“Bernadette, show some tact,” Oscar says from somewhere behind me, probably leaning out the window of the upstairs bedroom. But if he can leave me to clean blood off the couch by myself, he can deal with my quips.
“Is your mom going to be okay with you staying here indefinitely?” Callum asks after a minute or two. We both know we need to get started with our day, but neither of us has moved. It’s hard to want to leave that spot, with our arms pressed close, hips abutting one another. The sunshine is nice, too. We don’t get much of that these days.
“Probably not,” I admit, pulling my phone out of the hoodie pocket. It’s off, the screen black, all of its horrible secrets hidden away. The last thing I feel like doing is turning it on. After he finishes his cigarette, Callum takes it from me and powers it on. He doesn’t ask me my pin code; he just seems to know it (which is not at all surprising).
“Mm,” he says after a minute, passing the phone back to me. There’s a text message pulled up, just waiting for me to read.
You’re an idiot, Bernadette. But I’ll do it. Let me know when to meet you at the courthouse.
That’s it, the only text I have from Pamela.
There’s nothing from the Thing either.
I smell a rat.
Well, that, and a snake.
“Victor,” I growl, shoving up to my feet and heading for the window. Callum follows close behind, as dexterous as a cat. I’m certain that if I started to fall, he’d catch me.
Hopping into the room, I manage to land just as Hael is pushing his pajama pants down his hips. His cock is hard, and my fingers twitch as I pass him by.
“Morning cutie,” he purrs as I roll my eyes and slip into the hall.
Callum even follows me down the stairs, falling back as I open the downstairs bathroom door to find Vic pissing. He glances casually in my direction, cigarette hanging from his mouth.
“What?” he asks, ebon eyes—and yeah, Mr. Darkwood, ebon is a fucking word because it’s in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, you twat—watching me as I lift up my phone, screen facing toward him.
“Courthouse? Why is Pamela asking me about the courthouse?”
“Oh.” Vic finishes peeing, shakes his dick off, and then tucks it away. He moves over to the sink to wash his hands, taking his sweet time responding to me. “I paid your mother ten-thousand dollars and a Burberry bag for your hand in marriage.”
I just stare at him. And then I chuck my phone at his head. Unfortunately, he manages to catch it like a boss and looks cool doing it, cigarette clutched in his opposite hand.
“When?” I ask, and Victor shrugs.
“This morning. I was worried Pamela might not like you staying here permanently.” He steps forward and hands the phone back to me. When he leans in and puts his mouth against my ear, my eyes close of their own accord and my fingers fist in the front of his t-shirt. “I’d have told you sooner, but Oscar’s dick was shoved up that sweet cunt of yours.” I punch Vic in his man-tit, but it doesn’t do any good. His muscles are like rocks.
“Why the courthouse?” I ask as I move aside to let him out of the bathroom. “Don’t we have to have a proper ritualistic Western marriage to get your inheritance?” He glances back at me, grinning big and showing teeth.
“Sure, yeah, but we need a marriage license at least three days before the wedding.” Vic turns away from me to watch as Aaron comes down the stairs, his hair wet from the shower. He was in there a long time, so I can only guess he was doing something other than chastely washing his body. Our eyes meet and an awful sense of dread washes over me. I have to tell him that I had sex with Oscar. Like, now.
“We are not getting married in three days,” I snap with a roll of my eyes. Aaron continues down the stairs and heads into the living room, grabbing his boots before he goes to sit down on the long couch. His face very clearly says the fuck happened to my furniture? I pretend not to notice, at least for the moment.
“No,” Vic agrees, nodding his head as he pauses in the archway that leads to the kitchen. “We’re not. We’re getting married in six. Right on my motherfucking birthday.”
One year earlier …
Callum Park
There is nothing more beautiful than Bernadette Blackbird, bathed in moonlight and sleeping peacefully beneath my overly protective gaze. When I first started coming out here and climbing to the roof to watch her, I felt like she could sense me somehow. I’d place my fingers to the glass and let my breath make little clouds in the cool air.
Her unease would quiet, and she’d finally find a chance to rest.
