“Costume blood,” I say, worrying about Callum, about all the boys really. Wondering if Danny Ensbrook really would’ve shot me in the face if given the chance. Aaron is stone-still behind me, so I reach back and grab his hand. It kills me a little bit, to touch him like that, but there are bigger things at play here than our bullshit feelings for each other. “What are you doing in Aaron’s house?”
I don’t acknowledge my ex-bestie Kali Rose-Kennedy or our disgraced Principal Vaughn; they’re not worth my time.
Mostly, I'm concerned with making sure Aaron doesn't start anything violent just yet.
Or … maybe I'm the one most likely to start something violent? If I find out that the Thing laid a single finger on my sister, God help him. I'm more than happy to go down and take Neil Pence with me, engulfed in flames and enjoying the burn.
Anything to see him suffer.
Principal Vaughn watches us warily, and I can tell Havoc has done it: he's really and truly afraid of them … of us?
Us.
Havoc Girl.
Kali smirks at me, and I come to the understanding that if she weren't pregnant, I might just leap across this table and hit her as hard as I could in the tit. Maybe I still will? Her flat-ass boobs aren’t currently enveloping a fetus, now are they?
The worst part about the whole situation though, is the way Neil looks at me. He stares at me like he always does, like I’m a horse that needs breaking. He undresses me with his eyes, too. He does that to every girl—even his flesh and blood daughter. My mouth fills with bile, and the step-thing grins like a crocodile. He’s loving every minute of this interaction.
“Where the fuck are our girls?” Aaron asks, still bleeding, still with a goddamn bullet in his arm. He resists when I pull him down toward the sofa, but he hasn't got a lot of strength left and finally gives in. This couch is gonna end up drenched in blood … Aaron and I, we're covered in it. The smell is actually starting to make me dizzy.
“Your girls?” the Thing asks, lifting one scarred eyebrow. Want to know how that happened? Our neighbor's super sweet golden retriever broke out of the fence one day, charged Neil, and attacked his face. Clearly, he knew something about Neil that nobody else but me seems to notice.
He's a bigger monster than all five Havoc Boys combined.
“You heard me, you pedophile piece of shit,” Aaron grinds out, his hands shaking but his gold-green gaze steady and fierce. I have no doubt that he'd bleed himself out going after Neil if he had to. He'd do anything for his girls, even bully me. But would I want a man that wouldn't do those things for the children he loves like his own?
No. No, I would not.
I squeeze Aaron's hand a little harder. Sometimes, it feels almost impossible to see past one's own hurt, like looking directly into the sun. The brilliance of it is blinding. But if we close our eyes, we can feel the warmth of those rays on our skin.
“Our. Girls.” Aaron lifts his chin up and flashes the nastiest smirk I've ever seen on his face. It's a mask, I see that now, but we're both players in a much bigger game. What choice does he have? His father is dead; his mother is gone. This is all he's got left, the grinning maw of a master thespian. “Because you lost that right when you raped Penelope Blackbird. Matter of fact, you lost the right to life.”
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Vaughn simpers, and I flick my green gaze his direction, making him flinch. “They probably killed somebody tonight. That blood … that's not costume blood at all, is it?”
“Keep talking and maybe you'll get to see the difference for yourself?” I say, my voice a cold deadpan that doesn't quite match the frantic beating of my heart.
“Oh, Penelope,” Neil says as Kali bristles and glances his way with narrowed eyes. “She certainly was a pathetic little fuck-up, wasn't she?” The step-thing turns toward Kali, like he's about to explain a sad truth. “Brought her into the station drunk on more than one occasion. She was a fucking delinquent, but nothing like this bitch.” Neil gestures my way. “This bitch has gotten herself tangled up in a gang.”
“I'm going to kill you one day,” I tell him, shaking with rage, the words from Penelope's journal echoing inside my head. He said he'd kill my sisters if I told, that he'd kill my mom. He says he's killed before and gotten away with it. That look in his eyes when he said it … there's no doubt in my mind that he was telling the truth. “And I'm going to cry tears of joy.”
“Are you threatening a cop?” Neil asks, cocking his head to the side. His eyes shimmer with loathing and licentious greed, a want so strong it makes my head spin. Underneath that average Joe persona he has going on, his need to break and consume innocence shines brightest. If you know to look, it’s impossible to miss it. “You know how serious of an offense that is?”
