Warnings: Strong language

Chapter 1: Snow

Part 3

"Suspension?" Dr. Carriedo stood from his chair, his face flushed with anger as he glared at the principal. "You're telling me that my son was beaten to a pulp in the middle of your hallways for who knows how many times and the only punishment you can give is a suspension?" He pointed a tan, sharp finger at Sadiq. "That—" He struggled to find the right word, holding back obvious swears. "—kid has harmed my son countless times and needs to be expelled!"

Sadiq only looked down at his lap, picking at the ends of his jacket. So far he had sat through a lengthy lecture from Mr. Kirkland he barely remembered, had been forced to sit in the principal's office with an ice-packed Lovino as parents were called, had listened to principal Gupta Muhammad lecture him, and finally listened to Lovino's father— Antonio Carriedo —raise Cain over the verdict. Although he did not want to be suspended, Sadiq was glad to take the punishment. It still meant that he could still go to school with Heracles. It meant that he still might have a way to convince Gilbert to let him keep his job. It meant that, in the end, he might not be as much as a screw up everyone told him he was. But if Dr. Carriedo's job at the university in the city proved to have some merit, Sadiq might not be allowed to grasp all the things he needs to hold close.

At least, he thought bitterly, Lovino had a father to fight the matter for him. Sadiq was always left alone to defend himself from the barrage.

When he first sat in Principal Muhammad's office in his freshman year, he had shyly admitted that his father would most likely never come in to discuss his behavioral issues. On that day, Muhammad nodded at him with stoic brown eyes and never asked him about it again. That day forward, whatever issues arose was dealt with one-on-one between student and principal. Sadiq questioned why Principal Muhammad so readily agreed to this arrangement, but never had to courage to ask. Asking might dispel his luck.

"I understand your concerns, Mr. Carriedo," Principal Muhammad said, his hands folded neatly on his desk. "And I can assure you that the proper punishments will be given."

"And suspensions are 'proper?'"

"Sadiq is a senior and he will be graduating this year. If he wants to get into a good college, which I am sure he wants—"

Sadiq took his cue, nodded fervently. "Of course."

"—then he would be wise to not let this incident repeat itself. Suspension is all I am willing to do. He won't do it again."

Dr. Carriedo pressed his lips. "That's what you said last time—"

Principal Muhammad's eyes seemed to narrow ever so slightly. "Antonio—"

"Gupta, I am sick of my son being terrorized."

He was silent for a long moment, his mute air suffocating the office. From where Sadiq sat— in a plastic chair to the side, Dr. Carriedo bulwarking Lovino from him —the ticking clock looked like a low-hung moon, one that told him he was officially five minutes late to work. Now he definitely had no hopes of ever hiding this incident from Gilbert.

Principal Muhammad finally moved, blinking his eyes slowly as he straightened in his chair. "This is a small town, Antonio," he said. "It's growing steadily, but Everest is still small. Sadiq will be suspended for a week and will be given help for his anger issues. That is my final decision on the matter. If you have a problem with it, then you may transfer Lovino out of my school and into a better one in the city."

Shakes rattled Antonio's arms, but closed eyes and a deep breath was all it took for him to steady himself. "I wouldn't transfer him yet," he said, voice low. "But I will be taking him out of your school for a bit."

"I'll personally ensure that the teachers provide you with his missing work then." Principal Muhammad could not help but to let a small twinge of satisfaction creep upon his lips.

Antonio smiled spitefully. "Agreed."

They said more— the two men. They discussed matters unrelated to Sadiq and, therefore, unworthy of his concern.

Sadiq slouched in his chair, picking at the ends of his jacket. He remembered the day he got the jacket clearly. The whole event was ingrained into the back of his eye lids. He only had to close them to see the whole incident all over again.

A cold, cold night.

A blanket wrapped around his shoulders, frost on the frayed threads.

Wishing for his nightmare to end.

A bracelet slipping off his wrist.

Denson with his flashlight …

"You are dismissed." Sadiq zoned back into reality, realizing that Dr. Carriedo was ushering his son out of the room, Lovino hiding his face behind his icepack.

He looked back at the principal, mouth dry. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"I said that you are dismissed, Mr. Adnan," Principal Muhammad repeated. His voice was smooth, the emotionless kind that always eased the burden on Sadiq's shoulders. "I also said that you are suspended until next week, but I think you were paying attention to that bit."

An itch crept up Sadiq's arm. "I'm sorry, sir."

