Warnings: Strong language


Chapter 1: Snow


Part 5


A congress of mountains sat on the edge of a brown field that went flat for miles. In the middle of the mountains, a hand had carved a bowl and filled it with trees and houses. The trees and houses were called Everest. If a person wanted to leave the bowl, he had to drive down a snaking road cutting through the mountains, breaking slowly until he was driving across the brown, smooth land.

Sadiq watched the mountains disappeared behind Ivan's truck, the dark peaks disappearing with a drawn out breath. The field went on for miles, surrounding them with dying grass, the occasional family farm, and even rarer cow. Skinny poles lined both sides of the road, holding a sagging black wire in the air. The wire dipped down between each one before rising back to the next pole's peak. It seemed to glide with the truck, going up and down against the dull blue sky.

"We'll reach the city in an hour," Ivan announced, breaking the still air between them. "We have to pick up some more gas there, plus food to eat later on the road."

Sadiq did not turn from the side window. He kept his eyes on his faint reflection and the wire dance behind it. "Alright."

The silence settled between them again.

"You know, I heard a new rumor at school," Ivan said conversationally. "Someone told Michelle Jivan that I was the one who set Alfred's house on fire." Sadiq stiffen, remembering the lie he told Michelle a few days ago. With all of the discoveries bursting around him, he had forgotten about it completely. "Apparently I was jealous of Alfred for whatever reason and decided to kill him for it." Ivan smiled. "Morbid, right?"

Sadiq shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wondering if Ivan knew he was the one who started the rumor. He leaned into the cracked leather backing, slumping onto his lumbar back. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

A shrug. "Because."

Sadiq felt his legs grow restless. There was no doubt about it: Ivan knew. He would only mention something like that if he thought he had something to gain from it. Sadiq picked at the seam of his jacket, wondering how the rest of their trip would turn out if Ivan was going to hold the rumor against him.

"So is there anything else you want to tell me?" Ivan asked. That damned, knowing smirk covered his face. He believed he had the upper hand once again.

Sadiq wasn't about to let that happen. "I forgot to bring a toothbrush," he said, turning back to the window. He curled his knees to his chest, watching the wire's fluid movements through the air.

Later, when he checked his bag, he realized he really did forget his brush, along with the rest of his toiletries.


Sadiq always saw cities as being mirror images of the mountain-like buildings of New York. Seeing the jungle in movies and shows made him believe that every city was like that. The city closest to Everest lacked those monstrosities. If one ventured deep into the downtown center, a few stood scattered across a few blocks, but never close or tight enough to be the maze child Sadiq always dreamed of. In fact, his childish side thought that "the city" was simply another misnomer in his life.

Ivan drove the truck into the first few blocks of the city before quickly pulling it into an old gas station. Sadiq leaned his forehead against the window, dragging his sight across the numerous signs of neglect: splatters of mud, thin lines of cracks, a plethora of graffiti. A few used cars were parked by the various gas pumps, their owners lazing about them in no hurry.

"You've chosen a delightful place," Sadiq said.

"The gas is cheap here," Ivan replied with a smile, climbing out of the car. He reached into his pocket and tossed a leather wallet into Sadiq's hands. "Go buy some food and get a toothbrush. Don't spend too much."

Sadiq furrowed his brows. "Don't boss me around."

"Keep that attitude up and I might leave you behind by accident."

"You're a dick."

"At least I have one." Ivan waved his fingers. "Now fly away, my little eunuch."

Sadiq shoved the wallet into his pocket and stormed away, telling himself that he was going to buy the most expensive toothbrush the world has ever seen. The mini-mart of the gas station had the same run down appearance as the outside, albeit cleaner. Sadiq browsed through the aisles with relative ease, selecting a few pre-made sandwiches and an inflated toothbrush (ten whole dollars!).

He placed it all on the counter, a thick frown on his face as he waited for the cashier to return to his job. The moments ticked by, each one defined by the impatient tapping of his foot, he realized that the cashier wasn't at the counter when he first came in, though the worker had poked his head out from the door behind the counter earlier before quickly retreating. Sadiq scratched his neck. The guy was probably smoking out back.

Sadiq hopped over the counter, leaving his goods in a pile by the cash register. He vaguely worried about the black box of a security camera perched in the corner, but he pushed it aside. All he was doing was asking the cashier to do his job. There was nothing illegal about that. Yet he crept to the back door with hesitant feet, feeling his apprehension surge up the wires of his nerves. He opened the door a small crack and peaked out, convincing himself to scope the scene before taking action.

