Icy Nights: Mated to The Three Alphas

Jessie

Lemon cleaner bites the laminate, and fryer grease sits so thick I can taste it. My boots stick to dried syrup on the floor, and a cup of coffee wobbles on my tray beside a mound of red sauce pasta.

Fourteen dollars for this. Fourteen dollars, and the coffee tastes like a boot. If I blow this much on lunch, Friday dinner is whatever's left in the dorm kitchen.

The line wrapped to the doors. I waited twenty minutes for a cold plate.

I spot my roommates four tables in. Tinsley waves a silver fork mid-story, clean cotton and chamomile drifting off her bright blue hoodie.

"Jess! Over here!" Tinsley yells across the chairs. "Did you get the pasta?"

"I got the pasta."

"Is it edible?" Brooke asks, eyes on her propped phone.

"It tastes cold and rubbery."

"Fourteen dollars well spent," Tinsley says.

"Come look at this video. Brooke has a hilarious clip."

"It is not hilarious," Brooke says. "It's a golden retriever wearing blue knitwear."

"That's top tier content." Tinsley shoves a chair with her foot. "Sit down before your pasta gets cold."

I smile at their loud argument. They make this frozen campus feel manageable. Tinsley always makes room for my tray.

My path cuts past the center table. The Golden Wolves own that space. Red and gold jackets crowd the benches, and two players arm-wrestle over plastic cups.

Martins Heller sits in the middle, dark charcoal wool over a crisp white shirt. He isn't wearing team gear. The suit is tailored and expensive.

"Look at that suit," Tinsley whispers.

"Who wears tailored wool to lunch?" I ask.

"Hockey captains with rich families," Brooke says.

One sleeve cuff hangs unbuttoned at his wrist. He scrolls his phone while two teammates argue beside him. He doesn't look up.

Players leave room around him without being asked.

Cody Jenner sits near the bench edge, legs spread wide. "Check this pass out," he says, to nobody.

"Don't stare," Tinsley calls. "Lila made a girl cry last semester for sitting in his booth."

"I'm not staring. I'm walking."

"Lila thinks she owns the aisle too," Brooke says.

I keep walking, tray steady in both hands, the way I'd walk past any table. Cody stretches his leg into the aisle.

"Watch this rookie move," Cody calls to the player beside him.

I could step wide. I don't. I figure he'll pull his foot back, the way guys do when a girl with a tray is coming through.

He doesn't.

My left boot catches his sneaker ankle. "Oh, sh..."

The tray tilts. Hot black coffee launches into open air. The ceramic pasta plate flips upside down, and there's a wet slap.

Marinara hits the charcoal wool. Coffee runs down his dark silk tie. A single noodle sticks to his lapel.

The cafeteria goes quiet. Forks stop. Chairs scrape. Faces turn.

"Oh man," a student says.

"Is that Heller?" someone asks.

"She's done," another voice adds.

"My fault!" Cody laughs to his table. "She walked right into my foot." His grin flickers when Tinsley calls him out, then comes back.

"You stuck your leg out!" Tinsley shouts.

"Keep it down, Tinsley," Brooke says.

I'm on my knees. The linoleum is cold through my jeans. I don't remember falling.

Marinara drips off the table edge onto the floor. The sauce pools around my palms. Thin brown napkins tear before they can lift anything.

"Did she just do that?" someone whispers.

"She's dead," another whispers back.

Heat crawls up my neck. I stare at my sticky palms.

Martins sets his phone on the wood, slow. He looks straight into my eyes.

"Do you have a death wish," he asks, "or is this a special talent?"

"I didn't see his sneaker. I can clean your suit. I can pay for dry cleaning. I..."

"Don't."

Nobody at the table laughs now.

The apology catches behind my teeth.

A whistle shrieks. Coach Dale Rorvik shoulders through the crowd in gray sweats.

"What is this circus?" Rorvik barks. "Heller. Sit."

He looks at the sauce, then at my scholarship badge.

"Eight hundred dollar suit. You don't have eight hundred dollars."

"I can work campus shifts. I'll pay every dollar back."

"You're the Golden Wolves mascot Saturday. Duluth." He points a gloved finger. "Marlon Gibbs fits the costume after your last class. Don't be late."

I picture the mascot head, the mesh eyes, students filming from the bleachers. I can't see anything through that thing.

"Yes, Coach."

"Don't disappoint me, Marlowe."

