Snow Twink - Sue Brown

Chapter One

LYLE

Exhausted and cold beyond endurance, Lyle longed to lay down and sleep in the snow, but he knew if he did, he’d never wake up. He had to keep going. Somewhere there had to be a shelter; a hut or a cave where he could rest until morning.

He didn’t know how long he’d been walking. It felt like hours. He didn’t even know how he’d ended up in this forest. Lyle was sure he’d never been here before. He’d never left Kingdom Mountain theme park since the day he was delivered to its door and discovered the hell that lay beyond the wrought iron gates.

He felt as if he were in a fog. He tried to remember, but as soon as he pinpointed one memory, everything became fuzzy. He’d woken up in the dorm and started work in the kitchen as usual, and after that was a blank. He’d suddenly become aware he was stumbling through a forest of pine trees, freezing cold, his mouth dry. And it had only gotten worse, visibility diminishing with each passing step. When had it gotten dark?

As he grew up, he’d stared at the trees beyond the gates, longing to be free to walk in the forests, but to wake up not knowing where he was or what he was doing here…Lyle was more scared than he’d ever been in his eighteen-year-old life.

“Happy eighteenth birthday, Lyle. Today is the day you’re going to die.”

His voice broke the silence, but it didn’t provide any comfort. For so long he’d heard nothing but the harshness of each breath and felt the burning pain of the cold air in his lungs.

He cried out as he sank deeper into the snow and stumbled, falling flat on his face. He wasn’t dressed for hiking in snowy terrain. He wore a thin red and yellow jacket that was too big for him, and the battered sneakers that he usually wore for work in the vast kitchens of the theme park. His pants were soaked to the knees from sinking into the snow, and he’d stopped feeling his feet a long while back.

“Please help me, Daddy.”

His words, almost fevered, broke the silence again. No one answered him and he sobbed. He didn’t have a Daddy, no matter how hard he prayed, and now he was going to die out here unless a miracle happened. But miracles only happened to good boys. And Lyle had spent his whole life being told he was bad.

He swayed, this time falling against a tree, his cheek scraping painfully against the icy bark. When he fell to his knees, he let himself fall all the way until he was face down in the snow. He stayed down, too stunned to move. Maybe he’d just rest here a while and catch his breath.

GRUFF

The fresh snowfall had made traversing the forest harder than usual, and Gruff was ready to go home. Hunting had been poor, and he was thankful for the meat already in the freezer. He couldn’t stay too long out here. Darkness was falling, and it was already getting harder to see in the dense forest. If he wasn’t careful his brothers would be sending a search party out for him. Despite the fact he knew the forest like the back of his hand, his brothers always worried about him. That was the joy of being the youngest and smallest of seven. Gruff was always going to be the baby. Small was relative term as he was six foot three, with broad shoulders and a massive chest, but PJ was nearly seven feet tall. All the Brenner boys were built on the farside of huge.

Seven boys, all unmarried and still living in the family home, managing the family’s Christmas tree farm. They knew the townsfolk talked about them, but by now they ignored it. Folk had learned to be polite to their faces and gossip behind their backs since Damien, the oldest brother, took out Chester Mayfield’s teeth when he’d laughed about one of Damien’s siblings.

The girls had long since quit trying to throw themselves at any of them. Handsome as they were, the Brenner boys didn’t look at girls that way. Everyone knew the Brenner boys were all gay. The women of the town gossiped about how their dear mother must be turning in her grave, and the men opined that their father should have taken a strap to them. The brothers ignored them all. Their wonderful parents had loved them dearly, and the brothers