A pair of green eyes stared at him for a long moment, peeling back his skin and dissecting his inners. Sadiq scratched his bicep. He fidgeted. "I cannot keep on bailing you out like this, Sadiq," the principal said at last. "And even if I do, the real world is not going to be as forgiving as me. I know that you're a good kid who hasn't had a very fair life, but so is Lovino, and the one making his life unfair is you." He turned in his chair, reaching into a drawer of his desk. "You are dismissed, Mr. Adnan."

Sadiq rose, stiff, and forced his feet to drag himself out the door, feeling more numb than he had in a very long time.

Sadiq was exactly an hour and seventeen minutes late to work.

The crowd of teenagers were already gathered around their tables, indulging themselves in their sweets as gossip spewed thoughtlessly from their lips. Sadiq ignored their looks— some, he thought, even whispered into each other's ears —and hurried to his position behind the counter. By now the entire school must have known about his fight with Lovino. If the school knew, then so did Gilbert.

Gilbert, however, was nowhere to be seen. He was uncharacteristically missing from his post behind the ice cream, his black apron hanging on the handle of the door to the back room. Sadiq slipped it on, listening to the soft murmur of Gilbert's voice seep from beneath the wood door. It sounded like he was talking to someone.

Sadiq tried to make out the exact words, but they were all unrecognizable. The few words he was able to make out sounded like the pieces of German that mingled in his boss's English. Strange. Gilbert never spoke German, at least not in Everest.

Knotting the apron around his waist, Sadiq tried to make it liked he was doing his usual job. Maybe if Gilbert saw how hard he was working, he would be more hesitant to fire him. Sadiq first cleaned a few of the ice cream scoopers, then organized the bills in the cash register. "Hello Sadiq."

He pressed his lips, knowing the voice. "Hello Michelle," he replied, not bothering to glance up at her. "How may I help you?"

Michelle Jivan smiled coyly and leaned into the counter, her blue cardigan contrasting with her dark skin. "What are you doing here?" she asked, twirling a lock of curled dark hair around her finger. "Rumor has it that you were either expelled from school today or arrested for murder."

He frowned, jabbing buttons on the cash register. "I was suspended, not expelled. Do you want anything?"

"I don't know. Lien, what do you want?"

If Michelle was hot, then Lien Pham was cold. Tall and angular, Lien's narrow face never seemed to move from its stoic visage. Or, at least, Sadiq had never seen her show any emotion. Lien's hands were buried in the pockets of her sweatshirt, her legs straddled like a man's. Her eyes were averted to some remote corner of the parlor, distant in their own respect. Michelle's voice barely stirred a reaction from her.

Sadiq pushed a few more buttons before finally looking up. "What do you want?" he asked.

Lien glanced at him, then the line of ice cream displays, then back at him. "I just want a scoop," she said at last, her voice the same as her face.

"We'll share one then." Michelle grinned, her cheeks popping off her face. She reached into the shoulder bag hanging off her shoulder, pulling out a wallet. "Chocolate please."

He punched in a few more numbers, exchanging her cash for change. Michelle waited until he took a small disposable bowl off the rack to speak again. "So why did you even beat Lovino up anyways?" she asked. "Lien said that you just bumped into him and started punching him for no reason."

He ground his teeth. Word traveled fast around Everest High, primarily due to the good work of its gossip queen: Michelle, the one girl who could not seal her mouth shut with any secret. "That's none of your business."

"I was also told by Ivan that you had just gotten into an argument with him before doing that. And before that with Monica Bonnefoy." A tinge of victory colored her lips. "At least, that's what he told me."

Sadiq stabbed the ice cream with his spoon, feeling his skin heat up. "Why did he tell you that?"

"Oh, he said something about a test and pissing you off." She waved a hand. "I don't know. I really wasn't paying attention."

For a long moment, he did not speak. Ivan told the gossip queen what happened for the sole purpose of pissing him off. Why? Ivan seemed like he wanted to do nothing more than play games and experiments on Sadiq, his lab rat. Why was he such an interest to Ivan in the first place?

Sadiq finished scooping the ice cream, dropping it into the bowl and handing it to Michelle. If he wanted to, he realized, he could ruin Ivan right there and then. He had the only weapon he would need right in front of him. He could do it if he wanted to.

And by God, he wanted to.

"Hey, Michelle?" The sound of his voice, made the girl raise a thin, curious brow. Sadiq shifted his feet, feeling restless. The hole in his gut told him to stop while he still had the chance, but his lie was already spilling from his mouth. "Ivan actually admitted something to me the other day."

Michelle looked concerned. Handing the bowl to Lien, she leaned into the counter, tilting her head to the side. "What is it?" she asked.