At first, the sight looked rather normal. The cashier uniformed in red stood by the large trash bins with a sour look on his face, his hands buried in his pockets. But then Sadiq realized that the sour scowl was aimed at one particularly tall blond he knew far too well. "That's too expensive, man," the cashier complained, his agitation increasing with every second Tim Jansen wasted with lighting his cigarette. "It was half that price last week."

"Special deliveries don't come cheap," Tim replied. "Especially when it's weed and I have to drive an hour to deliver it, so pay up."

Sadiq gripped his hands on the edge of the door, fruitlessly ordering his immobile legs to carry him away from this. He did not want Tim Jansen of all people to realize that he was here, witnessing the course of the ever rumored drug deals, but he could not will himself to move. An emotion, one that was far too calm to be called fear, pinned him to the crack at the doorway. He would have said it was something akin to curiosity, but he wanted nothing to do with the way Tim spent his free time.

"It's too expensive and you know it," the cashier repeated.

Sadiq watched Tim shrug. "Money makes the world go round," he recited, like it was nothing more than common knowledge. "Now are you going to buy it or what?"

The cashier thought it over for a moment, weighing his choices. With a reluctant groan, he pulled his wallet from the depths of his pocket. "Fine, but this is the last time I ever get any of your stuff." Tim waited patiently as fingers pulled out a thin stack of bills. The cashier counted each one, swearing when he reached the last one. "Hold on, I'm twenty short." He turned towards the door, his eyes stilled aimed at his handful of cash. "Fuck, I'll borrow some from the register."

Sadiq started to move away, but he was too slow. Tim's eyes widen with recognition as the cigarette dropped from his mouth. "Fucking— Adnan!"

Sadiq slammed the door shut, fumbling with the lock on the door. He heard Tim rush to the door, pounding his fist while yelling for him to open up. Sadiq held the doorknob in a sweaty grip as he struggled to think of escape. He only had so much time before his hold start to weaken or Tim realized he could run around the back and barge in through the front doors. "Fucking shit!" Tim screamed as he rammed his shoulder into the door. "Open the door!"

Sadiq finally twisted the lock into place, creating a stronger bombardment of insults and swears. He didn't waste any more time thinking. He jumped back over the counter, scooping the food and toothbrush into his arms before running out.

Never before was Sadiq so eager to see Ivan's dirt colored truck. He weaved through the refueling cars, stumbling over an untied shoelace as he came closer to the blessed vehicle. Its owner was balanced against the hood, his eyes glancing up from the screen of his phone. "Why are you running?" Ivan asked, a slight laugh in his voice. "I wasn't actually going to leave without you."

Sadiq stole a glance behind, happy to see the lack of Tim behind him. But he wasn't going to let that slow him down. "Shut it and get driving," Sadiq ordered, yanking the shotgun door open. He dumped his armful of food on the floor.

Ivan regarded Sadiq with light, skeptical eyes as he watched the golden-eyed teen slam the door shut again. Then, sensing the urgency, he jogged to the driver's side of the car and climbed inside. The car's engine sparked with life just as Tim ran around the side of the store, his gelled hair awry as part of his bangs were flattened onto his forehead.

"What the hell is Jansen doing here?" Ivan demanded, his eyes on the rear view mirror. The long series of swears that left from Ivan's mouth prevented Sadiq from answering. Ivan drove the car out of the station with the jerk of the wheel. Sadiq looked out the window, barely catching Tim's face before they sped down the city street.

If Sadiq didn't know Tim any better, he would have thought the blond's eyes were brimmed with fear.

Sadiq felt shaken to his core. He sat on the worn leather seats, stiff, unsure of what to make of it. Witnessing the dealing could not have been as dangerous as those distressed pair of irises predicted. A new thought occurred to him: what if he was not the one who was in danger? What if it was Tim? Sadiq mulled it over for a long time, long enough for the truck to turn back onto the highway. He decided he was being irrational and pushed the thought out of mind. He would deal with Tim Jansen when the time came.

"So." Sadiq adjusted his eyes from the road, switching them to the tense Ivan. Never had Sadiq seen him without his careless ease and, if Sadiq saw him at any other time, he would have been unrecognizable. Ivan glanced between the road ahead and the teen at his side. Large hands tightened their grip around the wheel. "What was that about?"

For a brief breath, Sadiq wondered if he should keep it to himself. Again, the thought was quickly banished from his brain. After all the trouble he caused, it was only right to tell Ivan the reason for their quick getaway. Still, his explanation was nothing less than laconic. It lasted a second or two, ending with a resigned turn of the head towards the window. The waning afternoon dipped the sun closer to the ground, yet it remained high above the earth, the sunset many hours to come.

