“Blackbird,” Hael says, drawing my attention around. I bite my lip in embarrassment at having been caught scouting out his room, but Hael just takes my head between his hands and kisses my mouth. “Thank you,” he breathes, but for what, I’m not sure. I hardly did a damn thing.
I decide to ask what he means by that and Hael pauses, pressing his forehead to mine.
“Marie,” he says, closing his eyes for a moment. “What she said to me in French … Je vais le quitter car je vois à quel point tu l'aimes. Quand je vous regarde tous les deux, je n'arrive plus à faire semblant. It means … she’s leaving because she sees how much I love you, that when she looks at us, she can’t bear to pretend anymore.”
He stands up and releases me, but my cheeks are blazing and I’m not quite sure what to say.
In the end, I say nothing, and we lead Marie out to the Camaro. For now, we take her to Aaron’s place. Since it’s a well-known fact that we aren’t living there and haven’t been for months, it’s fairly safe. Especially located as it is between Fuller and Prescott, half-normality and half-Havoc territory.
Hael gets his mother set up in the master bedroom as Aaron and I wait in the living room and the rest of the boys sweep the yard and the upstairs, just in case. You can never be too careful in a gang war.
“I miss this place,” Aaron tells me as we lean together, shoulder to shoulder.
“Me, too,” I say, but then I think about Marie living here and not being afraid and making pralines in the kitchen, and the feeling of missing the house doesn’t seem quite so strong anymore.
“She’s asleep,” Hael says as he comes out of the room, rubbing at his temple with two fingers. “We’ll leave some guys to watch over the house, but I’d feel better if she wasn’t alone.”
“You can’t stay,” I tell him, and it’s not just because I’m being selfish. It’s because Ophelia knows the truth now: it doesn’t matter which part of Havoc she gets ahold of. If she can capture a single one of us in her clawed fingers, then we have no choice but to serve her whims.
“Aww, missing me already?” Hael asks, giving my hair a tousle as Oscar comes down the stairs, Victor emerges from the direction of the laundry room/weed bathroom/and garage area, and Callum slips in from outside. “No, I’m not staying here, but I might call my aunt or something. She lives in New Orleans.” Hael pauses briefly and sighs, like this isn’t the outcome he wants but the outcome that might be necessary. “I think my mother should move back home. She’d be happier in Louisiana; she only ever came here for Martin.”
“If she’ll go, we’ll buy her a plane ticket,” Vic agrees, and then, with one, last look at the house, we leave out the front door and pile into the cars.
As we do, I text Sara Young and let her know what’s going on.
Just as I’d hoped, she agrees to send a car over here for at least a night or two which makes me feel better.
She isn’t so bad, after all, that doe-eyed VGTF agent.
In late May, Brittany Burr gives birth to a beautiful baby boy, eight pounds six ounces. I decide to pay her a visit just a few days later, when she’s resting at home and her father—the infamous Forrest Burr—is out of the house.
Hael knocks on the door to get her to open it, but it’s me who ends up pushing past to head inside.
“What …” Brittany starts, glancing back at Hael Harbin as he waves and gives a tight-lipped smile before yanking the front door closed without bothering to come in himself. I sweep down the hall as Brittany stumbles after me, growing more furious by the second. “What the fuck are you doing here?” she demands as I find the kitchen and start rummaging around for a vase, so I can put the flowers I bought her into it.
Conveniently, I find a lovely crystal vase in the cabinet above the kitchen sink
“I came here to congratulate you on your new arrival,” I say, spotting a baby monitor on the counter. Based on the image on the screen and the near perfect silence of the house, I take it to mean the kid is still asleep. “And to bring these flowers by.”
Brittany glares at me from dark brown eyes lined with purple circles underneath. Her face is drawn and tired and her pouty mouth is turned down in a vicious frown. Hael never came to the hospital to see her—which she knows. And maybe by now she’s already figured out that the kid isn’t his? That much, I’m not sure since most babies are born kind of looking the same anyway.
