“Think about it, Bernadette,” Cal whispers, his voice just barely audible over the music. His eyes look down into mine, asking me to understand. He doesn't beg, doesn't plead, just asks. And all with a look. Tearing my arms from Callum's, I put my face in my hands as the song ends and a new one from the same artist—Big Bad Wolf—starts up. “If we'd seen it while it was happening, we would've done something about it.”
“Really?” I ask, dropping my hands down and turning to look at him. I'm not sure I've ever identified with a song more than I do right this second. “Even in these chains, you can't stop me.” “Because I don't know that. You guys are more than aware of all the seedy shit that goes on in this town. You knew about Principal Vaughn, but you didn't do fuck-all until I asked you to.” I storm back over to Callum, fully aware that I'm taking every bit of rage I'm feeling toward Havoc as a whole out on him. Maybe I feel safe to do that, like I'll somehow get a better reaction from him than any of the others. If so, it's a false sense of security. “You know about Nurse Yes-Scott, and yet you do nothing about her either. So don't lie to me and say you'd have stopped it. If it didn't interfere with Havoc's plans, then maybe.”
Those full pink lips of his twist up into a smile, the darkness in that expression at odds with the rest of his appearance. Callum looks like a fairy-tale prince, ready to ride in on a white horse and save the day. In all reality, he's the villain, the one you're supposed to hate, but can't because he's too damn pretty. That's how he gets you in the end, like a poisonous butterfly, too beautiful for the crow to resist.
“What I mean to say, Bernie, is that we weren't there when it happened; we didn't film it.”
I turn in a small circle, pacing in place, trying to keep my hands to myself. My go-to reaction to everything is violence. Despite my anger right now, I don't actually want to hurt Callum. To be quite honest, I'm not sure that I could hurt Cal, even if I wanted to.
He might be able to beat me.
Maybe.
“Even if you didn't film it,” I bite out, pausing and curling my hands into fists at my sides, “you knew about it. All this time, you've held Neil Pence's smoking gun in your hands, and you chose not to pull the trigger.” Callum watches me carefully, his blond hair bright beneath the track lighting above our heads, the muscular curves of his biceps dotted with sweat.
He's staring at me like he … feels sorry for me.
That look makes me want to kill him.
“What do you want me to say, Bernadette?” he asks me, cocking his head slightly to one side, as cute as a puppy gazing at his master. Only, this boy is no puppy. He's cute, sure, but underneath all of that pretty, there's a whole hoard of ugly. “I killed a man to protect you last night. Do you think I would lie to you now?”
I grit my teeth.
I'm obstinate, but even I can't deny that.
“Why?” I ask, putting my hands together in a prayer position and gesturing at him with them. “Just tell me why.”
Callum pauses for a moment, pulling in a deep breath, and then holding out both hands for me.
It doesn't take a genius to know he wants me to dance with him again. Why, I'm not sure, because I'm a shitty dancer. Maybe because it's the only way he knows how to express himself?
Even though it fucking kills me, I put my hands in his and let him pull me close. The track switches to Rise Above It by I Prevail and Justin Stone. The song starts slow, so Callum and I do, too.
He pulls me close, plastering us front to front, his movements forcing my own. He turns me into a decent dancer by simply using his form to dictate what I do with mine.
Doesn't make me any less pissed.
My very cells vibrate with rage, and I know he can feel it. I know he can.
His hands, my hips, it’s impossible to tell where Cal’s body ends and mine begins. He walks me backward, until we’re in the center of the room, using his foot to sweep one of mine out from underneath me. I dip back, and he catches me like it’s nothing, lifting me up and then hauling me into his arms. We turn in a slow circle before Callum sets me down again.
His fingers trail down the side of my face as our mouths come close enough to kiss, but then the drop in the song comes, and Cal pulls back from me, encouraging me to spin in place. He lifts me up by the hips and my legs go around him, the music fading to a slower beat. My fingers dig into his blond hair as he turns us in another circle, my gaze tilted down toward his.