He marches off.

Tinsley stands up at her table. "Coach, Cody tripped her!"

"I didn't do anything!" Cody yells.

"Accidents have consequences," Rorvik says without turning. "Make sure she shows up."

I push up off the linoleum and grab more napkins. They dissolve in my wet hands. The brown smear spreads instead of lifting.

I step toward Martins with shaking fingers and reach for his lapel.

"I'm really sorry. I can take it to professional cleaners. I can pay the full bill."

"Stop touching me."

"I'm trying to fix the stain."

"I said stop."

His hand clamps around my right wrist. Pine resin cuts through the fryer grease. His skin burns against mine, and his thumb lands square over my pulse.

"Let go of my wrist."

His grip doesn't give. I pull back, and his fingers stay put. My hoodie sleeve brushes his wool.

Martins goes still.

His nostrils flare. His grip locks on my wrist, and his free hand flattens against his sternum, fingers digging into the stained wool.

"...What," he whispers.

"That's impossible," he says.

He doesn't seem to hear me.

Lila Beaumont glides to his side. Her dark hair falls in perfect waves. Gardenia hits first, then dark amber underneath, reaching me before she does.

"Martins. What's happening here?"

"Nothing," Martins says.

"Clean this mess up," Lila tells a worker, not looking at the worker.

"Leave her alone, Lila," Tinsley calls.

"Mind your business."

Lila's eyes drop to me. "She doesn't belong in this building."

My wrist throbs where his fingers pressed. I forget to answer her. My attention stays on him.

Martins releases my wrist. His hand jerks back. His palm presses his sternum again, chest heaving. He grabs his phone and walks.

"Martins! Where are you going?" Lila calls.

"I need air."

The doors swing and close behind him. The cafeteria watches him go.

I stand in the spilled coffee with my wrist still stinging.

•••

The doors close behind him. Martins slams both palms against the cinderblock, and the rough surface scrapes his skin raw.

His breath saws loud against the wall.

Behind his ribs, his wolf paces. Claws scratch bone. Something pulls him back toward the doors, a pressure under his sternum he can't name.

Under the sauce and the lemon cleaner, winter frost and crushed leaves linger faint. Something old. Something his body had no reason to recognize.

He takes one breath of it. He turns his face away.

Then he turns back toward the cafeteria doors, jaw working. His pupils stay wide and dark.

He whispers to the empty hallway.

"Again."

Jessie

The zipper catches fabric halfway up my spine and Marlon Gibbs yanks it the rest of the way in one hard pull. Metal teeth drag against my hoodie, loud in the cramped equipment room.

Then the smell hits. Old sweat baked into synthetic fur. Mildew threading every seam. Stale breath trapped in the wolf head, waiting for a face to fill it.

"Arms up." Marlon doesn't look at me. "Don't rip the seams. This thing costs more than your semester books."

I shove my arms into the paws. The fur scratches my wrists raw. "It reeks. Locker room rot stuffed in carpet padding."

"Quit whining. Mesh mouth, you'll breathe." He checks his watch, tobacco leaf and worn leather drifting off his flannel. "Game in twenty. If you fall, get up. Don't lie there."

The suit swallows me in stages, first my legs and torso, then the crooked wolf head drops over my vision and the world narrows to one eye hole. My hoodie clings damp to my spine.

I take two steps toward the tunnel. The oversized paw catches the doorframe. I stumble, catch myself on a tape rack.

"I can't see the right side."

"You'll manage." Marlon turns back to his skate bin. "Go stand by the tunnel. Look alive."

"Look alive. Right." The paws slap the rubber mat too loud. I try to walk quieter. The paws don't let me.

•••

The arena hits me at once. Stomping feet. The WOLVES chant rolls in waves from the student section. A drum beats off-rhythm somewhere above. Zamboni diesel and popcorn sit thick in my throat, and cold air bites through the seams of the paws.

A kid near the glass points a foam finger at me. "Do the thing!"

I wave. The paw nearly clocks a cheerleader crossing behind me.

The kid turns to his friend. "It's broken."

I keep walking, waving at the wrong section. A cluster of middle schoolers boo me. Every paw-fall lands too loud on the rubber.

Through the left eye hole, I spot the VIP section. Lila Beaumont sits front row, custom Heller jersey draped over her shoulders. Lacey Drumond and Maris Cole sit on either side of her. Same posture. Same smirk.

