Tristan (The Ruins of Emblem #1)

by Cora Brent

  “Bye, Ms. Gentry,” sang a couple of girls, identical twins from my third period class.

  “Have a good night,” I called back to them, their names coming to me too late, after they’d already gotten lost in the crowd. Thea and Manda Stremich, eager students who sat in the second row and kept their matching freckled faces trained on me as they quietly listened. I’d learned the names of most of the students in my six classes and I was working on recognizing the faces in the hallway I didn’t yet know. My goal was to be able to greet any kid in the school by name whether they were in my class or not.

  Aura Campo was standing in the doorway of her classroom and speaking to a kid who was a good ten inches taller than her. Judging by the stern look on her face the conversation wasn’t going smoothly. She noticed I was walking by and hailed me with a smile and a wave.

  “You on parking lot duty today?” she asked.

  “On my way now,” I confirmed.

  Aura’s focus returned to her student, who was now sullenly crossing his arms and scowling at the floor.

  “And the next time you do anything like that in my classroom,” Aura started saying but the noise of passing students swallowed up the remainder of her threat.

  I kept a smile on my face as I moved through the sea of teenagers en route to the door leading to the back parking lot. A few of the kids smiled back, all of them girls. The rest were busy trying to flee the stuffy building or staring into their phone screens like they were oracles of destiny.

  At the first faculty meeting assignments were handed out for something that everyone referred to as ‘parking lot duty’. Basically it meant sticking around for an extra hour after school and conducting a few sweeps of the campus inside and outside the building to make sure no one was fighting in the bleachers or fooling around in the bathrooms or lingering in the parking lot doing things that might send them to the prison fortress just down the road. It was a task better suited to someone who looked a lot more threatening than I did but the actual security staff only consisted of a seventy-year-old former copper miner with acute emphysema. The rest of us had to fill in the blanks and try to maintain order as best we could.

  The blistering heat stalled me for a second when I stepped outside. It was just as hot in Emblem as it was in Phoenix. But down here you were more acutely aware of being in the desert because you weren’t surrounded by freeways and stucco subdivisions. Drive three blocks from the center of town in any direction and there was sand and brush for miles, the sparse vista broken only by the occasional modest home. My father had grown up somewhere out there. Perhaps that was why I felt a vague jolt every time I squinted into the scenery, as if the Emblem desert had been baked into my DNA.

  The cheerleading squad was gathered in a shady spot right outside the gymnasium and a few of them waved at me before filing indoors to practice. Watching them provoked a nostalgic feeling. I’d enjoyed a brief cheerleading career in high school until I topped off an unwise pyramid formation and cracked two bones in my right foot. After dragging around a cast for a few months I decided to quit cheerleading and joined the softball team where daredevil stunts were not required. But I could remember the feeling of being young and invincible, of being sure that I knew better than the perplexed adults who tried to guide me.

  “We haven’t met,” said a man’s voice.

  I looked up. While staring out at the parched athletic fields and getting lost in my own thoughts I’d acquired some company.

  “No, we haven’t met,” I said and extended a hand. “Cadence Gentry, English department.”

  The man had a firm handshake and the badge hanging from his neck solved the question of his identity. He wore a gray polo shirt and a baseball cap embroidered with the school mascot, a devilish looking scorpion. He looked like a guy who spent a lot of time in the sun and I would have guessed his age to be around thirty. A very strapping, well tended thirty. He didn’t bother to conceal the interest in his eyes as he looked me over.

  “I’ve heard about you,” I said. “Rod Ward. You’re the football coach.”

  His smile looked like an advertisement for something hygienic, like mouthwash or shaving gel. “Yes, when I’m not trying to break down the elements of the periodic table to a room full of disinterested teenagers.”

  “The kids say you’re tough. On the field and in the classroom.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, Cadence.”

  I’d heard other things about him too, that last year he’d endured a messy divorce and was widely considered to be a prized prospect among Emblem’s single women.

  “How long have you been teaching here?” I asked.

  “Eight years. Went to Emblem High myself once upon a time.” He noticed the pieces of paper in my hand. “Are you the one who’s been handing those out?”

  I’d forgotten that I’d grabbed a stack after locking the bottom drawer of my desk.

  “Guilty.” I fanned them out to show him. “They’re called Positivity Passes and I use them as kind of a classroom currency to reward the students when they make an extra effort.”

  “Oh.” Rod rubbed the back of his neck and shifted his eyes.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve seen them around, that’s all.”

  “Where?”

  Now he was embarrassed. “Actually I caught a few of my few of my players setting them on fire in a garbage can.”

  I wilted a little. “Well that sucks.”

  His smile was sympathetic. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry,” I grumbled. “I won’t shoot the messenger.”

  A group of boys in football gear busted out of the gymnasium door. I recognized one as the kid who’d told me to fuck myself on the first day of school. I hadn’t seen him since then. He paused when he spotted me but only addressed his coach.

  “Are we on the field today?”

  “We are,” Rod said and then realization dawned on his face. “Hey Landon, are you any relation to our new English teacher?”

  So that’s Landon Gentry. Figures.