I don't quite expect him to push me against the mirror, to let my body slide down the front of his until we're face-to-face. Cal leans in and captures my mouth with his, leaving me with the taste of regret and pain on my lips.
It’s a kiss for the ages, a defining moment in the storybook of my life. Callum’s kiss forces his spirit into me, brushing his very essence up against mine. I can see now why he didn’t kiss me before. It’s too personal for him, too deep.
Yet … he’s giving it to me now.
I gasp as we separate, like I’m coming up for air. Like I just found myself sweetly drowning and didn’t care if I died or not. Now that, that is one dangerous motherfucking kiss.
“Whatever is best for Havoc, Bernadette, that's what we do.” His mouth is pressed up tight against mine, but I can barely think beyond my anger. Even if my body is flushing hot, and all I want right now is to fuck Callum against the wall of his dance studio.
“Yeah, well, screw you.” I shove him back, letting my feet fall to the floor, but he doesn't let me go, grabbing my wrists and slamming them into the mirror behind my head. “I bet there isn't a single one of you who would've told me about that video.” I sneer at him and then, when I try to pry out of his grip and he doesn't let me go, I spit at his feet. “I had to hear about it from the Thing. Do you know what that was like? It was like being taunted by the devil himself. He took pleasure in telling me. You gave him that pleasure by keeping this from me.”
“Bernadette,” Callum growls, surprising me as he grabs me by my hair, keeping the fingers of his right hand around my wrist. “I spilled blood for you last night, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. I’m not sure what it is you’re looking for, an escape route, or a reason to run, but you won’t find it here.”
“Let me go,” I grind out, but Cal ignores me, leaning in to put his lips near mine. My heart is pounding like crazy, but I’m not sure what to do. I want to leave here, but then where will I go? Liar. You don’t want to leave at all, do you?
And that’s the worst part of it all: I don’t.
I want to stay with the Havoc boys; I want to be a Havoc Girl.
I always have, since I was eight years old. They might not’ve called themselves Havoc back then, but they were still my boys.
When Cal turns and presses his mouth against mine, I see stars. The fingers of my right hand dig into his shirt and my body arches, like we’re dancing all over again. His arm, the one with the ballerina tattoo, wraps around my waist as he releases my other wrist. When he picks me up and slams me into the mirror again, I gasp against his lips, my legs curving around him, ankles locking.
Callum is soaked in sweat, his cheeks pink from whatever workout he must’ve gotten in before I got here. I wonder if I’m too much for him to hold up, with his injuries and all, but he doesn’t act like I weigh anything at all. His fingers slide from my hair to cup the side of my face, thumb dipping between my lips. This time, when he leans in toward me, he kisses the side of my neck instead of my mouth.
The sensation burns like fire through my veins, traveling to my fingers, my toes, making my cunt pulse and throb as he grinds his erection against my pelvis. It’s impossible to miss, behind those sweatpants of his. Callum waits for the beat of the song to pick up and then starts to move in rhythm to the music, stirring up this delicious friction between my thighs.
That’s when the power cuts again and the studio goes dark.
“Fuck.” It’s the only word he manages to get out before the rain starts to come down, battering the old skylight. The song end
s and suddenly, it’s just way too fucking quiet in that studio. Part of me wonders if some of those pinging sounds I hear are Callum’s dreams, shattering to glass on the tin roof above our heads. “It’s always bad timing with us, isn’t it?” he asks, but I’m not entirely sure what he means, other than that I was just here, with the rain coming down in sheets.
Cal releases me, and I shove him back. He stumbles a bit, but only because he's letting me push him around.
His blue eyes watch me as I head for the door, shoving it open with both palms. I've left little spatters of blood in my wake, and my bare feet smear them as I continue down the hallway, not caring that I've left my shoes behind.
Regardless of where and how they got it, the Havoc Boys had that video.
They didn't tell me about it.
Worse, they let the Thing taint Aaron's house, ruin an already shitty Halloween, mock me.
They let him get a leg up, and I'm not sure if I can ever forgive them for that.