“Why are you inside my goddamn house and Hael isn’t?” Brittany tries again to get me to answer her, but I’m too busy fluffing flowers in the vase and stepping back to admire my handiwork. I cast her a knowing glance and her face flushes a funny purple-red color.
“Girl, you know why I’m here,” I say, but Brittany is still shaking her head at me, like she doesn’t want to believe it. But she knows. She fucking knows before I say a goddamn word.
“I want to see Hael,” she demands, turning on her heel and heading for the front door again. I cut her off and she comes up short, reaching out a hand to brace herself against the wall, her white nightgown fluttering around her thighs. I lift a brow up.
“That’s too damn bad, isn’t it?” I ask, and Brittany’s face scrunches up like she might start crying, right here in front of me which, really, would probably be one of those moments that would haunt her for the rest of her life. “Because you’re not going to see Hael today. In fact, you may never see Hael Harbin ever again.”
“He’s the … he’s the father of my baby,” Brittany sputters, pushing back limp blond hair from her face. I’d almost feel bad for her if she hadn’t cheated on Hael and then broken her bargain with Havoc. The thing is, there’s one gang you don’t mess with at Prescott High. And this girl? She messed with us. Big time.
“No, Brittany,” I start, letting my voice drop to a placating coo. “He isn’t. Look, I haven’t seen the baby but Rich Pratt and Hael Harbin … well, they look nothing alike. And your kid, he’s got Rich’s DNA.”
“You’re a liar; you tampered with the DNA results,” she blurts, which is the very lie we told her to get her help to begin with. But it doesn’t matter now. Because we at least have a backup plan for Maxwell, and we have a backup plan for Ophelia, and the VGTF is dropping the hammer on every pedophile in town. With the GMP being pulled apart limb from limb via Sara Young, we don’t need this girl’s help. At least, we don’t need her to think Hael is on her side in order to get it.
“Mm,” I say, leaning a shoulder against the wall and shrugging loosely with the other. “We really didn’t. I mean, we lied to you so that you’d keep feeding us information, but that’s about it.”
Brittany’s face is so tight, it looks like her skin might split open and a monster might come tumbling out. In the same breath, she looks like a little girl who’s just been told that Santa doesn’t exist and God isn’t real and the tooth fairy is really just a demon with too-sharp teeth.
“I bet you can tell, huh?” I start, not bothering to even try with empathy. Brittany Burr is a lucky woman today, and I decide it’s best to remind her of that. “With the baby, I mean. You saw his face and you probably figured it out because he looks nothing like Hael.”
“Babies don’t look like anyone or anything,” Brittany snaps back at me, her teeth gritting in anger. She looks so young and tired and haggard right now that I decide this is enough punishment for her. Being a young single mom is going to be tough—especially with her ultra-judgy family and friends around. We toyed with the idea of running Rich Pratt out of town or threatening him into maintaining distance from Brittany and the baby, but I decided that was more a punishment for the kid than anyone else.
I might be a monster, but I’m not going to rule like one.
“Anyway,” I continue, pushing up from the wall and heading back in the direction of the kitchen. Brittany tries at first to keep me back by extending her arm and placing her palm flat on the wall, but I simply grab her wrist and move her out of the way. She knows she can’t fight me and, luckily for her, she doesn’t even
try. “My point is this: you are a very lucky girl, Brittany.”
“I’m going to call my father and tell him you’re here harassing me. And then I’m going to tell him everything I’ve ever heard about Havoc and—”
I cut her off by raising a single finger. With the other hand, I yank open her fridge and hunt around inside until I find a bottle of peach-flavored iced tea. Most of the time, these fruit teas taste like sugary juice. This one only has a hint of peach and a dash of honey, and I decide that even if I have to go to that posh supermarket in downtown Fuller that’s full of the whitest white people you ever did see, that I’ll go just to buy this.
“Do you remember your visit to the cabin?” I ask, looking back at her. It takes Brittany a full thirty seconds for that to register, or maybe it’s just that I continue prompting. “You know.” I gesture loosely at my arms and then point over my shoulder at my back, reminding her of the cuts and bruises, the burn marks, and all the new scars she probably has.