Gardenia and dark amber reach me first. Then Lila's voice.

"That's the cafeteria girl." She doesn't raise it. Doesn't need to. "She looks like a rug that learned to walk."

Lacey snorts. "Should we feel bad?"

"No."

I hear it through the mesh. My fingers flex inside the paws. I keep walking, teeth pressed together until the back molars throb.

•••

The horn blares. The Golden Wolves hit the ice. Blades carve. Sticks crack. Someone slams the boards hard enough to rattle the glass beside my wolf head.

I press against the barrier. My breath fogs the inside of the mesh.

Survive the periods. Then this polyester coffin goes back on its rack.

Coach Rorvik barks from the bench. "Move your feet, Kline! You drag anchors out there!"

I watch despite myself. Their skates turn together, one player moves and the others already know. My ribs lock mid-pull, a tightness I can't place.

Second period. The suit turns into an oven.

My hoodie is soaked through in patches. The edges of my vision go gray and soft. I do a little shuffle-dance near the glass for a cluster of kids, and one shouts, "You're the best mascot ever!"

I can't feel my fingers inside the paws.

Suit heat. Fur against skin. Missed lunch. I skipped lunch. That's it. The suit is trapping what's already there. That has to be it.

I stumble near the home bench during a stoppage. My bare palm catches the rail to steady myself and the heat spikes hard. My skin flushes so bad the synthetic fur against my neck sears.

Winter frost and crushed leaves punch through the mesh mouth of the wolf head. My nose prickles. A single drop of blood catches my nostril. I swallow it back, wipe my upper lip against the mesh.

The mesh hides the blood.

•••

On the ice, Martins is mid-stride. His stick lifts for a pass. His head turns toward the bench, toward the tunnel where I stand.

His skate catches an edge. The pass goes wide, slapping the boards wrong. Pine resin and cold stone reach me even from here.

Rorvik's whistle shrieks. "Heller! You handed it to the wall!"

From the bench, Kade Mercer leans forward. "He's staring at the mascot, Coach."

"I don't care if he's staring at the Pope. Move your feet."

I watch Martins stumble. My gut pulls sideways. I grip the rail harder.

•••

Silas tapes his stick during the stoppage. Black tea and damp earth cling to his own jacket.

Then it cuts through. Winter frost. Crushed leaves. Warm, and alive, and coming from the mascot tunnel.

His hands stop. The tape roll tears in his grip. A ragged strip hangs off his fingers.

Beside him, Jonah is mid-sip. Pear skin and pink pepper spike off his skin. His nostrils flare. The bottle slips, bounces on the rubber mat, ice cubes scattering.

"What the hell." Jonah stares at the tunnel.

"Don't move."

"You catch that?"

"I said don't move."

Silas's eyes lock on the mascot suit. The wolf head is crooked. He can't see a face. But the scent is coming from inside it, and his fingers curl the torn tape into a tight ball.

He doesn't show Martins. Not yet.

•••

Jessie

I watch all three of them from the tunnel mouth.

Martins stands at center ice, stick hanging limp. Jonah is on the bench, water dripping off his chin, watching my direction. Silas hasn't moved, but his eyes are on the mascot suit and stay there.

The band blares and the crowd chants and no one tracks me.

They're looking at the suit. Somehow, they're looking at me.

My skin prickles under the fur. My breath comes faster. The suit feels smaller. The mesh feeds me air I've already breathed, and my lungs want more than this.

I grab the tunnel wall. My knees dip. I catch myself.

The heat presses and cooks. The fur against my neck blisters. My vision whites out at the edges. My sternum pulls tight, like something inside is trying to fit through a space too small for it.

I press my wrist against the cold concrete of the tunnel wall. The concrete stays cold. My wrist doesn't.

"Marlowe."

Marlon appears at the tunnel mouth, clipboard under his arm. He squints at the mascot.

"You good? You look bleached under that fur."

"Fine." My voice comes out muffled. "Hot in here."

He studies me a beat longer than comfortable. "Yeah. Hot."

He writes something in his equipment log. Doesn't ask again. Walks away.

He logged it.

•••

The second-period horn sounds.

I waddle toward the back corridor, away from the bench, away from three players still watching. My paws catch on the rubber mat. I stumble, catch the wall. The wolf head shifts crooked.

I round the corner into the dark tunnel. The noise fades. Concrete replaces rubber. My breath saws loud inside the head.