I’m soaking wet and my feet are killing me by the time I get back to Aaron's place, but I ran out of fucks to give a long time ago.
A rough hand grabs my wrist as I pass by an overgrown yard, and my fight-or-fight-harder instinct kicks in. I throw a hard punch with my left hand, but my attacker intercepts it, keeping me from killing him long enough for me to realize through my adrenaline-soaked haze that the person I'm fighting with is Victor Channing.
“Oh, great,” I snap, tearing my arm away from him and wishing it didn't feel like my skin was branded by his touch. “The absolute last person I want to see right now.” I look up into his ebon eyes and feel my rage begin to crack and burn around the edges of my vision. Vic is the leader. He's the one who's supposed to be in charge. Ultimately, this decision fell to him and he fucked it all up.
“How could you run off like that?” he asks, his voice dark and low and dangerous, his hair wet and hanging in his beautiful face. He's frowning at me, nostrils flared as he takes me in like a runaway kid who needs to be kept in line. So much for being a Havoc Girl, right? If I were, they'd have told me. “You're a Havoc Girl now, and we don't keep secrets from each other.” What a crock. “We're in the middle of a war, Bernadette. Do you understand that? You could've been killed.” He pauses for a brief moment before flicking those dark eyes away from mine. “Or worse.” Vic spits into the wet grass, and then pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket.
I say nothing.
I'm afraid to say something, the way I feel right now. Likely, it'd be something I'd very much regret.
Victor tries and fails to light a cigarette, the rain soaking his clothes and plastering them to his muscular body. My eyes find their way down to his chest, despite my reservations, despite my hatred. Part of me is an animal, and she still very much wants her alpha male. I grit my teeth against the impulse.
“You lied to me,” I say, the words coming out in a hiss. With everything that happened last night, I think I was in some sort of shock. Right now, the world seems crystal clear. “After all that bullshit about the one currency you can carry is truth.” I imitate Vic's voice, and he smirks at me, as if he has any right to look at me like that.
“Nobody lied to you, Bernadette. We have a lot of information; we're disseminating it on a need-to-know basis.” He reaches out to grab me again, but I take a step back, putting some much-needed space between us. Vic lets out a long sigh, and I swear, if I couldn't hear Heather laughing through an open window, I might have attacked him. “There are no secrets in Havoc; there are no lies.”
“Where did you get the video then?” I snap, taking note of Oscar as he moves halfway across the front yard, pausing with one arm over his chest, the elbow of the other resting in his palm. He cradles his chin in his hand and watches me, but I ignore him, too. If he wants his shattered iPad back, he can get it from Callum.
Vic sighs again and stares at the tip of his soggy cigarette. He holds it between two fingers and studies it carefully, like it holds all the answers he could ever need.
“Oscar,” he says, like that’s explanation enough. The rain stops and Vic gets out another cigarette, offering it up to me, but I’m not taking his metaphorical fucking olive branch. “For Christ’s sake, Bernadette, have you not noticed he’s got some skills with computer shit? He got them off of your stepfather’s laptop.”
“Why did you have Neil’s laptop?” I whisper, burning up on the inside. My eyes are narrowed on Vic, homed in on him like weapons. He’s just lucky that looks can’t actually kill.
“Because we were in your house,” Vic growls out, stepping close to me again. This time, when I take another step back, I can see in his face that he knows he fucked up. And it’s terrifying to him. Absolutely terrifying.
We’re toxic, Vic and me.
We’d be better off apart.
The thought kills me.
“We were in your house, to drag you out of bed, to send you scurrying through the woods like a little mouse.” There’s bite to his words, a rancid sort of anger that I can’t abide by. I slap him hard across the face, but he does nothing to stop it.
“All this time, you had that video …” I start, disbelief making me feel insane. When did I start thinking of these guys as allies? They’ve only ever been the enemy of my enemies. That’s it. What the actual fuck is wrong with me?
Callum killed Danny to protect you, Bernadette. That must count for something. It has to.