Her face pales, as if she already knows what it is that I’m going to say.
“You owe that beautiful trip to Havoc.”
Another pause. Brittany stumbles forward and just barely catches herself on the raised portion of the counter where a line of tall-backed stools sits. She drags herself into one, clutching the baby monitor to her chest while she stares at me like the devil I know I am.
“Did you not assume there was a reason Havoc would take on any request—no matter the content? That our prices mean nothing, that our rules are nothing. Brittany, the one currency you can carry is truth, and you spent all of it. You owed us in blood.”
“You did that,” she whispers, beginning to shake. Her hands tremble as her white-knuckled grip hugs the baby monitor even closer to her chest. “You and Hael. Hael …” She trails off and a slight sob comes out on the end. “All along … oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god.”
“You betrayed us, Brittany. You sent daddy Forrest to the school to drag my boys out in handcuffs, even though we’d fulfilled the end of our bargain. You were the one that failed to pay, and we were owed our pound of flesh.” I take a second iced tea out of the fridge before moving over to stand in front of her. The top makes a gentle popping sound as I twist it off and Brittany jumps like a startled deer. “So this is us, collecting on our debt. You are not to see Hael or speak to Hael. If you pass him in public, you will keep walking and you will think about how cheating on him royally fucked your life up in so many ways.”
I take a sip of my drink as Brittany squeezes her eyes shut, salty tears escaping to run down her cheeks.
“The reason you are lucky is this: Hael is a genuinely good and wonderful human being. Even though you would’ve deserved having us take bolt cutters to your pretty fingers”—Brittany makes a choking sound and I wonder if she isn’t putting together Vaughn’s accident with the words I just said—“Hael doesn’t like to see women suffer. Actually, he can’t stand it. So instead of physical pain, I’m leaving you with the emotional scar of knowing that you had him for a short while and you screwed that up.”
Of course, knowing Hael as I do now, and knowing that the two of us are inextricably entwined, that we both belong to Havoc first and foremost, I’m aware that Brittany never could’ve had Hael to begin with. If she hadn’t cheated on him, then he would’ve broken up with her when I called Havoc and became a Havoc Girl for real.
Still, Brittany broke her deal with us and so this is what she deserves, the loss of a beautiful and poignant possibility, one that would’ve changed her life for the better. Despite everything, I do honestly believe she was in love with Hael Harbin.
“You lost Hael to me through your own, ugly actions, and now here you are, covered in fresh scars and with the daunting task of starting all over again with a new baby daddy.” The edge of my lip quirks up in an almost-smile. A devil’s smile. The smile of tricksters and mischief-makers and Havoc wreakers. “You’re also not fully off the hook just yet.”
Brittany lets out another hiccupping sob, eyelids still firmly squeezed shut, arms still clutching the monitor to her chest.
I take the card from the bouquet of flowers, the one that says We’ll be in touch with soft, feminine letters, letters that I wrote while thinking of Penelope and trying to imitate her inimitable handwriting. This I lay on the counter in front of Brittany.
Slowly, nervously, she parts her lids, flinching as I draw my arm back, as if I’d actually hit her inside this house or say anything that could ever be used against me in a court of law. Not that it really matters because Oscar hacked into the Burr’s security system and stopped it from recording temporarily.
Still, it never hurts to be too careful.
“If we call and ask you questions, you answer them.” I level my gaze on Brittany’s and the threat is clear: you belong to us now. Just like Vaughn. Just like Vera. Another person in the swirl of planets and stars that is the city of Springfield. Eventually, every part of this solar system will belong to us. “Don’t make the mistake of upsetting us again. If anything changes with the graduation day plan, we expect to hear it from you first.”
I leave the card where it is and start in the direction of the door, just as the baby begins to cry, his strong voice crackling over the monitor as Brittany stumbles to catch up with me. She follows me all the way to the front door and out, looking past me down the lawn toward where Hael waits in the Camaro.