What was it? Sadiq played with the ends of his jacket, digging his teeth into his lip. The only lie he could think of was too cruel. Only a heartless man would spread a lie like that, and he was not the cold one. Ivan was cold. But the longer Michelle stared at him, the more he felt the sweat on his back. The more he felt the sweat, the less his brain worked.

Michelle's brow arched higher. "Well?"

"It's Alfred," he blurted. He clamped his mouth shut, his eyes darting around the parlor. No one heard him, not even the smiling teens in the picture beneath the German flag. The only people who seemed to hear the ghost's name was Michelle. Lien might have, but her eyes and attention were somewhere remote. Sadiq looked down, swallowing away the lump in his throat. "Ivan said he started the fire that killed him— by accident," Sadiq quickly added. "He didn't mean to kill him. Michele, you have to swear not to tell anyone else in the world about this, got it?"

Michelle bobbed her head, her wide eyes never leaving him. It occurred to Sadiq too late that when Alfred was alive, she was one of his friends, just like Ivan. He saw the conflict swirl behind her brown irises— her attempts to discern from her memories the very instant Ivan decided to kill her friend.

She said that she would not tell anyone, but both she and Sadiq knew that it was a lie. One way or another, the whole school will be talking about it by the next day.

"Sadiq." He tensed, curling his hand into a fist. Gilbert did not have his voice raised in a hoarse yell. No, it was low and threatening. "Come here. Now."

Michelle sent Sadiq a sympathetic— pitiful —look. He swallowed and turned towards Gilbert. His boss watched him with hard eyes for a moment, cleaning his hands on his apron, before turning back into the back room. Sadiq followed, feet heavy.

"Do you want to explain to me why you were late?" Gilbert asked as he marched deeper into the room. Sadiq followed him for the first few steps, but paused, his steps dying off.

A woman with long tresses of mud colored hair sat on the far end of the stainless steel table. He could not help but to stare at her glossy red lips or her thick eyelashes. The long brown skirt she wore rode up her crossed legs, revealing pale, slender calves. This woman was Sadiq's exact definition of beautiful.

"Stop looking at my friend and listen to me," Gilbert ordered, scowling.

Sadiq snapped his eyes away, sheepishly looking at the ground. At this rate, he would never get his job back. "I forgot what time my shift was," he lied. He rolled the seam of his jacket between his fingers.

"Oh, I see." The teen dared to relax. He instantly regretted it. "You decided to lie to me instead of telling me the truth."

Sadiq opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find his voice. A lump in his throat plugged his voice and made it harder from him to breathe. Gilbert's friend watched his struggled with raised eyebrows. "I'm not lying!"

"Yes you are. Antonio told me that you beat his son again!"

"And you're going to believe him—"

"I am not an idiot, Sadiq Adnan!"

Sadiq shut his mouth, frightened.

Gilbert's white skin burned red, seared by the pressure in his clenched fists. His German accent morphed his voice, transforming each word into a strange curse. "The moment I hired you I had the people of this town telling me that you were dangerous. I was told that you were violent and I would regret it. We agreed that I would hire you only if you changed your habits. Not only have you never pulled through with that promise, but you lie to me when you cannot."

Whatever words Sadiq hoped to use slipped through his fingers. He reached for them fruitlessly, trying to grasp the secret sentences to bind him to this place. "I-I, um…" The woman on the table picked at her nails, her lush hair covering her face.

His fingers wrapped around a set of words, words that might save him: the truth.

"I just don't want to lose my job!" Sadiq yelled. "I can't lose my job! I can't keep on going home every day to a drunk-ass father. I can't let my brother be a failure like me." His voice died.

He said it. He said exactly what he should have bit his lip over. He said what should have remained unspoken. Yet, even if Sadiq's chest was heaving and the air reeked of alcohol, Gilbert was barely swayed. His white hue was back. His eyes were softened, but not in the way Sadiq wanted them.

Sadiq wanted respect. Respect and understanding.

Gilbert gave him pity.

Sadiq bowed his head. His arms shook in a buzzed frenzy, making his head light and airy. A gust of wind would have sent him tumbling onto the ground. "I have to have this job," he muttered. "Please, Gilbert."

Gilbert did not speak for a long moment. The time ticked away at a dreadful, crawling pace. Sadiq felt a weight on his neck, preventing him from looking up. He wanted to see Gilbert's face. He wanted to know what his boss was going to do. He heard Gilbert's defined steps before Sadiq saw the tips of his shoe enter his vision. A much too heavy hand placed itself on his shoulder. "If this was so important to you, then you would have kept your promise." Sadiq's mouth dried into torrid sandpaper. "I will mail you your final paycheck."

Shame bore down on his head, and Sadiq could not look Gilbert in the eye.