I grab the tunnel wall with both paws and lean my forehead against the cold block. The concrete bites, and that helps. One slow breath. The white-out at my vision's edge recedes. Barely.

I'm alone in here. The suit is a coffin, and my body is doing something I can't stop. I have to go back out there.

•••

I press my wrist to my neck. Too fast. My skin burns under the synthetic fur.

The number holds steady. My body has decided something and won't tell me what. Four thousand people are chanting out there, and nobody can see my face, and I'm cooking from the inside out.

I adjust the wolf head. Straighten it. Wipe blood from my upper lip with the back of the paw.

Steps back toward the light.

The crowd roars. The mascot walks back out.

And inside the suit, where no camera reaches, my temperature holds at one hundred three.

Nobody sees.

Jessie

The mascot head peels off my skin with a wet slap. It drops to the rubber mat. I don't remember unzipping the neck seal. My hands move on their own, driven by a fever that has nothing to do with Minnesota.

I remember the third period horn. I remember the last kid at the glass asking for a high-five. I remember walking toward the tunnel, heat scraping my throat raw. The rest is blank. White noise fills my skull. Pressure, not sound.

The mesh mouth still tastes like my own breath. Blood sits thick on my tongue. I spit into my palm. Red cuts through the sweat pooling there. My nose is bleeding again. I press the heel of my hand under my nostrils and tip my head back against the cinderblock.

Above me, someone carved initials with a pen. J.R. plus T.B. They left a heart around it. I stare at the heart. Looking inward would name the wrongness humming beneath my ribs. I don't want to name it.

I need water. Air that hasn't been recycled through polyester. I need to stop shaking.

The equipment room door bangs open.

"There she is."

Trent Lasky blocks the frame. Cody Jenner stands behind him, grinning the same grin from the cafeteria. I step backward and my heel catches the discarded mascot head. I stumble.

"Game's done," I say. "Move."

"Nah." Trent crosses the mat. "Coach gave you a costume. We figured you needed the full experience. Mascots sleep in kennels."

Cody pins my shoulder. Holds. I twist. My back hits steel wire. The cage door slams. The lock clicks twice.

"Let me out."

"Sleep tight, mascot." Trent laughs.

They leave. The main door swings shut. The overhead lights buzz off bank by bank until only the strip above the showers stays lit. Green gloom. Long shadows.

I'm alone in the dark with the smell of my own sweat and old rubber.

The cage is six feet square. Steel grid on all sides and a bench bolted to the far wall. The mat smells like gear and rubber and something sour underneath.

I count to sixty before I try the lock. Then sixty more. Nobody's coming.

I grip the wire and shake it. No give. My wrist pops. Sharp pain climbs my forearm and I stop.

Heat surges. Slow first. Then fast. It climbs my spine and locks my jaw. The collar of my hoodie chokes me. I drag the zipper down and cool air hits sweat-soaked cotton, but it doesn't help.

Footsteps in the corridor. Voices. Male, multiple, getting louder.

The locker room door swings open.

Cleats clack on rubber. Gear bags drop. Someone laughs and the sound bounces off the cinderblock.

"No chance that hit was clean."

"Coach is gonna make us run suicides."

"Shut up, both of you."

That last voice is Martins. I know it without looking. Pine resin and cold stone cut through the stale air and I stop breathing to hear better.

I shrink into the corner and pull my knees up. If I stay still, if I stay quiet, maybe they won't see me. Maybe this is bad luck. Maybe they walk right past.

Jonah's voice cuts through next. "Seriously, did anyone else feel weird out there?"

"Weird how?"

"I don't know. Off. Like I couldn't..."

"Kline." Martins. "Drop it."

Pear skin and pink pepper reach me before the footsteps stop. Warm and sweet and dangerous. I press my spine flat to the wire.

The banter dies. Gear bags stop dropping. Someone's tape rips one slow strip and stops halfway. Nobody says anything.

"What is that?" Jonah, low.

"Don't." Silas.

"Silas..."

"I said don't."

Footsteps. Slow. Careful. Coming toward the cage.

The wire rattles. I flinch. My back hits steel and the cage shifts an inch on the mat.

"Someone's in here."

Jonah. Right at the door.

"Kline, step back." Martins.

"No, wait..."

"I said step back."

"She's in there."

