I didn’t get.

  “Babe!” Scott yelled, raising his beer in the air, already red-cheeked and tipsy. Scott got a little loud and obnoxious when he drank.

  “Dinah!” The entire room cheered, all of them well on their way to being drunk. Pizza, beer, and chips were scattered everywhere, and a stack of beer bottles already lined the dining table and kitchen counter.

  “Hey.” I forced a thin smile on my face, taking off my jacket and shoes.

  “I thought you were working tonight?” Scott crawled over the couch to me, his arms grappling for me, pulling me in for a kiss, tasting of beer and Doritos.

  “Called in sick.” I tried to step back.

  “What?” He gaped. “You? Are you sick?” His palm clumsily patted my cheek and forehead, like he was feeling for a fever.

  Grabbing his hands, I pushed them off me, my annoyance sparking. “Not sick, but just had a really rough day.”

  “Didn’t you have only one class today?” I knew he didn’t mean to sound so demeaning, but tonight Scott was hitting every nerve I had.

  “I’m gonna go to bed.”

  “What? No,” the room bellowed.

  “Babe, stay.” He nuzzled drunkenly into me. “Play with us. You never play with me anymore.” He was right because he was highly competitive, and after a while, it’s no fun. “Hang out for a bit. Have fun.”

  Normally I might have given in, but not today.

  “It was good seeing you guys.” I backed away from Scott, his hands still pawing at me. “Night.”

  “Night,” they all responded as I went to the bedroom.

  “Dude, your girlfriend is so out of your league.” Their voices followed me. “Like Beauty and the Nerd.”

  “Shut up, man,” Scott grumbled.

  “What? Like you don’t see it? Dinah is Victoria’s Secret level. You are beyond a lucky bastard. You better grovel so she doesn’t leave your ass,” David slurred.

  “Leave me? Why would she leave me?” Scott’s voice went up.

  “You didn’t see her look? Man, you are so in trouble.” Marc chuckled.

  “Why?”

  “You had friends over without asking. That’s a no-no. She gave you the you’re sleeping on the couch look if I ever saw one,” Marc heckled. “Am I right, Leanne?”

  “Yep, sorry. You’re in deep shit,” she replied, laughing.

  I hated that I sounded like a wicked witch, always taking the fun out of everything like some bitchy, uptight wife.

  I washed my face, staring at a twenty-year-old girl in the mirror who acted eighty.

  Was this my life? Day in and day out? What would Scott and I be like when we were actually old?

  The sensation of being trapped came over me, one I had never felt before when imagining Scott and me growing old together. Gazing at the face in the reflection, I realized I was starting to not recognize her anymore, the girl who always knew precisely what she wanted. Had a plan and achieved it. Alice always told me I was so determined to confine everything to their rightful boxes, keep things in order, and if something unexpected happened to me, I’d lose it. Every box would come tumbling down, the insides spilling out in chaos.

  I was trying so hard to hold everything in place, but I knew it was about to topple down on me.

  Chapter 12

  It was hours later when Scott came into the bedroom. I knew Leanne was the last guest to leave because sleep did not come, even as exhausted as I was. My mind was restless, and the bed felt like spikes. I tossed and turned, trying to quiet my mind, which only spiraled, adding layers of irritation and grumpiness.

  And guilt.

  My body couldn’t relax, my core still aching, which triggered more anger.

  “Babe,” Scott mumbled, crawling into bed. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me back into his chest, drunkenly nuzzling my hair. “Love you so much.” His hand tugged at my tank, the other running over my hip as he sloppily kissed my neck.

  “Scott…” I tried to pull away, shuddering at his touch instead of desiring it. “Stop.”

  “Baby, I’ve missed you,” he whispered into my ear, his hand going under my tank, pawing at my boob roughly, his crotch bumping against me, dry-humping me. “I want you.”

  “Scott, stop. I’m not in the mood.”

  Liar. Just not for him. An evil voice gnawed at the back of my head, spiking my irritation.

  “I can make you be in the mood.” He continued to kiss my neck, his hands roaming over me. Drunk people always thought they were so sexy and seductive. It only worked when the other person was tipsy with you. “I’m horny, baby.”

  That word felt like a barb in my skin. It was one pet name I loathed. Baby felt condescending to me. It was what you called a child or pet.

  He rubbed into the back of me, muttering things in my ear, his hand pushing into the front of my boy shorts. I grew more and more cross, shoving my elbow back into him.

  “I said stop.” I wiggled from his grip.

  “What the fuck, Dinah?” Scott sat up, rejection flipping his mood in a flash, which was really unlike him.

  “I told you. I’ve had a rough day.”

