Carefully, slowly, I start down the moss-covered slope in front of me.
“Back off, Victor,” Ophelia snaps, her beautiful lash extensions catching the light, holding onto drops of sunshine like the dew clings to the waving fronds of the ferns. I smile at her, my teeth as white and perfect as hers, gained through genetics and careful breeding instead of dentistry and orthodontics. “This is your last chance.”
“Did you ever love me?” I query, feeling my muscles throb and pulse with rage. “I mean, for even one, single second?”
Ophelia’s eyes flash strangely in the dark, and as I let go of all of that carefully coiled temper and rage, memory peeks in. So dark and awful that I can barely stand to look at it.
“Shh, son, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Ophelia strokes my hair back from my face as I cry, strokes it with long, white fingers tipped in perfect nails. She traces one of those nails down my nose before cupping my face and then turning my head toward hers.
The kiss she gives is inappropriate; her touches are agony. Her pain becomes my pain, forced through my body whether I like it or not.
I blink, slow and dark, and I wonder if, in this forest of shadows, she can see that I no longer have anything but malice and dark intent for her. Memories left long-buried surge to the surface as I finally, mercifully, release the last of my anger.
The sound of footsteps crashing through the forest draws my attention, and I turn just in time to see several of Maxwell Barrasso’s men heading in our direction. Likely, they’re trying to subvert the VGTF and get to their boss before the feds do.
That isn’t going to happen.
Heather screams as Ophelia turns and takes off, dragging the little girl with her while the men aim their weapons at me and take fire through the trees. Without a gun of my own—Bernie most certainly needs those rounds more than I do—I have to play the game a little differently than I would on a normal day.
But I’m not afraid.
My temper has finally come uncoiled, like a snake ready to strike. Ducking behind the large trunk of a tree, I wait for the men to get a bit closer, and then I slip out like a shadow from the right side. The attacker closest to me takes a shot, but I’m already diving into his stomach and knocking him to his back. We go rolling down the small incline together as the shouts of the other men fill the woods all around us.
I have to get to Heather.
That’s the thought that permeates most.
Heather.
Because she’s the light in Bernadette’s eyes, and I’d kill the world just to see a flicker of it. A shimmer. A glint. Heather is basically Bernie’s daughter and as such, she’s also mine.
Such a terrible word, isn’t it? Mine. So possessive, so dark and deep. One person can never truly own another person. I know that. I’m smart enough to understand. And yet, the most primal parts of me call out for Havoc; they scream for me to twist those five souls around my fingers and yank on them.
I own Havoc.
It’s with that knowledge burning inside of me, mixing with the broken dam of my rage, that I let myself go in ways that I never have before.
Once we hit the bottom of the incline, I tear the man’s gun from his grip and fire once into his face. Just like that. There’s blood everywhere, but it doesn’t matter. I could be drenched in blood, swimming in it, and it wouldn’t matter.
For weeks—no, more like months—I’ve been obsessively going over scenario after scenario in my head, trying to find some way to deal with Ophelia. Oh, and Maxwell. But he’s a secondary concern and he always has been. My mother has a way of insinuating her way into people’s lives; if we killed Maxwell and left her alive, she’d just find someone else to use, some other way to dig into me like a poisoned needle.
Rising to my feet, I swing the weapon around and fire at the other men approaching through the forest. Where just minutes ago, there were only three, now there are many. Too many.
Maxwell has called in his cavalry.
Without Mason or Russ or Will, he doesn’t have the loyalty or the skill left in his men to take us with small numbers. He needs brute force. So, it appears that he’s made a call and—even with the threat of the VGTF—his men have come.
I unload the first pistol I stole and then search through the dead man’s pockets for additional ammo. Gunfire rains down on me and I’m forced to move, hiding myself behind another tree while nearly a dozen men clomp and thrash their way through the woods, moving as if the earth owes them something rather than the other way around.
That just … pisses me off even more. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the wolf inside of me? That wild, primal nature that demands to be obeyed.
The next thing I do is climb that tree, shimmying up with powerful thighs and strong arms, just the way has Cal shown me on numerous occasions. “There’s always a way up, hidden footholds or handholds. You just have to be patient and search them out.”
I manage to make it up into the boughs of the tree just as two of my attackers come around the trunk. They’re surprised to see me missing, but it isn’t really in human nature to look up. I come down on them both, knocking one to his back while the other stumbles away and opens his mouth to shout for help.
My hand wraps his throat as I slam him into the tree trunk. I must look ridiculous, dressed in my prep school uniform, my graduation gown abandoned in a trash can on campus. The feral grin that takes over my face is wildly inappropriate, but I can’t seem to help myself.