“You better have a fucking warrant, considering you're sitting in my house,” Aaron says, his hand clenching hard to mine. “Now, where the fuck are our girls?”
“Sound asleep in their beds,” Neil says in that infuriatingly calm voice of his. The way he says the word beds, however, frightens me to my very core. I don’t think he would commit his dark deeds with Vaughn and Kali as witnesses, but you never know. Fear flutters in my chest like a bird with broken wings. “Such sweet, beautiful little babies. Angels, really. I sent that babysitter home a few minutes ago, gorgeous young thing.”
I'm surprised Havoc's safety net didn't alert the boys to what was going on, but then … maybe they did, and we were just too busy to see the messages?
“If you touched them,” I begin, because at this point, all gloves are off. I'm sitting here covered in both my ex's blood, and the blood of a boy who tried to kill me tonight. A boy who's now dead. All Neil has to do is call us in, that's it. The question is: why hasn't he?
“Listen, Bernadette,” Neil interrupts, smirking as he leans forward, a shimmer in his eyes that says he has me right where he wants me. “If you don't want your little gang to go to jail, you'll shut the fuck up and say yes, sir to every word that comes out of my mouth.”
My entire body goes ice-cold, to the point that I just don't smell blood, I'm choking on it.
“Talk to my girl like that again, and I'll break your face,” Aaron says, and my gaze snaps his direction. My girl? He's like an echo of Vic right now. I don't … hate that though.
“Listen, you little prick, you've got no fucking choice.”
“Watch me,” Aaron says, standing up so fast that he ends up stumbling and slamming into the coffee table. He's dizzy from blood loss; I'm seriously worried about him. I stand up, too, grabbing onto his shoulder as he braces both palms on the table, panting for breath. I need to get some fluids in him, and fast.
“Forgive me if I'm not running in fear,” Neil says as that little rat Kali giggles next to him.
“Tough guy,” she says, playing off her perceived seat of power next to Neil. But she has no idea what Havoc has in store for her. Hell, neither do I. All I know is that if the boys were willing to castrate Donald, Kali is going to suffer just as much.
What was it that Callum said? Her face isn’t pregnant.
Principal Vaughn doesn't look quite so smug, eyes darting from the front door to the back, like he expects trouble. No, no, like he expects Havoc.
“Sit down,” Neil repeats, eyes hardening as he looks at me. “And say yes, sir.”
“Bernadette,” Aaron says, panting as he looks over at me. “Don't do it. We have Neil by the balls; he can't touch us.”
“How?” I ask as Vaughn makes a small sound of protest, wringing his hands as he paces in front of the fireplace. Aaron just glances my way, meeting my eyes, and shaking his head slightly. Fuck. Whatever it is they've got on Neil, I'm not going to like it.
“You said you'd bring them to heel,” Kali demands, standing up from the couch and turning on Neil with a pouty expression on her pretty little face. Is it Neil's baby that she's carrying? “Well, I'm still waiting.”
Neil rises to his feet at the same time I notice movement
in the shadows near the staircase and in the small hall by the master bedroom.
“Last chance, Bernadette,” the Thing says, putting his hand on the radio at his hip. “Say it, or I call you and your friend Aaron here in.” He pulls the radio out and pauses as a clicking sound comes from behind his head; it’s the distinct sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back.
“Don't make your final mistake here, Neil. I'd hate to have to scrub your brains off the walls of Aaron's living room.”
Vic's voice is ice-cold, his full mouth twisted in a dark frown. His purple-black hair is slicked back from his face, still wet from a shower, his makeup wiped clean, clothes fresh and blood-free. As soon as I see him, a dark thrill travels through me, one that tastes like sweet, heavy poison.
“And if you think I'm bluffing, go ahead and test me.”
The fury that lights my stepfather's face scares the crap out of me. He has friends; he has connections.
And he came here for a reason.
“I knew I shouldn't have followed you here,” Vaughn murmurs, still wringing his hands.
“Excellent observation,” Oscar says, suddenly standing behind the principal. A chill traces over my skin. How the fuck did he get in here without me noticing? His gray eyes are focused on the back of Vaughn’s head, his revolver held rock steady in a single hand. He pulls the hammer back and keeps smiling.