  “Jesus, you sound like an old woman.”

  Fury burned around my ears and chest, swiveling me around. I sat up to face him.

  “Don’t even go there. There have been many times you brushed me off and told me you had to work in the morning.” My lids narrowed. “Just because you’re horny now doesn’t mean I am.”

  Though you certainly were earlier at school… I pushed away the thought.

  “We’re barely twenty and already giving excuses? We’ve hardly touched each other lately. We should be having sex all the time,” h
e griped.

  “Maybe we would if we didn’t start at fifteen.”

  “What?” He jerked back.

  “Nothing.” I brushed my loose hair from my face. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “No, I think you did.” His voice tightened. “Are you saying you’re bored with sex? With me?”

  “No!” I replied, but I felt a twinge of truth in my gut at his claim. “Of course not. I’m not feeling well right now. Can you understand that?”

  He huffed, looking away. “Yeah, fine.” He flipped off the covers, getting out of bed.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m gonna take a shower. Is that all right?” He stomped away, the door to the bathroom shutting a little harder than it should.

  My shoulders deflated, my mood plummeting lower. Maybe I should have let him…maybe it would have helped. Him, me—us.

  I could easily join him in the shower, apologize with my body and mouth. Let him know I still loved him, was still attracted to him. But I couldn’t seem to get off the bed.

  Rolling in my anger, I flopped back down on my side. Fifteen minutes later, Scott climbed back in, but this time he didn’t touch me, or even venture close to my side, curling on his side, both of us facing away from each other.

  Guilt sat on my chest. My tongue was primed to say I was sorry, to curl up in his arms like I had so many times, but nothing came out, and time ticked on. Soon his heavy drunken snores thundered through the room, building anger back up my spine.

  My mind, not able to stay away from what happened earlier, tried to rationalize the events. I struggled to make logical sense of what happened, but I continued to loop around and around, finding no answer.

  Turning over again, my gaze caught the antique gold-framed mirror above the dresser, the streetlights glinting off the glass. It was something I bought on a whim at a secondhand store. I wasn’t someone huge into design or kitschy stuff. I liked clean, simple, and functional, but when I saw it, I couldn’t leave without it, even though it went against my typical style.

  When Mom came to visit, she told me it reminded her of the one I had as a child but got rid of when I redid my room. I didn’t remember the mirror, but maybe it was why I was drawn to this one. Maybe I subconsciously picked it because it hit a nostalgia button with me.

  Or was it more than that? Did it have some power? In my dreams, it was how I got to the Winterland place.

  I slid carefully out of bed, Scott’s snores not changing as I padded across the room. The witching hour drew me into the darkness of possibilities and magic. The morning stripped it away, the daylight making you laugh at yourself for believing in ghosts and goblins.

  “You’re being absurd, Dinah,” I muttered, reprimanding myself. “There is no such thing as traveling through mirrors or a world with Christmas icons.” I pressed my hand to the mirror because of a powerful need to prove it to myself that this was all silly nonsense. I sucked air into my lungs, my fingers brushing over the glass.

  Cool. Smooth.

  Solid.

  Just as glass should be.

  “See. It’s not real.” I flattened my hand on the mirror again. “It’s all stress and exhaustion.”

  Since Alice’s incident and her returning home from the mental facility, my mind had been all jumbled. The feeling like I was forgetting something but could never remember it had been plaguing me for two years. Mom and I had never really dealt with what happened to Alice. Maybe in some bizarre way, this was how I was dealing with it.

  My hands went to my face, rubbing abrasively as I exhaled. Everything felt so topsy-turvy. I hated it.

  “Then let it in, my dear.” A faraway voice caused my head to bolt up, my eyes darting around, searching for the intruder, a scream stuck in my lungs. “Sanity is a luxury you can’t afford, not if you want to stay sane.”

  My heart thumped wildly in my chest, my body locked in terror as I stared around the dark room. Nothing looked out of place, no murderer hiding in the corner.

  “All the answers you seek are the ones you do not know.”

  “That makes no sense,” I muttered. Was I really fighting with my delusion? Was I having another episode?

  Locking on Scott and different objects in the room, I tried to cling to the facts, to solid objects. Truth. Reality.

  “How do you know any of this is true, my dear? That could be your hallucination. All depends on where you stand.” A ripple waved over the mirror’s surface where a huge smile made of coal reflected in the glass.

  “Oh my god.” I stumbled back, a gasp cracking against my ribs.

  “Come, my dear.” The smile grew until it started to curl back on itself, the coal pieces whirling into a spiral. My eyes followed it as if I were being hypnotized. “Be our guest…”

  As if I were no longer in my body, my hand raised, my fingers reaching for the glass. This time I didn’t feel the solid mirror, my hand going through it like it was water.