"You mean you actually saw Jansen in action?" Ivan asked, almost sounding like he was caught in disbelief.

"Yeah. What about it?"

He smiled. "You're in a very lucky position, Sadiq."

Sadiq sat up, the seat belt tightening against his chest. "What?"

"I said you're in a very lucky position. You're the first person to ever see him do his drug stuff. That means you can go to the police any time you want and turn him in." The grin stretched forever upwards, hued in maliciousness. "Think about it: you have leverage over him."

"What good would that do me?" Sadiq demanded, hating where the conversation was taking him.

"Plenty if you try hard enough."

Sadiq was quiet. He slipped down onto his lower back, his arms crossed over his jacket-clad chest. Despite the strong sun, the temperature in the car was dropping quickly. He shivered, reminding himself that this was the teen who wanted to experiment on him. Of course such a calculating, almost cruel mindset was to be expected. Yet Ivan was still the person who insisted on doing favors for him. It was unimaginable that they would one day be the cause of a debt he would have to pay back.

"I'm not going to use him," Sadiq decided out loud.

Ivan shrugged. "Keep telling yourself that."


Sadiq wiped the last of the leaves out of the truck bed with a satisfied huff. The trunk was still far from clean, mud and fragments of leaves still cluttered the deep canals in the back, but it would have to do. There was no room to lie down inside the truck and Sadiq was not about to spend the night cramped at the front windshield with Ivan.

"We're parked at a rest spot," Ivan said into the phone, standing outside the car. Like Sadiq, he had taken advantage of the dirty bathrooms across the parking lot and washed his teeth and face for the night. Unlike Sadiq, he had a pair of parents to call thirty minutes past midnight, a pair that had to be informed of the events of the day.

Sadiq would have called Heracles, just to make sure the younger was doing fine, but he had no phone to do so. Their father had never bothered to buy them for his sons and the cost was too much for Sadiq to pay with a minimum wage salary. Sadiq occupied his hands for the next twenty minutes arranging his blanket and pillow in a comfortable bed. The night was cold, a slight wind casting a chill from the mountains, but Sadiq refused to worry. He merely zipped up his jacket and prayed he didn't catch a cold.

"Love you too, Mom. Good night." Ivan waited a moment longer before pulling his phone away from his ear. He pressed a virtual button on the screen, a slight frown on his face. Sadiq watched him stare at the ground around the wheels for a moment before finally returning back to life. "My mom says 'hi,' by the way," Ivan said, pulling a blanket from his bag. "She also hopes you no longer want to kill yourself, but I told her you're doing fine."

Sadiq raised a brow. "Kill myself?"

"I told my parents you were contemplating suicide and that your mom would be the only person who could convince you not to do it." He chuckled awkwardly. "They would've never have let me do this otherwise."

"And they believed it?" Sadiq asked, kicking off his shoes. He laid them at his side, praying no wise guy during the middle of night would think to steal them. "They must be as gullible as hell."

This time Ivan's laugh was sincere. "Tell me about it. My mom is such a sucker for everything. My dad's harder to convince, but he has this whole idea about self-sufficiency that he pretty much lets Nat and I do anything we want."

"Sounds nice."

"It can be."

Sadiq lay on his makeshift bed, spreading his blanket over his frame. Meager warmth stretched around his body, but it wasn't enough to rid his blood of the wind's ghostly chill. He turned onto his side, curling into his stomach. "Wake me in the morning," he ordered, closing his eyes.

Ivan said something in reply, but Sadiq refused to hear him. He focused his brain on the sparse roar of the occasional passing of a car, on the hiss of the long grass on the field brushing against each other. Yet both were dominated by the shuffles of Ivan as he readied himself for sleep. The boy muttered beneath his breath as he pulled things in and out of his bag, the truck rocking whenever he leaned too much into the edge. Sadiq listed to the scratching of microscopic rocks on the gravel before the muttering turned into a continuous song. Sadiq expected this noise to pass with time, but it stayed consistent for a while.

Sadiq cracked open an eye as he listened closer. The mutters were Ivan's, but it was soft to the point where the noises slurred into an incessant melody. Curious, Sadiq sat up, peering over the side of the truck just long enough to see the smallest glimpse of the scene: Ivan, sitting with his back against the front wheel, his eyes aimed towards the ground, his lips moving in monologue. His hands were folded in prayer.

Sadiq rolled onto his opposite side, deciding to pretend to have never seen anything.


"Fuck traffic."

"It's not too bad," Ivan said, his eyes dutifully aimed at the road. Sadiq wondered why: they were literally stuck in dead traffic, boxed in the center of equally unmoving cars. The SUV next to them was blasting a traffic report, the radio speaker's slick voice describing the overturned truck a mile down the freeway. Police said they would open a lane in an hour, but a single valve would do little to lessen the traffic jam.