Now that I’ve been doing it for a year, I’m sure of it.
She only truly sleeps when I’m around.
I sit down and cross my legs in front of me, resting my elbows on my knees and parking my chin in my hands to wait, to watch, to keep her safe. I don’t trust that her stepfather will stay away because of the video, so I make certain of it as often as I can.
Instead of letting myself be shackled to a broken dream, I’ve found a new one in the face of a girl who thinks she’s jaded to a fine point. In reality, there’s an innocence in her that’s rare and precious.
Even in the face of hate, of pain, of ruin, Bernadette has never stopped watching us.
Never stopped loving us.
And we, we love her.
Me, most of all.
She just doesn’t know it.
I touch my blue-painted fingernails to her window, wishing I could open it and crawl inside, curl my body around hers and hold her tight.
But I don’t; I can’t.
I sit there, and I make sure her door remains locked, her eyes closed, her mind safe from the destruction of her stepfather. With my chance at escaping South Prescott dashed to ashes, I’ve found a new mission.
Bernadette will be happy, whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter what sacrifices I have to make—even my life is not too much. And if it truly took the death of my dream for me to understand this, then it will have all been worth it.
I chuckle and light up a cigarette, turning my head to look at the moon.
Silver light bathes my face as I close my eyes, dreaming of a day where I don’t have to sit in the cold outside her window, when I can actually touch her, when she’ll talk to me.
Of all the things, that’s what I like best of all, hearing her sweet words.
When the sun begins to peek its head above the horizon, I leave, climbing back down and landing in a crouch in the side yard of the duplex. I don’t like to leave my grandmother home alone, but if it’s between her and Bernadette, I know the hard choice I’d have to make.
Still, my grandma is the only family I have left, and I’ll take care of her for as long as I can. I have a bad feeling that the darkness coming for her is something that I can’t fight with guns and fists.
I walk through the dawn without fear because I know that I am the thing in the darkness to be afraid of. There’s comfort in that, being the monster under the bed instead of the person inside of it.
Later that day, when Bernadette sees me in the hallway, she gives me a wide berth and I pause, turning to look at her over my shoulder. She thinks that I barely know who she is. In reality, I’ve turned into a fucking stalker, my eyes following her even when she thinks no one is watching.
My lips tilt in a sad smile as I turn away, remembering a time when I held little hands out to a crying girl and pulled her into the magical language of dance. Words are hard for me, but the body … the body can say it all without a sound.
Flipping my hood up blocks out the voices of doubt, the fears, the regret. It keeps me calm, hides me in a world of my own making, one where I am the captain of my own fate.
“You’ve been going over there again?” Vic asks, and I nod, turning to look at him as he leans up against the lockers near the front entrance to Prescott High. I say nothing as he looks after her, turning to me only after she’s gone. “Anything I should know about?”
“Nothing at all,” I say, but there is, reall
y. Because with each passing day, Bernadette is drowning. The harder she fights, the deeper that struggle works its way into her bones. It’s only a matter of time before the shell around her innocence is so sharp that it cuts.
One day, she’ll join us. Even if we wish she wouldn’t. We can try, but eventually, you have to accept the inevitable.
“Good,” Vic says, but in his voice, I can hear it.
He wants her, and he isn’t letting her go.
Fine by me, because I don’t want to let her go either.
Not ever.
November eighteenth, Now …
Bernadette Blackbird
At school on Monday, the boys manage to surprise the shit out of me.
“We’re going to deal with Vaughn today,” is the only thing I’m told when Aaron and I roll up to the school to find Oscar waiting for us.
We walk into Prescott High as normal, passing through the metal detectors, skirting the German Shepherds … I almost—check it: almost—miss Hael slipping a wad of cash to the campus cop. I don’t ask any questions, making sure I keep up as we sweep down the hallway as a group.
Vaughn sees us coming, but doesn’t change his course down the hallway, like he thinks this stalemate we’ve been at for the past few weeks is permanent. He thinks the Thing’s status protects him.
He’s wrong.