  Landon didn’t look at me. “Never heard of her.”

  Rod sighed. “All right, get on the field, all of you. I’ll meet you out there in a minute.”

  One of the other boys let out an obnoxious whistle and said something I didn’t quite catch but sounded like, “Get a piece of that, coach.” Rod threw him an angry look.

  “I’m slacking on my patrolling,” I said, already starting to move away. “But it was nice to meet you, Rod.”

  The toothpaste commercial reappeared. “Nice to meet you too. Maybe we could grab a drink at the Cactus sometime. It’s a bar. It’s actually the Dirty Cactus but we locals sometimes shorthand the name.”

  “Ah, yes. I know the place.”

  Actually I was becoming a regular there, having stopped by no less than four times since Aura invited me on the first day of school. Leah Brandeis and I were becoming fast friends. We were the same age and I was interested to hear what it had been like for her to grow up in Emblem as the daughter of a man who owned a place called the Dirty Cactus. Leah was very chatty once she got going and I’d learned a lot about the town and the people in it from talking to her. For instance I’d learned that the Gentry name still raised some eyebrows among those who remembered what hell raisers they’d been when you couldn’t walk down Emblem’s Main Street without tripping over a few of them.

  And, more unnervingly, I’d learned that Tristan Mulligan was a neighborhood drug dealer.

  I left Rod Ward behind to shout at his players on the brutally hot athletic field and continued on my route. Nothing appeared to be amiss out here in the back of the building, just sports teams getting ready for practice and a few staff members supervising them. The cluster of kids who were huddled by the bleachers and expelling clouds of smoke were already being chased away by the principal. The rear parking lot was small and mostly utilized by staff so it was quiet. Rather than walk the long way around the building I opted to cut through t
he gym to check out the larger parking lot in the front.

  After pausing to poke my head into the bathrooms and clear them of people who were smoking or vaping or fooling around I made my way to the double doors of the main entrance. The oppressive halls had cleared considerably and I wondered if anyone ever considered installing some air fresheners to dissipate the pervasive dirty sock odor. Funny how it was the same smell I remembered from my school days, the universal sour stink of high school.

  Rod’s comment about the doomed Positivity Passes still stung. They were still clutched in my hand I wished my dress had a pocket where I could stuff them. Over the summer when I was planning my lessons they’d seemed like such a nice thing, a way to motivate the kids and insert a little recognition into their days. I couldn’t take complete credit for the idea. I’d read an article about a Scottsdale teacher who’d done something similar and the results were wildly successful. Maybe I was being too stingy with them or maybe I hadn’t done a good job explaining what they were for.

  Or maybe I had no freaking clue what I was doing.

  If one of my teachers had handed me one of these would I have been pleased? Or would I have been standing at the dumpster beside the football players and striking the first match?

  I sighed loudly. I might have to reconsider a few things.

  The double doors had been propped open and I knew they weren’t supposed to be so I kicked the rock out of the way and allowed them to shut behind me. A line of cars that had seen better days were still winding out of the parking lot and heading for the traffic light.

  I jogged down the front steps and saw a boy and a girl in the shadows of the mesquite trees that flanked the entrance. Their arms were around each other as they swayed to music that apparently only they could hear. The scene was sweet so I swept past them without saying anything.

  Then I surveyed the parking lot while shielding my eyes from the sun and discovered a scene that wasn’t sweet, not even a little bit. A conversation from a few days ago returned to haunt me as I froze beside the curb in front of Emblem High.

  “I have no firsthand knowledge,” Leah had said as her faced twisted into a troubled frown. “And I couldn’t guess what exactly he’s selling. But the rumor is he’s dealing something.”

  She noticed that her information had kind of knocked the wind out of me although I shouldn’t have been surprised. Tristan’s older brother used to run around with a notorious gang before he turned his life around and years ago Tristan had run back to Emblem to follow in Curtis’s footsteps.

  Leah was afraid that I was upset. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that you kept asking about him...”

  She was right. I had asked about him. And I felt more than a twinge of dismay that my new infatuation had turned out to be so much worse than a petty criminal who lifted hubcaps.

  Ever since our sexually charged encounter at the bar I’d been thinking about Tristan too much, fantasizing about him, allowing my hand to drift between my legs under the cover of darkness and imagine what he’d be like, how he’d feel, whether he’d be rough or playful. And then I would remember the heated look in his striking eyes as I made myself come.

  Cassie had called several times over the past week. She was eager to hear how my teaching job was going and wondered how I was faring down here in Emblem living in our grandfather’s house. Plus she had some exciting news that she couldn’t wait to share with me and we spent most of our time talking about that. The only mention I’d made of Tristan was to admit that I thought I’d caught a glimpse of him in town. If I’d told her more then she might have guessed what was going through my head. I wasn’t as close to either of my sisters as they were to each other. That whole twin bond was tough to beat. But they were perceptive and I wasn’t particularly good at masking my feelings. So it was better to keep any talk of Tristan to a minimum.

  I hadn’t seen him since the first day of school. I knew that part of the reason I’d been staking out the Dirty Cactus was because I’d been half hoping he’d show up there.