The second man is already climbing to his feet, but I use my free hand to steal the first man’s pistol and then shoot his buddy in the throat. Slipping the gun into my pocket, I use the strength of my grip to finish off my attacker. There’s no joy in it for me. I don’t love being a wicked monster who does wicked things, but this is the world I live in, the one I was forced into.
I play by Prescott rules.
The body slumps to the ground, and I whip around the trunk of the tree, slamming my fist into the stomach of another man. The pistol in my pocket becomes my best friend as I shoot and duck, twist around trees and reemerge. Everything is seamless; everything flows.
When I run out of ammo, I drop my weapon and steal another. Because theft is an integral part of the ecosystem in south Prescott, and there is no surviving without it.
These men are nothing to me, just a haze that I have to wade through in order to accomplish my ultimate goals.
Rescue Heather.
Kill Ophelia.
Get back to Bernadette.
The forest floor runs red with blood by the time I start working my way back through the woods in the direction of the south gate. That’s where Ophelia will be headed, that’s where she’ll go. Because she wants to get out of here, regardless of the cost—even if the cost is Maxwell and his merry band of assholes.
Checking the magazine on my latest stolen weapon, I see that I’ve only got three rounds left.
Fuck.
I’ll have to be careful, creative even. But I’m used to working with scraps, so I don’t let that get to me.
Since my mother is a much better scion, a much better blueblood, a much better apostle of greed, than she is a huntress, it isn’t hard to follow her tracks. As soon as I see her, I drop down to my belly and slither like a fucking snake. The serpent that my mother trained me to be.
Ophelia doesn’t see me coming, yanking Heather along behind her. When the girl protests and struggles too much for her liking, she turns and backhands her so hard that Heather falls on her ass. If I weren’t already crawling forward to handle the situation, I might just break.
I can’t stand seeing that. I just can’t fucking stand it. And not only because I love Bernadette, but because I’ve grown to love Ashley and Kara and Heather, too. I like kids because kids don’t fuck around the way adults do; they don’t hurt people the way adults do. Maybe, too, I like kids because I never really got to be one.
Not me or any of my other beautifully tortured Havoc Boys—or my blood-drenched bride.
I’
m going to give them all what they should’ve had all along: stability, security, trust, honesty, love. All of those things and more. More, more, more. Mine, mine, mine.
My mother holds the gun on Heather and orders her to stand up.
“If you upset me again—even one more time—I will shoot you in the leg. Do you understand what a gunshot feels like, Heather?” Heather is shaking her head and sobbing now, her bravery stripped away somewhere between my leaving to fight off the encroaching GMP soldiers and now. None of that matters to Ophelia. There’s only one person she ever cared about and that’s herself. She claimed to love me, in some, sick, twisted, perverted way. But it was never real. I know what real love feels and looks like. “A gunshot is like hot fire, like wicked teeth. It burns and it aches, and you’ll never be able to forget the bite.”
I’ve finally reached the fallen log, a big one, covered in a blanket of moss and more of those strange brown mushrooms. If I didn’t know any better, I might think we’d just stumbled into another world. A world of dark faeries and puckish demons.
“Now, come along.” Ophelia lowers the gun just as several men appear in the trees ahead of her. She seems a bit surprised that they’re there, but I’m not.
“Where’s Victor Channing?” one of them asks, but Ophelia just shakes her head and lets out a long, aristocratic sigh.
“I have no idea,” she drawls, gesturing randomly in the direction we started. We must be getting near the edge of Oak Valley Property, where that massive stone wall with its iron top sits, guarding the peasantry away from such a royal estate. If I were in a different situation, I’d scowl and spit. Instead, I watch. I wait. I cannot fuck this up.
Heather swipes blood from her lip and keeps her head down, letting out a small shout of surprise when one of the men grabs her by the arm.
“This is the little sister?” the same man asks while the other two scan the woods with shrewd, battle-hardened eyes.
“This is Bernadette Blackbird’s sister, yes,” Ophelia confirms, and even though she can’t see it, I can. I know what’s going to happen.
Without hesitation, the man lifts his gun to Heather’s head as she screams.
“What are you doing?” Ophelia bites out, alarm coloring her voice. “I need her.”
“And Maxwell needs retribution for James,” the man replies coolly, and those are the last words that ever leave his mouth.
Rising up from behind the tree, I take aim at the gunman’s head and fire. He drops like a boneless sack as Heather tears away from him and starts running. Good girl. Before the other two men can react, I’m shooting at them, too, and there’s blood running thick and hot across the mossy ground.
Ophelia, intelligent monster that she’s always been, snatches up one of the guns and takes off, ducking into the thicket of trees as I turn to go after Heather instead.
It doesn’t matter: I’ll catch Ophelia eventually anyway.