As we pass by, Callum slips away from our group and throws an arm around Vaughn’s neck, effortlessly dragging him into a chokehold. His eyes are wide as he struggles, silently pleading for Nurse Whitney to help him as she steps out of the nurse’s office … and turns away.
We surge into her office together, and Aaron locks the door behind us.
“What are you doing to me?” Vaughn asks, coughing and sputtering as Callum releases him and cracks his knuckles in a menacing sort of way. If the move’s intended to instill fear, it works. I can sense Vaughn’s terror the way a wolf might sniff out a rabbit by the pheromones of its pathetic cowering.
“Oh, Vaughn, come on,” Vic says, hopping up onto the sterile little table in the center of the room. He plants his elbows on his knees and puts his face in his palms. “Did you really think you could come to Aaron’s house on Halloween and walk away unscathed? We take our privacy very seriously.”
Aaron picks up a pair of bolt cutters that are lying on the stainless-steel countertop. They seem so out of place in a school nurse’s office. I’m certain they weren’t left there by accident.
Scott notices the bolt cutters right away, and all the color drains from his face.
“You can’t touch me,” he whispers, but he doesn’t look away as Aaron opens and closes the bolt cutters, as if he’s testing out the force. “Neil—”
Victor bursts out laughing. I’ll admit, even I jump a bit from the sound. Hael glances my way and winks, trying to lighten the mood. Bit difficult here considering the air is quite literally perfumed with violence. It smells like testosterone and long-awaited revenge.
“Oh, Scott, come on,” Vic says, shaking his head slightly. “You were punished for a reason. To be quite frank, we went easy on you. But you just had to come crawling back. Even a snake knows that when its burrow is kicked in, that it should slither away. You know what that makes you, Vaughn?” He continues as Callum and Hael step forward, shoving Vaughn into a plastic chair, each of them with a hand on the principal’s shoulders. As usual, Oscar stands to the side in his suit and tie, observing but keeping his hands relatively clean.
“Please,” Vaughn whispers, looking around the room and finally settling on me. “Please don’t do this.” He leans forward, teeth gritted, eyes wide. His glasses slip down his nose. He must think because I’m a girl, that I’ll be softer on him somehow, the most likely person in this room to grant him mercy.
Silly him.
“It makes you a rodent, Scott,” I finish, filling in the blanks in Vic’s metaphor. “I told you my stepfather was raping my sister, and you felt me up. You invited me to do pornography for you, at the age of fifteen. Don’t look at me like a savior. Vaughn, part of the reason you’re here is because you did me wrong.” I nod my chin at Aaron, and he steps forward, bolt cutters in hand.
“No, please!” Vaughn screams, his voice echoing around the small room. That’s when I hear the speakers in the hall begin to play music, disguising our wicked intent from the world. It’ll take Ms. Keating a while to figure out how to stop it, I’m sure.
Part of me is worried about that detective guy—Constantine or whatever the fuck his name was—but I know how thorough the boys are, so I figure he must not be on campus today.
“Quiet,” Vic snaps, going dark as he lowers his head, his dark brown eyes turning black, like a demon’s. “You’re going to take your punishment and your lover is going to patch you up. Afterwards, you’re going to consider doing what we say. A trained dog is fed treats, Vaughn. A rabid one is put down. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No, no, no, please,” Vaughn is sobbing as Aaron pushes the metal rolling table toward him. Callum takes the principal’s hand and puts it flat against the surface, splaying his fingers out. That’s when it clicks, for both me and Vaughn. He begins to keen like a cornered animal as I watch sweet, little Aaron Fadler slip one of the man’s digits between the end of the bolt cutters.
“Bite down on this,” Oscar offers up, passing over a leather whip that he removes from his bookbag. “You left it at the cabin; we thought you might want it.” Hael slips the item in Scott’s mouth as tears roll down his cheeks, staining his blue-striped button-down. “Now, bite down and taste the sweet metallic bite of vengeance.”