He did not want to look at Gilbert or the beautiful woman ever again.

Meandering was doing him no good.

His feet dragged him nowhere.

The people of Everest have no idea how not to stare.

For the first hour, Sadiq roamed the branching streets of downtown, glancing sideways at glass displays and the people who ran them. The men and women who knew him like the back of their hands turned up their noses, as if smelling the stench of a beast. They waited to gossip. When they thought he was out of earshot, mouths went to ears and the venomous name of Sadiq Adnan spread like wildfire. Sadiq heard them. He wondered which story was being told— the beating of Lovino or the ultimatum of Gilbert.

The air kicked itself off the ground, taking the shattered remnants of the leaves in its silvery hair. They blew in Sadiq's sails and the gale took Sadiq back to his house.

He stood outside for a vast minute. His wrist itched. He saw Heracles's bedroom light glow against the white blinds.

He turned away and wandered into the woods.

The soil was moist beneath his sneakers. The wind turned cold and Sadiq hugged his jacket closer to his chest. Behind his eyelids, he saw the trail he treaded the day the snow ate everything he had. He saw himself as a preteen again, wrapped in insufficient clothes and wading through ice that reached half way up his calves. He saw all the times he repeated the trail, looking for a small glimpse of azure.

Like always, his path sloped upwards as he started up one of the mountains. The specks of sky peeking from the cracks in the pines turned a bright orange. Soon it would be dark. He did not care. He had traveled through the woods at night before. He would make it just fine.

He never knew if he ended up in the same place every time. It felt like he did, but there were no markers to guarantee it. It had been so dark and he had been so cold on that night long ago. Sadiq had to let his gut guide him. He had to wait for the lump in his stomach to form: a lost puzzle piece, now found, that no longer fit into the original picture.

When the weight appeared, Sadiq paused in his steps. He glanced at the trees, feeling nostalgic for their old bitten bark. Comforted, he fell onto his knees and dug his fingers into the soil.

He pulled away a layer of leaves and clawed at the dirt. Sadiq moved in slow, concise movements, drawing his arms forward before bringing them back. Despite his desire to find his missing bracelet, he felt no need to move any faster. Deep inside, he already knew he would never find it.

"What are you doing?"

Sadiq looked up, his heart beat pounding in his ears. He stared into Ivan's eyes for a long moment before slowly moving away from the dirt. He watched the junior with even eyes, noticing the unlit flashlight in one hand while the other held him against the tree. He held a soccer ball in the crook of his arm. Sadiq batted his hands together, removing the dirt. He placed them on his knees and took a deep breath. "Did you follow me?"

Ivan's eyes traveled up and down his body. "No."

"Then why are you here?"

"I was collecting this." Ivan motioned to the soccer ball. "But here's a better question: what are you doing here, Adnan?"

Sadiq pressed his lips. "It's none of your business."

Ivan looked at him for a moment that lasted far too long for Sadiq's comfort. Time seemed to have disappeared, yet the orange sky above them was slowly starting to fade away. The last of the sun's rays filtered through the pine needles above, streaking across Ivan's face, and pooling on the floor. Ivan sat down, crossing his legs like a child. He placed the flashlight to his side and the soccer ball on his lap. "Let's play a game," he said. "Twenty questions. You ask me a question, I answer it truthfully, and then I get to ask you. Sounds fair?"

Sadiq raised a brow. "Why?"

"Because I want to figure out what's wrong with you without looking like I'm noisy or that I care too much." He smiled. "Okay, my turn."

He paused as Sadiq realized the trick. Ivan bit back a chuckle as the senior's face twisted into a scowl. "Alright, so why are you here?" Ivan asked.

"I'm not going to tell you the truth," Sadiq said.

"Then you'll never get truthful answers from me."

Sadiq averted his eyes. He did not want to reveal his secrets, yet he wanted to know that Ivan was hiding. Sadiq considered using plausible lies, or ones with only part of the truth, but he knew Ivan's unnerving eyes would rip them asunder. He released a breath he did not realize he was holding.

"I'm looking for something," he replied, purposefully vague. "My turn: what are you doing here?"

Ivan patted the soccer ball. "I was playing with a friend, but we kicked the ball over the fence and it fell down the mountain. I offered to fetch it."

Everest was a small commuter community, but it had its own form of a suburbs. A few houses lined the mountains in secluded tranquility, owned by people who never bothered to go to Everest herself.

"So what are you looking for?" Ivan asked.

"A bracelet. Why did you tell Michelle about how I argued with you and Monica?"

"I wanted to see how mad you'd get."

"Why does that matter to you?"