  But he hadn’t shown up there.

  Instead he’d shown up here, in the parking lot of my high school, whispering in the ear of one of my students. I saw an envelope pass from Tristan to Ernesto Rivera and my blood boiled. More than boiled. It was frothing. It was pure fucking lava.

  Tristan Mulligan was no longer sexy and mysterious. He was a motherfucking dangerous low life who was preying on my students.

  And I was going to take that bastard down.

  Chapter Six

  Tristan

  I allowed her to curse me out a few more times while I pictured her down on her back with that flowery dress pushed all the way up over her tits.

  “You done?” I asked her when she’d called me a son of a bitch for about the fourth time. Even when she was having a temper tantrum her lips looked soft and sensual. I wanted to do things to them. Put things between them.

  “Get out of here,” she hissed, angry breaks between every word so each one sounded like a separate sentence.

  Get.

  Out.

  Of.

  Here.

  I ignored her order. “What are you doing right now?”

  Furious lasers shot from her pretty eyes. “Tristan, I mean it. Get out or I’ll call the police.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, call the police.”

  Her brow furrowed. “You do realize they’ll arrest you, right?”

  “You do realize that people who start sentences with ‘You do realize’ rarely know what in the hell they’re talking about, right?”

  “You just started a sentence with ‘You do realize’,” she shot back. Then she stamped her foot. Actually stamped her foot. Like a toddler.

  “This is ridiculous,” declared Cadence Gentry, the source of all wisdom and morality. “I’m only giving you a warning because I don’t want Curtis’s brother to get hauled off to jail but I’ll be damned if I stand by and watch you peddle drugs to these kids.”

  Ah, fucking hell.

  Now things were starting to click into place.

  “Cadence.” I straightened up and looked her in the eye. “You didn’t see what you thought you did.”

  Her sour know-it-all expression was obnoxious. “So what were you doing with Ernesto Rivera, giving him lunch money?”

  “In a way.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.” I edged closer to her. She stood her ground and blinked at me. I wasn’t too comfortable discussing sensitive topics in the middle of the parking lot while being ogled by the students and staff still straggling out of Emblem High.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” I suggested.

  She shook her head. “Forget it.”

  “I’ll explain why I came to see Nesto.”

  “You can explain just as well right here.”

  She already had the ‘Do as I say’ teacher tone down pat. Too bad I wasn’t one of her students.

  I started walking, keeping my pace slow, glancing over my shoulder and jerking my head to motion that she ought to follow. Her pouty look was still frozen in place and her arms were crossed. But then she dropped her arms and sighed before giving in and catching up to me. I suppressed a grin and waited for her.

  “Explain,” she demanded, tossing her hair so that I caught a whiff of fruity shampoo.

  I pointed beyond the parking lot, to the east side of the building. “Let’s step out of the sun first.”

  “Tristan.” She said my name like a warning.

  I took my time, walking slowly, betting that she was more curious than annoyed, gambling that she’d keep following me. Sometime soon I’d like to find out where else she’d follow me and what kind of games she’d be willing to play.

  When we reached the dappled shade beneath a mesquite tree I removed a new pack of cigarettes from my pocket, provoking instant outrage from Cadence.

  “You can’t s
moke on school grounds!”

  Shit, this girl was going to cut herself on all that righteous indignation.

  “Wasn’t going to.” I tossed the pack into a nearby garbage can. I’d bought the pack when I stopped to get gas before leaving Tucson, a weak moment that I regretted.

  “I’ve been trying to quit,” I told Cadence and for the first time today something in her face softened. Then her lips pressed into an angry straight line as she remembered I was the guy skulking around the high school and corrupting her students. Or something.

  “Nesto’s dad is in prison,” I said.

  “Oh.” A shadow crossed her face. “I didn’t know that.”

  “He shouldn’t be in prison. Nesto has an older brother, Rafael, who started dealing for a guy who was on the Feds’ radar.”

  “A friend of yours I suppose.”

  I ignored the sarcastic comment. “I guess Raf suspected he was being watched and he had some stash to unload so he decided to store it in the back office at his father’s store. When the place was raided his dad was the one to get arrested because he refused to give up his son and Raf was too much of a coward to step forward. He took off. Ernesto Senior went to prison. His wife tries to keep the store running but I hear she’s about six months behind on the rent and she’s so paranoid that she won’t accept any help from anyone. So I try to slip the kid some extra cash when I can because I know things are lean at home.”

  She was thinking, unsure if she believed me. “Why would you do that for him?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “And how do I know if you’re telling the truth if you won’t share them?”

  I sighed and told her about how after my own dad was murdered, Nesto’s father would bag up merchandise he’d plucked from his own store shelves and drop it on our doorstep. He would never accept any money, insisting it was all old stock that was on its way out anyway. I doubt my mother was fooled but she appreciated the help because there’d been no life insurance and she had three boys to raise. At least there were three of us until Curtis decided to help out by going off the deep end and running off to join a gang. I couldn’t blame him for that now, not when my own choices hadn’t been too different.