Aaron glances at me one last time, his green-gold gaze connecting with mine, and then squeezes the bolt cutters closed, severing the tip of Vaughn’s middle finger. His scream is muffled by the handle of the leather whip as blood floods the surface of the metal table. Not two seconds later, his eyes are rolling into his head and he’s passed out.
“Pathetic,” Oscar murmurs as he steps forward and cracks some smelling salts beneath the principal’s nose, reviving him. Scott’s eyes flick wildly around the room as Aaron moves onto his next finger, positioning the bolt cutters just below the first knuckle of his pointer finger. Reminds me of this one time when I broke the tip of my finger in the panels of our garage door. I was trying to close it manually from the outside, but my finger slipped in and was crushed. The pain was nearly unbearable, especially for a fourteen-year-old, but I survived.
So will Vaughn.
Lucky him.
“Wait,” I say, before Aaron can squeeze the ends of the cutters together. All five boys glance my way, and I see something like triumph flash in Oscar’s gray eyes. Asshole. He thinks I’m here to free Vaughn? What an idiot.
The way Aaron looks at me though, like I’m both more and less than he ever thought I would be, I can tell he knows what I want. Without a word, he hands the cutters to me, and I step up to the table.
It’s my list, after all.
When I asked Havoc to help me with it, I thought it was because I was too weak to take control of my own vengeance. Now, I know that’s not the case at all.
I’m here because I want to be.
Vaughn looks up at me the way I once looked up at him, with a sincere pleading in his gaze, a cry for help.
I put the bolt cutters against his finger, and squeeze until bone breaks and blood sprays.
Some of it gets on my face, but I don’t care.
Oscar is right: the sweet metallic bite of vengeance was the perfect way to describe it.
After we’re finished with Vaughn, we clean up in Nurse Whitney’s sink and scrub the room until it shines. Callum pockets the bolt cutters in his dance bag as Nurse Yes-Scott tends to the principal’s injuries as best she can.
We only removed five fingers; he still has full use of his left hand.
Consider that a kindness.
“Okay, Scott,” Vic says, after he’s all bandaged up and sipping orange juice from a straw. There’s
a glazed look in Vaughn’s eyes that makes me wonder if he’s still all there. He passed out after each cut and had to be woken up. And after each cut, he seemed less and less coherent. “You’re going to take the rest of the day off. If you need to go to the hospital, you’ll tell them you had an accident with a circular saw. When I call your phone next, you’ll answer it, won’t you?”
Vaughn nods, and Vic smiles, patting him on the cheek in a patronizing sort of way.
“Off we go,” he says, letting Hael crack the door and check the hall. Once he decides it’s safe, we slip out together. “Get to class, you delinquents.”
Victor glances back at me, narrowing his eyes slightly, like he’s deciding if he should walk me to class or not. But he must see the way I’m gravitating toward Aaron, and decides to turn and stalk off, like he’s in a pissy mood. Let him be, that’s his problem.
“You don’t hate me, do you?” I ask Aaron, wondering if I’ve just shattered any leftover illusions he might’ve had about my being a good girl underneath all the leather and tattoos. Cal heads for the front doors and we follow him, in no hurry to actually get to class. The security guard looks up at us, nods his chin at Cal, and buzzes him out the front door. We follow, but Callum disappears down the sidewalk like a shadow.
I’m guessing he’s off to bury those bolt cutters.
“Are you kidding me?” Aaron asks, smiling to soften the blow as he lights up a cigarette on the front steps of Prescott High. The steps where he stood and watched as I was dragged and thrown into the back of a van, on my way to a week of darkness and granola bars. The start of my new, hellish life. “I love you, Bernadette. You know that, right? I would die for you.”
I smile, because even though I’m pretty sure I have Vaughn’s blood still stuck under my black-painted fingernails, I do know that Aaron loves me. I really do.
“You took a bullet for me, Fadler,” I say, because like I said, actions over words. He’s given me both, and I’m loving it.
We share a cigarette together before something strange happens. Aaron … hugs me. He just grabs me and squeezes me against him until I give in and fist my fingers in his shirt. He holds me there for a while, so long that the next bell rings before we pull apart.
Chaos at Prescott High Page 31