The stall would have been much more bearable if Sadiq had music to listen to, but Ivan's radio was busted. "It's been dead since July," he had said, but only after Sadiq cursed and fiddled with the knob for a few minutes. At this point, Sadiq would have been content with even a book to read, but he didn't think to bring one.

Ivan drummed his fingers of the steering wheel, humming a song with no tune. Sadiq first thought it was an old nursery rhyme, but the pitch was off and Ivan had a tendency to speed up and slow down the tempo whenever he pleased. Sadiq sighed, sliding further down his seat. His seat belt rode up his chest, strapping itself around his neck. He unbuckled it, letting it whipped back to place with a defined snap.

"Put your belt back on," Ivan ordered. "You're going to get me a ticket."

"There's no police around."

"There's an overturned food truck down the way. There's definitely police here."

"Whatever."

Ivan gave him a sideways glare. "Fine, but while you're down there, can you get me my CD?"

That made him sit up. "You've had a CD this entire time?" he demanded, unsure if he should feel grateful for some form of entertainment or annoyed that Ivan withheld it from him.

Ivan rolled his shoulders. "Yup, it's in the glove compartment. Figured you would ask about it when you learned that the radio was busted, but you didn't."

Sadiq wasted no time in yanking the compartment open. The CD lied in the ever fated spot, but under an open package of cigarettes. He picked it up, the weak cardboard bending in his hands, the shapes of the tobacco tubes pressed into his palms. "You smoke?" Sadiq asked, aiming it under the light of the sun. The brand name reflected a gold beam into his eyes.

Ivan fidgeted. "I quit a long time ago." Sadiq wasn't sure if Ivan kept his eyes on the road because he was a responsible driver or because he did not want to show the secrets his irises threatened to reveal.

"Then why keep them?" Sadiq asked.

He turned his face away. "As a reminder."

Sadiq rolled his eyes, damning his ambiguity. "For what?"

"Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"It's none of your business."

"You're the guy who butts his ass into my business," Sadiq snapped. "And now you're getting defensive over a stupid pack of cigarettes?"

Ivan banged his hand on the steering wheel. "Just drop it already!"

Sadiq felt his body recoil away, but he pretended not to notice it. The ever level headed Ivan was apparently not cool enough to prevent a spark of anger. Ivan gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned a pallid white, his shoulder tense. Sadiq waited for any further explanation, but he remained strangely quiet. An unsettling silence slipped over them, underlining Ivan's law: do not talk about the cigarettes.

Sadiq placed them back in the glove compartment, exchanging it for the CD. He swore he would find out their meaning even if it killed him. He cracked the case open, revealing a disc labeled in sharpie: The Beatles' Greatest Hits. He took it out, letting the smooth surface reflect a rainbow as he pushed it into the CD player. The machine hummed for an extended moment before the clear voices started to sing.

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad,

Take a sad song and make it better.

Remember to let her into your heart,

Then you can start to make it better."

The tensions between the two teens eased throughout the course of the song. Ivan slowly unclawed the wheel and Sadiq resumed his slumped position in his seat. Towards the end of the song, Sadiq started to tap the beat on his arm as Ivan hummed along. The final chorus faded out, leaving a mute moment between songs. Sadiq waited for the next one to start.

"Hey Jude, don't make it bad,

Take a sad song and make it better."

He sat up, unsure if he heard it right. Another moment of listening revealed that, yes, "Hey Jude" was playing for a second time in a row. Sadiq pushed the skip button, but the song only started over again. "Braginski…"

A sly grin appeared on Ivan's face. "Scientific studies have shown that 'Hey Jude' is the only good Beatles song in existence."

Sadiq looked between him and the case, bewildered. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, barely noticing the car jolt as it started to move forward again. "Are you telling me that you have a CD of nothing but 'Hey Jude' and that's going to be the only thing we'll listen to on this damn ride?" he demanded.

Ivan grinned. "Yup."

Sadiq groaned, tempted to pull every strand of hair from his scalp. "Fuck you."

Ivan laughed.


Sadiq lay in the bed of the truck, oddly aware that Ivan was already asleep and morning was only a few short hours away. When they had pulled into the rest stop that night, Ivan told Sadiq that they only had a few more hours to go before they reached his mom. "We'll get there by noon," Ivan had told him, giving that kind smile that seemed ever so slightly forced.

Sadiq's head refused to rest for the night, every neuron inside running over every worst case scenario. What if his mother wasn't there? What was he supposed to do if she was? He never knew why she left in the first place. For all he knew, she could have forgotten about him and Heracles already.