  My head spun, my body pitched forward, and I felt myself falling—headfirst into going completely bonkers.

  My stomach squeezed as the stone floor hurtled toward me, the air wrapping around me at the bottom, lowering my bare feet to the ground with a soft tap.

  It was the same place I had come to before. A windowless room in the stone fortress. Only the twelve-foot mirror adorned the room. Glancing over my shoulder at the glass, my muscles clenched down on my lungs. I hadn’t noticed the first time that the mirror was a larger version of mine, but every detail and carving were identical.

  Swallowing, my throat thick with anxiety, I peered around, expecting the same brutal man to be hiding in the shadows. The man who had me pinned against the brick wall…the one with icy blue eyes and aloof exterior, but fire raging under his skin.

  Frost.

  Sparks of adrenaline hummed up my limbs, and my heart thumped in my chest, waiting for him to step out, but no one did.

  Cautiously, I padded down the stairs I used before, taking me back to the first floor of the castle. I knew where the exit was. I could run, get out before he found me.

  But I didn’t.

  Something Alice and I had in common was curiosity. Our parents always taught us to seek more knowledge, to discover hidden truths, to never stop learning. While Alice did it more for the adventure, I collected truth and ideas like a puzzle. The more I knew, the clearer the picture and my understanding of a situation.

  I scurried past large empty rooms that once might have been used as formal greeting rooms, family areas, offices, and dining. Now they were left with no life or personality. Not a single picture, art piece, or trinket. Soulless and unfriendly. It was definitely a fortress, not a home.

  Finding another set of stairs, I headed down. Nerves danced in my stomach like lords a-leaping, but I couldn’t stop the desire to find out everything I could about Frost—peel back his layers as he did every time he looked at me.

  Sconces lit the way down to the lower level underground. A wide corridor stretched out in front of me, other hallways and rooms branching from the main artery. Slithering farther down the hallway, I noticed more furnishings down here—a few more rugs, a bench to sit on, and at the far end, I could see a floor-to-ceiling painting but couldn’t make it out from where I was. A low hum of voices pulled me down another passage instead. A gruff laugh, then more mutterings came from a room down at the end.

  A tingle pirouetted on the back of my neck, skipping down my arms. The air felt heavier; everything around me was alive, holding its breath as I tiptoed closer to the room.

  “Stop being a baby! It’s been a full day, and you barely have any marks now,” a small voice huffed.

  “They still hurt.”

  “Biscuits and tinsel, you’re acting like you’re dying.”

  “Those things are scary,” a deep voice quietly replied.

  “You’re ten times the size.”

  “There were ten million more of them.”

  “Exaggerate much? One swipe of your claw and job don
e, but no, you prance and preen around, like a prize pony.”

  “I roared, didn’t I?”

  “You are seriously an embarrassment to your kind.”

  “Hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “Both of you shut up. You’re giving me a headache.” As if lightning zapped through my lungs, I felt myself struggle for breath.

  Frost. I knew it, almost like his voice dug into my bones and carved his name into them.

  “You’ve been grumpy today. Uh-oh…is it your time again?” the smaller voice asked.

  A silence followed, but I could feel tension slide over my skin like thick honey.

  Creeping closer, I flattened myself up next to the door, tipping my head to peer in, taking in the scene. My mouth fell open, and everything in the universe of what I knew to be real flipped and tumbled again on its head.

  The room held a massive mattress, which covered most of the floor, layered with blankets and pillows in French country motifs of soft pastel flowers. A few fabric stools with distressed white trays loaded with food and drinks were sprinkled through the room.

  But it wasn’t the peculiar decor that caught my eye, a stark contrast to upstairs; it was what was on the large mattress littered with pillows.

  A massive, white, fluffy polar bear smoking what looked like weed.

  Holy shit…

  And standing on one of his large clawed feet was Dor, wrapping gauze around the bear’s ankle.

  “Sorry, boss. I didn’t mean that.” Dor motioned to the corner. Pushing my head out to see deeper into the room, I felt my heart leap up in my chest. Dressed in dark jeans, sweater, and boots, his wet hair brushed back, Frost leaned on a table against the wall, his head down, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.

  “You know I didn’t mean to bring it up.” Dor continued to wrap the polar bear’s leg.

  “Then don’t,” Frost rumbled, his voice trembling through me.

  “Ow, Dor.” The bear flinched, taking another hit. “You’re pulling out my fur.”

  “Cranberry lumps…you are the biggest baby.” Dor tossed up his hands, his tiny body a speck compared to the humongous bear.