CHAPTER 1— She was theirs

SAGE MONTERO.

The cold grey clouds hang over us like the sadness and gloom running triumph in my heart.

Funny thing is you’d think the sadness would be enough to stop the drama but it’s not. Not when the funerals in the Montero family are treated like a pissing match to see who griefs the most. Who goes through the most tissues the most.

The priest drones on about the ‘from the sands you came from, to the sands you shall return’ spiel as the casket gets lowered but I’ve gotta say Aunt Bertha takes the grief trophy for the win when she passes out dramatically.

Two seconds before she even meets the ground, another aunt from Florida passes out.

If I was cynical, if I wanted to make this day about me, I’d weed out all the strait-laced, self-righteous people in here pretending like they knew my sister let alone cared about her death.

I’d start with Aunt Bertha; my sister always hated her. She always said Aunt Bertha was as pretentious as those Gucci flip-flops, she wore on the regular. The irony is, she is still wearing said flip-flops today.

I’d go for the priest next and oh boy would I have a field day with him.

He called my twin sister a sinner once. Said she deserved to be baptized again. So, I can’t help but wonder, why is he crying for a sinner?

“Sage”, my dad gives me a side hug and for the first time since we came here, I lean on his chest and let the tears fall.

“Dad…Bring…her back. Bring Saxen back. I c-can’t do this without Sax…my—my sister. She can’t be dead! She said she’d never leave me! You are the m-mayor, you’ve gotta…you’ve gotta do something. You’ve gotta…”

I choke on the tears, listening to my father’s chest rise and fall against my cheek.

While I’m drowning, trying my best to stay afloat, he’s breathing and it upsets me because the world is moving without a care about me…about Sax…about my grief.

And in the middle of it all, that’s when the whispers and murmurs spear the air.

“They came”, someone gasps.

“She was theirs. They have to pay their respects too like everyone”, another defends.

“I thought they had a game today”, another grating whisper.

My father tenses beside me and I don’t have to raise my head to know who just walked in.

You can sense it in the air. You can see it with how the women clutch their rosaries.

My dead sister’s boyfriends -plural- are here.

The five nightmares of Mallow Creek. The hockey gods of my school. The Rhodes brothers.

Instead of the usual five, they are four today. One of them couldn’t care less about my sister getting buried to come.

Instead of their blue jerseys, their gloves, helmets and those sticks they carry across the ice like Gods; they are wearing suits.

Like suits would make a difference.

“Sage”, my dad tries to hold me back but he’s too late.

I’m already walking around my sister’s grave.

I’m already headed for the assholes.

“What are you doing here? How dare you. You are not supposed to be here. You are not supposed to taint her funeral, you low lives! You…you killed her. I k-know it was you. Y-you killed her! You took Sax from me!”

Images of how happy she was when she first mentioned she had them for boyfriends come to my mind and I flinch like I’ve been stabbed by a poker to the ribs.

Everyone labelled her a slut for being nineteen and having five boyfriends, I hated it too but I didn’t question it.

She said they treated her right. Like the princes our mother used to read to us when we were kids.

Watching them now, being in their space for the first time, I see where my sister went wrong.

These men were not her princes.

These men aren’t human, they are monsters.

I know that because Tatum Rhodes, the eldest, the star, the forward of the Mallow Reapers, smiles at me like my sister’s death is just overtime on the ice.

Then he leans down and whispers, “You are grieving, you are allowed to and I will allow you to throw your tantrum but this is not the cheerleading squad, little Montero. You don’t bring your drama to Saxen’s funeral.”

His voice, his words…they reverberate around my brain, bouncing off of the sides of my head like balls in a pinball machine.

“Sax…”

The right defenseman on the Mallow Reapers, the wildcard they call him. The brother with the ginger hair and an attitude the color of his hair, Drex Rhodes, cuts me off, “Saxen shared your blood and that’s where the similarities end. Don’t act holier than the geezer up there with his holy book and his verses because you are not. You hated your sister more than the town hated her. You remember the last conversation you had with her in front of us?”

Tears sting my eyes but I don’t shed them. I hold my ground.

Drex Rhodes doesn’t back down, he doesn’t relent, he gets in my face and whispers hard enough for me to hear, “You called her disgusting. You told her she was a sorry excuse of a human being for having five men in her bed. But we both know the truth, don’t we Sage? You were jealous of your own sister. Little miss Queen Bee didn’t get enough attention from her preppy little boyfriend and her daddy and that made her bitter. If anyone killed Sax here, it’s you Babygirl. You drove her to the grave. You…”

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe it’s the fact that some of the things he said were true.

Or maybe it’s because I can’t stand the thought of them here.

All I know is when I raise my hand and slap Drex Rhodes across the face, I don’t expect him to growl in my face.

I don’t expect his pupils to turn red the color of blood.

I don’t expect him to wrap his hand around my neck, have his nose drag along my collarbones before the feel of his sharp canines prick my skin lightly.

“Don’t bite her. Drex? Stand down. Now.”

I have no idea which brother speaks but it gets the man close to me to back off.

I have no idea what just happened, what I just saw and I don’t have a second to process it because rain descends down on me like a scorned banshee.

With my heart in my mouth, my knees shaking from the cold and fear, I watch my sister’s lovers walk away and I vow one thing in front of her grave.

I’ll kill them.

The same way they left her on the ice to bleed to death.