He rubbed his wrist, wishing he could be hiking in the woods, digging for the bracelet again. He remembered the cold Christmas morning she had given it to him, tying the decked string about his wrists. "These beads are called Turkish Eyes," she had told him in her warm voice, her curls of hair surrounding her oval face like a halo. "They wear off bad spirits and give the wearer good luck." He remembered loving the azure beads, ever fascinated by the white circle surrounding the painted-on black pupils. He always wondered how an item meant to bring about good fortune managed to slip off his wrist. Perhaps there were so many evil spirits surrounding him that the bracelet couldn't bear to protect him anymore.

Sadiq rolled onto his back, looking up at the sky. The stars looked like white crayon marks on black construction paper, each differing in size and intensity. He regarded them with tired eyes, waiting for lines to magically appear between the dots and show him the pictures the Greeks wrote about. But none ever revealed themselves to him.

So he waited for a shooting star to streak across the picture, blessing him with a single wish. He waited for a long time, but none ever appeared. Instead, all he got was the brisk path of a satellite as it continued its orbit across the sky.

Sadiq wondered if satellites were the modern shooting star.

He made a wish on it, just in case. Maybe it heard him.


They started on the road early the next morning, eating their sandwiches as Ivan drove down the freeway. Grass plains gave away to salty air. The air outside turned colder as the ocean suddenly appeared outside the truck windows. Spelled, Sadiq watched the teal ocean roll onto white sand beaches, the overcast skies blending the two colors together. But the ocean drew away as they pulled into another mountain range. The highway snaked through a deep canyon as brown hills covered with dead grass lined each end of the road.

They arrived in Golden Valley City around noon time. Ivan pulled into the nearest fast food restaurant quickly after. They both changed their clothes and washed up in the bathrooms, sharing toothpaste and soap. Sadiq barely had enough time to shave away three days' worth of facial hair before an employee ordered them to leave.

Ivan used the GPS on his phone to guide them through the wide city streets, a clear female voice guiding them down their path. Sadiq watched the world past outside his window, aware that this city was another misnomer, but hardly caring. His leg jumped to an imaginary tune, all too aware that he was so close to seeing his mother again.

His mother's apartment building was painted a light salmon color— that odd shade caught between pink and orange. Red tiles lined the roofs, shading the balconies and windows carved into the sides. Ivan parked the truck on the curbside, flipping through his phone as he spoke. "You'll be happy to know that she works mainly from her apartment, so her apartment number was on the website." He turned the screen off and stuffed it back into his pocket. "If she's not here, we can wait until around seven tonight for her to come home." He unbuckled his seatbelt. "Any later than that and we might not make it home in time for school. Understand?" Ivan double checked his pockets, about to open the door when he realized how silent the car was.

Sadiq stayed frozen at his spot, his fingers rubbing the frayed ends of his jacket. Wide eyes stared at his worn sneakers, sweat glistening on his face. Ivan stared at him for a long moment, as if processing what he was seeing. He sighed, relaxing back into his seat. "You must be anxious," he said offhandedly. He smiled and patted Sadiq's shoulder. "She's your mom. She'll want to see you."

Sadiq nodded, though said nothing.

Ivan sighed. "Do you want to see her now?"

Another nod. He undid his seatbelt like a machine. He opened the door and slid out, wiping his sweaty palms on his slacks. The long sleeve dress shirt he wore was already too hot for him, though the air in this city was colder than usual. He followed Ivan as the junior tried to find a directory. That map showed them the way to the third story apartments, to the fifth door on the west side of the building.

Sadiq stood in front of the white door, staring at the gold numbers nailed to wood. He gulped, knowing that his mother should lie on the other side. He knew he should knock, but the cogs in his arms refused to lift his fist to the wood. "Do you want to knock or should I?" Ivan asked kindly.

I can do it," Sadiq grumbled, raising his fist to the door. Before a single thought could persuade him to back away, he knocked his knuckles on the painted wood.

And he waited.

The scant minute between the knock and the turning of the lock passed by at a slow, almost motionless speed. Sadiq held his breath the entire time, dancing his weight between feet, waiting for the door to push open. The click of the lock was enough to snap him to attention, his hand held strictly behind his back like a child. He was going to meet his mother again, whether he was ready for it or not.

But on the other side of the door was not the surprised visage of Helena Karpusi.

A small child stood at the foot of the threshold, one with the same gold eyes as Sadiq.


MW: Nothing to say thing time around except thank you to lostbluefox, HTCJTJ , and SarcasticBlue for reviewing. You people rock!

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful September!