"Because you're obviously screwed up and I'm bored enough to want to help."

Sadiq ground his teeth. All of Ivan's little "experiments" were nothing more than entertainment for a bored kid. Was he really going to mess with Sadiq's life and emotions to simply kill a few dull hours?

Ivan tilted his head in a large smile drenched in childish humor. "Since you just asked me two, I get to ask you two," he said. This time, he did not give Sadiq an opportunity to vent his anger. "How did you lose this 'bracelet?'"

Sadiq swallowed, trying to rid himself of the lump clogging his throat. He knew that he should be as vague as possible. Already he saw himself giving a slight shrug and an easy "it slipped off my wrist." But his body refused to listen. A remote, desperate part of him wanted to be rid of the years of pent up emotions. Sadiq realized that the lump in the column of his throat was those stories he should have told Monica a long time ago, before he messed everything up.

Sadiq placed a hand on his wrist, rubbing away the goose bumps that dared to prick at his skin. "I was trying to run away," he said at last, hardly believing his words. Was he really going to tell Ivan? Who was going to stop him?

"It was during junior high," he said. "Eighth grade, I think. My mom left a few days before Christmas and never came back. I figured she was visiting my grandfather in the city, so I tried to walk there one night. I tried to take a shortcut through the mountains, but I got lost and the police had to send search teams to find me."

Sadiq closed his eyes. There, behind his vision, he saw his mother holding a pair of suitcases.

The silver snow beneath his feet.

The tree he laid under as he froze.

The bright beam of a flashlight.

"You probably know this part. The whole town does. I was found by a man named Denson and taken to the hospital. Somewhere along the way, the bracelet slipped off me and I haven't seen it since."

Ivan nodded and placed a hand beneath his chin. "So you're fixated on finding something that you once lost," Ivan mused. "Interesting."

Ivan let the air hang dead before speaking again. "Okay, next question: do you want to meet Denson again?"

Sadiq blinked. "What?"

"I said: do you want to meet Denson again?"

Sadiq could scarcely believe his ears. He hadn't talked to Denson since that day. The man came and went and, according to all accounts, most could barely remember him. Sadiq half thought that the man was a figure of his imagination, or a hallucination his half-lucid state produced. "Do you know him?" He asked.

This time, Ivan's smile seemed genuine. "Yes. And I can take you to him right now. That is, if you want to."

Sadiq hesitated. "You actually know him?" he repeated.

Ivan blew a tired breath through his lips. "How many times do I have to say it? Yes I know him." He rose to his feet, juggling his flashlight and soccer ball in his arms as he swatted the dirt off his jeans. "Either way I have to go back and give my friend his ball. If you want to see Denson, just follow me." He started his hike back along the mountain, walking with smooth, deliberate steps.

Sadiq looked down at the ground, knowing that Ivan would more readily lead him into a trap than to his hero. His eyes scanned the disturbed dirt, hunting for his lost mother's bracelet. Like always, the soil was untarnished by that forgotten relict.

Sadiq cursed himself before jogging to catch up to Ivan.

The orange in the sky washed away, transforming into the strange blue of twilight. Sadiq could still see clearly, yet the air around him was tainted in the bluing hue. Ivan turned on his flashlight, illuminating a yellow path through the trees. They walked up the mountain for a few quiet minutes. Sadiq could see how the soccer ball could have rolled towards him— the slope was steep and the loose foliage on the ground was slick.

Ivan brought him past the tree line and out onto gray road. Sadiq took a deep breath, looking down one end of the winding road. There was no car in sight. But this road did not seem like it was made for cars. There was no yellow lines to divide the sides. The cracks in the gravel surface seemed too large for any car. Sadiq stared at it for a long moment, though he was not sure why.

"What took you so long?"

Sadiq tensed. That sounded like a child barely scraping the age of ten. With a creak in every joint in his body, he slowly turned.

A little body sat in the middle of the road, his legs crossed in front of him. His thin lips were twisted into a scowl, making his cheeks pop off his face. The dark lighting made his hair the same shade as his pale skin, though Sadiq suspected that the sunlight would hardly make any difference. "How long does it take to find a stupid soccer ball?" the boy demanded hotly.

MW: And here we go. So new characters, new characters. Denson and the little boy were two characters in the original that I never got around to introducing. They're both pretty important for the plot. Like always, faster updates come with checking out the blog on tumblr (like in my profile).

And it's time to thank some reviewers. Shout out to the lovely missykim and Abby-Flourite. Hopefully you guys will see the fanfiction edition update soon!

Name Guide

Lien Pham- Vietnam

Thanks for reading! Have a safe summer!