Hael swaggers in from the kitchen (I figure he, at least, must've used the exterior door that leads into the laundry room), while Callum slides open the patio door. He has the bat in his hand still and while he’s cleaned up, the weapon’s still stained red.
The energy in that room suffocates me, climbing down my throat like smoke. I find it suddenly hard to breathe.
“Don’t worry, Bernie. Neil’s just a dickless, neutered dog,” Vic reassures me, stone-cold, immovable. But he strikes that chord deep within me, shaking away the ice crystals that cling to my soul. He eats away the numb and leaves me bleeding. Who can staunch that bleeding? Me? Am I supposed to bandage my own emotional wounds? “His hands are tied; we have dirt on him.”
“And why don’t you tell my lovely stepdaughter what, exactly, that is?” Neil asks, turning around to face Victor, not at all concerned about the gun in his face. The way that man smiles, it cuts to the marrow in my bones and rots me from the inside out. Right here, this is the type of person who only gets pleasure from watching others suffer. “You can’t though, can you? Because you’re afraid to.”
The thing about Neil though, is that he’s underestimated Victor Channing.
“We have a video of him,” Vic says, nodding his chin in Neil’s direction. “With your sister Penelope.”
On the outside, I do nothing. I’m still standing there, trying to help Aaron keep his feet, blood smearing across my hands. On the inside, I’m shattering into a mosaic of hurt and pain and rage. It’s leaded glass, that mosaic, and my anger is the iron that holds all the pretty pieces together. One day, I’m going to pick up one of those pieces and I’m going to stab Neil Pence through the empty cavity where his heart should be.
“Neil, what the hell is going on?” Kali asks, crossing an arm over her still-flat stomach and looking between Victor and the Thing with a particularly vacuous facial expression. Nobody ever said the lying little twit had any working brain cells. Principal Vaughn looks like he might shit his pants. “You said we were going to come over here and put a stop to all this.”
“A stop to what?” Oscar asks innocently, pushing his glasses up his nose with an inked middle finger while at the same time keeping his revolver trained on Scott. “A raucous Halloween night? I see Kali came in costume. It’s quite popular for girls to dress up like whores on All Hallows’ Eve, isn’t it?”
“Fuck you, Montauk,” she snarls, smoothing her hands down her pale pink skirt. Despite Oscar’s quip, she didn’t dress up, she didn’t come to Stacey’s party. She abandoned Mitch’s pathetic clown crew, but why? What is she doing here? What is Vaughn doing here? And why are three of the seven people on my list standing in this room?
“You have one minute to fuck off out of here before we make all three of you disappear—permanently.” Victor steps back and drops the gun to his side. His eyes are like two dark pools, ready to swallow me up and drown me. But his attention keeps flicking to Aaron. He’s worried, and so am I. My ex-boyfriend doesn’t look so hot right about now. “I’m going to count down from sixty.”
“You don’t want to know why I’m here?” Neil teases, eyes narrowing as his thin lips curl into a smirk. “What Scott’s doing here? He came to me, you know, after you trashed his cabin and made him do all those nasty things on the Internet.”
“Sixty.” Vic nods, and both Callum and Hael step forward to flank him. Nobody’s smiling tonight. Nobody’s reveling in this moment, not like they did before when we went after Don. “Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.”
“Let’s just go, please,” Vaughn says, shaking, his gaze latching on me like I’m the sole party responsible for this mess. “This was a bad idea in the first place. You didn’t tell me they had a video.”
“Fifty-seven.” Vic barely looks like he’s breathing, he’s standing so damn still. Callum’s hood is pulled up over his blond hair, his face bathed in shadows. He probably needs me as much as Aaron does right now, just in a different way. Did you hear yourself, Bernadette? He needs you? Havoc doesn’t fucking need you. And you don’t owe them your emotional energy or support.
And yet here I am, wanting to give it.
My hand curls around Aaron’s arm as he pants beside me, fighting to maintain at least some semblance of power and control.
“We’re at a crossroads here. You move on me, I bury you,” Neil growls out, never taking his eyes off of Vic. “And leave Kali out of it.”