The wire rattles again. Jonah's hands are on the frame. His breathing comes ragged and too loud for someone who skated sixty minutes without gasping.

"Jonah. Don't."

"It's the mascot."

"It's a locked cage. Step away."

And then Jonah stops listening.

Metal screams. Hinges tear. The lock bracket shears. The whole door comes off in his hands. Blood sprays from his split knuckles onto the wire.

He throws the door sideways. It crashes into the far lockers and knocks a helmet off a shelf.

I don't move. My knees are still up. My hands still braced.

Jonah stares down at me, chest working fast. His knuckles drip. His scent spikes hot off his skin.

"Hey," he says. "Are you..."

"Don't."

I don't know if that's Martins or me.

My legs don't want to hold. I grab the crooked frame where the door used to be and pull myself through. I need out of the suit. Out of the smell of it. Out of the room. But the suit stays on. The zipper is still stuck.

I reach back and rip the wolf head off the floor. Cool air hits my soaked hair. The fever dips. Then climbs back harder.

"You tore it off," I say.

"I..." He looks at his hands. "I don't..."

"The hinges were steel, dude."

"I know what they were."

I look at the door on the floor. The lock bracket is bent at a right angle. The padlock is still attached. The steel around it isn't.

"You don't get to wreck stuff just because you're bigger."

His head comes up. His eyes have too much light in them for this room.

"Are you okay?"

"That's not..." I stop. "Someone locked me in a cage."

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter."

"It matters."

"Trent Lasky and Cody Jenner. Happy?"

Jonah's jaw works. He looks at the door and back at me.

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

Heels click on the rubber mat. Gardenia and dark amber walk into the room, Lila. She stops in the doorway and takes it in. Jonah breathing hard. The door on the floor. Me, soaked through with a bloody nose.

"Well," she says. "This is a picture."

"Lila." Martins doesn't turn around. "Not now."

"I was looking for you." She steps inside. "You didn't text back."

"I was busy."

"Busy doing what? Playing knight for the mascot?"

The lockers shift on their bolts. I put a hand on the nearest one to steady myself.

Lila watches the movement. She runs her tongue over her teeth.

"She doesn't look well," she says. "Maybe she should go."

"She's not going anywhere until we know she's okay." Jonah.

"Since when is that your job?"

"Since I made it my job."

Silas hasn't moved.

He stands by the shower stalls with his jacket on and his hands in his pockets. Black tea and frozen earth reach me across the room. Underneath it, something quieter. Vetiver. Clean and sharp.

His gaze stays on my throat. The vein under my jaw jumps. He watches it like he's counting.

I look away first. Somewhere behind me, Jonah shifts his weight. He doesn't speak. He doesn't leave either.

"Everyone out."

Martins says it without raising his voice. Nobody moves.

"Martins..."

"Out." He turns to Lila. "You. Hallway. Now."

"You can't just..."

"Hallway, Lila."

She goes. The heels click backward down the mat and the corridor door shuts behind her.

Jonah doesn't move.

"Kline."

"I'm not leaving her in here alone."

"She's not alone." Martins looks at Silas. Then at me. "She's got us."

Jonah's jaw works. He looks at the door, then at me. He steps back one pace and stops.

The room empties in pieces. Jonah last, eyes on me the whole way out.

The corridor door clicks shut.

It's just me and Martins and Silas. The strip above the showers hums, water drips somewhere. My breath still comes too fast. The suit feels like a second skin, heavy and damp.

Martins doesn't come closer. He stands where he is, looking at the floor.

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Your nose is bleeding."

"I noticed."

He nods once. Doesn't push. I wait for the bark. The order. It doesn't come.

"Go home, Marlowe."

"I don't..." I stop. I don't know how I was going to finish that.

"Go home," he says again. Softer. "We'll deal with Trent."

"Trent's not the problem."

"I know."

We look at each other a beat too long. Pine resin and cold stone sit in the air between us. Something in my chest pulls toward it. I look at the door and walk out.

•••

Silas

The door shuts behind her.

I wait. Count the footsteps down the corridor until they fade. Then I cross the room and stand next to Martins.

We look at the door on the floor. The padlock is still attached. The steel around it is curled and torn.

"Jonah did that," Martins says.

"I know."

"He doesn't know his own strength."

I keep my eyes on the hallway.

"He doesn't know what he just scented."

Martins turns. "What does that mean?"

I drop my voice.

"Her scent isn't human."