“What would seeing it have changed?” Vic retorts, smoking his cigarette. He doesn’t lift a hand to his cheek, even as it turns a warm pink color. “You knew what Neil was doing; you read Penelope’s journal. The only thing that video did was upset you,” Vic snarls, sneering as he turns his attention on Oscar.
The two of them maintain a long, terrifying sort of stare, one that says they’re long overdue to vent some frustration at each other. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that happens.
“Seeing it …” I start, images flashing in my mind that make me feel dizzy. Images that I never wanted to see, that I now can never unsee. My attention slides back to Oscar, and I can’t decide if I want to kill him more or less than Vic. Either way, they’re both dead to me. “Seeing it doesn’t matter. But you could’ve put him away with that video, saved me and Heather both. All these years, I’ve been fighting, and you could’ve ended it at any time.”
“Every action has consequences, Bernadette. Everything. If we’d turned that video in, Neil would’ve buried it. His brother, that fancy ass DA, he would’ve buried it. Or what about his father? He’s a circuit court judge. Even if—and that’s a big if—someone took it seriously, what sort of time would he be looking at? I hate to tell you this, Bernie, but our world is fucked. It’s fucked up and broken and ugly as hell.” Victor steps toward me again, but this time, I don’t pull away. How can I? He has me in orbit, and I despise him for that, too. “People don’t care about girls who get raped.”
My throat starts to close up, and white splotches flicker across my vision. I am this close to passing out. Screw the tacos, I guess. No way in hell I’m cooking tonight.
“People don’t, but we do,” Vic corrects, his words commanding me to look his way. But I won’t. If I can at least withhold this one thing from him, then maybe I’ll feel better. “And we’re going to get Neil, but these things take time. If we turn the video in, eyes will turn his way. We need as many of them to look away as we can, before we act. Do you believe me when I tell you that we’ll get him?”
“Hey, I called out Havoc. Make a deal, pay a price.” I start to move away, and Vic comes after me. The look I throw him must change his mind about grabbing me. “Do not touch me, Victor Channing.” Hurt flashes across his face, rapidly replaced with a scowl and a snarl that I just don’t have the time for today. “And don’t talk to me for the rest of the night.”
I storm across the street, across the front lawn and past Oscar, and into the house.
Aaron is sitting on the couch when I come in. He glances bac
k at me, his gaze snagging on mine and holding me captive.
“I’m sorry about the video, Bernadette,” he says, closing his eyes briefly. When he opens them back up, he looks about as devastated as I feel. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
I just stare at him, sitting there with a bandage on his shoulder, and I think about the way he tried to defend me last night. Not just against Mitch and his crew, but against the Thing. Even when he was suffering from severe blood loss, even when he might’ve died.
I say nothing, turning away and finding myself face-to-face with Hael.
He seems to understand that I’m not ready to talk, stepping aside and holding out a hand to usher me past, like a proper gentleman.
I head up the steps, check in on the girls, and then lock myself in Aaron’s room for the rest of the night.
None of the Havoc Boys bother me.
Good for them.
Because I’m not ready to talk, not even fucking close.
Two years earlier …
By the time I get home from school, I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. The Havoc Boys own Prescott High and right now, they own me, too. I can’t take one step, can’t speak one single word, without them breathing down my neck.
Today, they took my lunch away and made me run laps around the track until I collapsed in the hot heat of the afternoon, waking up in the nurse’s office.
“Hello, Bernadette,” Nurse Whitney said, smiling at me like she had a secret she just couldn’t wait to tell. “Are you feeling better?” I sat up, shrugging and then reaching a hand up to press against my throbbing head. “Once you’ve got yourself together, Principal Vaughn wants to speak to you in his office.”
I shudder as I close the front door behind me, closing my eyes against the memory. I’d thought at first that the principal might want to talk to me about Havoc. Oh, how wrong I was about that. Touching my hand to my thigh, I can still feel the slimy trail of Vaughn’s fingers as he caressed my bare leg.
Chaos at Prescott High Page 6