“What about me?” Principal Vaughn bursts out, putting one hand on the mantle to steady himself. “You said you’d help me out of this mess! I helped you when you asked for it.”
“That confession of yours is gone,” Neil says, sniffling and backing up a few feet. My blood chills because I know my stepfather; he’s only telling us what he wants us to hear. See how powerful I am? See what I can do? Don’t you ever forget that I have fingers in many pies. Kali clings to his arm and then turns a poisonous glare on me, dropping her poor-me act for once. There’s no audience around to lap it up, so she doesn’t bother. “That’s all I’ve got. Scott, you’re on your own now.”
Neil turns and takes off for the front door with Kali in tow. Principal Vaughn scrambles after him, and the boys let them go. I realize then that maybe we’re stretched too thin. I did this. I called Havoc, and I started this mess.
I grit my teeth.
The shittiest part about all of this? I actually feel bad about it, like I’m inconveniencing the Havoc Boys. They ruined my life sophomore year. Does it matter what their twisted reasons were, what price Kali paid? They did it, and I suffered, and now here I am praying to what little good is left in the universe that Aaron Fadler doesn’t fucking die on me.
“They’ve all gotten into the cruiser; it’s pulling out of the driveway,” Oscar says, looking out from between the sheer curtains that line the front window. “Off they go down the street.”
“Fuck,” Aaron says, and then he falls. Hard. So hard that I can’t keep him up even though I try. Hael is there in a split-second, grabbing onto his friend’s arm and helping me push him back onto the couch. I climb onto the cushion next to him and start to undo his sweater, helping Hael remove his clothes so we can assess the damage.
“He’s still bleeding,” I murmur as the other boys move in around us. “The bullet’s still in his arm.” My fingers just lightly skim the bruise on his chest, but it’s nowhere near as important as the wound in his left bicep. Or the dead kid we left at the Halloween party. Damn you, Danny Ensbrook, you piece of shit. He just had to do it, huh? Aim that gun at me … “He needs a hospital.”
“Mm,” Vic says, rubbing at his chin, a sign that he�
�s deep in thought. “Hospitals are full of mandated reporters. A minor with a gunshot wound is bad news for us. It brings inquiries and questions and police reports.”
My head snaps around to level a glare on Havoc’s boss; I must look pretty scary, too, because he raises his eyebrows at me in mock surprise.
“We’re not letting him die,” I say as Aaron groans, his head leaned back on the cushion, eyes closed. I’m not fully certain that he’s still conscious.
“No, of course not,” Vic scoffs, like I’ve lost my damn mind. “Let’s get him in the van and take him to Whitney’s house.”
“Nurse Yes-Scott?!” I choke out, but it’s the obvious choice. She’ll have heard from Vaughn by now about what happened. She’ll know her ass is on the line. What choice will she have but to help us? Besides, she was hired at Prescott for a reason. Most schools don’t need trauma nurses with gunshot wound experience. In the southside, it’s practically a requirement. “Fuck. Fine. Let’s get him outside.”
I stand up, still shaking with the rush of adrenaline, still covered in blood.
“Oscar, you stay with the girls,” Vic commands, and I just know I’m not going anywhere either until I know they’re alright. I pull away from Aaron and walk backwards for a moment, bumping into Victor. He puts his hands on my shoulders and leans down to put his mouth near my ear. “Don’t worry about Aaron: I won’t let anything happen to him.” His lips press against the side of my neck, branding me in a way I can never wash off. “I’ll even stitch him up before we leave to stem the flow; take a quick shower and get that blood off of you.”
Even though it probably shouldn’t, his voice comforts me, and I nod, heading up the stairs and cracking the door to the girls’ room. All three of them are fast asleep, like maybe they never knew Neil was here in the first place. I stand there for several minutes, watching Heather’s chest rise and fall with steady breaths, and then I slip back out and duck into the bathroom.
Blood is not the easiest substance to wash off. It’s sticky and viscous, and it clings to the skin like paint. By the time I get out of the shower, my skin is pink and irritated, and the spot where Billie stabbed me is throbbing and oozing fresh crimson, soaking the black t-shirt I stole from Aaron’s dresser. At least you can’t see the stain, and right now, that’s good enough for me.
Chaos at Prescott High Page 2