When I glance back and see her face cracking and shattering into a million pieces, I know that we’ve done the right thing here. Well, it’s certainly a wrong type of thing, but it’s correct for us.
“Hael,” Brittany says, but her voice is soft enough that the sound barely carries to me, let alone to my lover sitting in the Camaro and tapping his palms against the wheel in time to some classic rock song that I can barely hear. I pause briefly, watching tears stream down Brittany’s face before she slams the door and I’m left alone in the sunshine on the Burr’s front lawn.
“Good riddance,” I say, saluting the house with two fingers before I turn back to the Camaro, open the door, and climb inside.
“It’s done?” Hael asks, maintaining his stare out the windshield. I nod my head, leaning over so that I can press a purple-tinted kiss to his cheek. Today’s lip color is called Big Fat Mistake. Sorry, Britt, but you done fucked-up.
“It’s done,” I say, feeling this strange sense of coming full circle from the day Hael and I sat outside a coffee shop and worried about DNA results together. He exhales sharply and then reaches over to curl his fingers through mine. We exchange a look, and his face softens to something caught between shame and affection.
“I’m sorry I’m such a screw-up,” he says, looking me over like he doesn’t deserve me. But he does. They all do, these awful Havoc Boys. We’re just made for each other in a way that’s impossible to explain, a craving that hurts even as it nourishes, that makes me bleed even as I purr with pleasure. Nothing worth having is easy or painless, that much I know for sure. “Seems like I’m always the one bringing the drama.”
“Brittany came in handy,” I tell him honestly. Without her, we wouldn’t know about the graduation day raid. That alone is worth the trouble, although if I could go back in time and keep that bitch from ever touching my lover, I’d do it.
“I suppose she did,” Hael admits, but he still looks troubled, like he thinks he might not be worth all this bullshit. He is. But the only way I can convince him of that is with my actions. Leaning over, I flick my tongue against the corner of his mouth, and he shivers. “Fuck, Blackbird. That mouth of yours … you could sell sand to the desert.”
I smirk at him and press another kiss to his lips before falling back into my seat.
I once read this quote from Scarlett Force in one of her infamous Emma Jean articles, and it’s stuck with me for years. “Loving one person sucks. Like, it’s hard as fuck. You’re always trying to balance the people in your life and wondering if you’re good enough. How could all this love be
directed my way? It seems surreal sometimes, but whenever that happens, I just close my eyes and count my fucking blessings. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“What’s on the agenda for today?” I ask as Hael carefully drives out of Brittany’s posh neighborhood, waving briefly at Forrest Burr as he heads past us in his Hummer. I wonder what, if anything, Brittany will tell him? Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have anything she can use against us but hearsay. Wonder how it’ll go over in the same conversation that Brittany admits to having another possible baby daddy? Thus far, her father hasn’t heard anything but that Hael is the dad.
That should be fun.
“Stopping by to visit Vaughn,” Hael reminds me, and I groan. Just after the shooting, we had our crew drop in to question him about Stacey’s referral slip. As I’d imagined, he’d gotten a call from someone claiming to be Stacey’s father, asking for her to be brought into the office.
Vaughn is too much of a pussy—sorry, weak ball sack—to be of any use to anyone. That fingerless pervert is as neutered as Donald Asher. Regardless, we stop by his place on the way back to Oak Valley, just to see if he has anything interesting to tell us. If Sara Young wonders why we stopped by his place, eh. I’m sure we can find an easy way to explain it away.
The principal of Prescott High—yes, still the principal, even during this period of online schooling—stares at the six of us in his living room like we’ve just walked in infected with the plague. His eyes dart from Aaron to Victor to me, and then drop to the floor where they remain for most of our conversation.
“Anything else interesting you want to tell us?” Vic queries politely, relaxing on Vaughn’s couch and studying him in just such a way that he’s to be reminded to whom he belongs. Already, he’s told us all about the broken online system they’re using for the Prescott student body, how flawed it is, how much Ms. Keating despises it.
Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys Book 5) Page 39