I dart after Heather, easily catching up to her as she stumbles and flees blindly through the trees. When I reach for her arm, she shrieks and spins at me with her fists and legs flailing, trying to fight, to escape, to be as brave as her sister.
“Shh, little girl,” I whisper, cupping the side of her face with a big hand. As soon as she sees me, her small body collapses, and I gather her into my arms, holding her close as she weeps. “It’s alright, Heather, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
I stroke her back in small circles, even as I start walking again.
There’s a lot of blood—some of it on Heather, most of it on me—but there isn’t much to be done about it right now. So I don’t try. I just pet and stroke and calm the child who, by my intense and indestructible bond to Bernadette, is now my daughter. God help her future dates. A small smile lights on my mouth, but it doesn’t last long. Too much urgent business to deal with.
“Can you do something for me?” I ask, adjusting her so that we can look at each other while I talk.
“What?” she asks, face and voice hard like a certain someone I’m all too familiar with. A lesser child would be limp like a rag doll, passed out or broken, crying or screaming. But not this one. Not my child.
“If I put you somewhere and tell you to be very, very quiet, to plug your ears and close your eyes, can you do that for me?”
It takes Heather a moment to answer, but she finally nods, and we continue on toward the edge of the woods, where I can faintly see sunlight trickling into the darkness of the forest. I find a tree with a deep, hollow base and a cluster of verdant ferns around its trunk, and I nestle in the girl to wait.
As I’m pulling away, she stops me by throwing her arms around my neck and giving me a squeeze.
“Thank you for saving me,” she whispers, and I give her a small kiss on the top of her head in return.
“You owe me no thanks for that,” I reply honestly, standing up and turning to go.
“Vic?” Heather calls out, and I pause, glancing over my shoulder with a brow quirked. I’m sure I look insane, dressed in a jacket and tie and covered in blood, but Heather doesn’t bat an eye at any of it. “I guess … I ship you and Bernie now.”
I have to blink a few times to truly process that.
“Or, well, I ship her and you and Aaron and … everybody, I guess.”
Well, fuck me, I did not see that one coming.
“You’ll always be safe with me,” I tell her, and I mean it. “I’ll be back soon.”
She nods and nestles into the ferns as I take off running, finding the stone wall and then moving along it until I reach the gate.
Ophelia thought she was being clever, sticking to the shadows, slipping off her shoes, trying for a quiet, desperate sulk to reach this very destination.
But when she gets there, I’m waiting for her.
“Hello Mother,” I say as she makes a run for the gate from the edge of the woods. The gate is still open, and even if I can hear sirens in the distance, it doesn’t matter. They’re not going to arrive in time to offer her help of any sort.
“Victor,” Ophelia breathes, turning and then immediately lifting her weapon to shoot at me.
But it’s what I suspected.
I move back into the woods as she fires, using the trunks for cover as I make my way closer and closer, weaving in and out of the trees until my mother is pulling the trigger and no more shots are coming out. She drops the gun and turns on her heel, running for the gate, fleeing in that red satin dress that’s a blight against the green and brown of the natural landscape.
It only takes me a second to catch up to her.
Kicking out with my right leg, I knock Ophelia to her knees in the gravel road just outside the school. It leads back up toward the paved road that passes by the front entrance and then curves back into town, straight into Oak Park.
But here, right now, it’s just me and my mother.
She struggles to find her feet, the red satin gown twisting around her ankles as she gets up and keeps running. I just kick her again and watch dispassionately as she falls over, her hands bruised and bleeding now, flecked with tiny bits of gravel.
Eventually, Ophelia gets the idea and turns over so that she can look up and see me lording over her. There’s no pleasure in this for me, towering over the woman who gave birth to me. But with the flood of my anger came the pain of those old memories, her inappropriate touches and kisses, her gifting of me to my ‘uncles’ at her fancy parties.
“All you had to do was care about me,” I tell her as she crab-walks backward, her dark hair falling out of her careful chignon and tangling around her face. I keep walking, just walking. Not running. Not menacing. Not threatening. My prey tries to drag itself away, and I just follow. I just talk. “The only thing you had to do to prevent this moment from happening was love your son more than yourself.”
“Vic, please,” Ophelia pleads, her voice so strained and different from the aristocratic drawl she’s always had, this lazy insouciance, this wicked entitlement. She’s said before that she kn
ew I would kill her if given the chance. Well, chance meet circumstance. She really fucking crossed a line by touching Heather. “I’ve always loved you. You know that, right? I tried to show you—”
“No.” I gnash my teeth at her, and then I crouch down in front of her, meeting her stare dead-on. There’s fear in those eyes, a desperate sort of terror that she deserves but that I can’t bear to look at any longer than necessary. “You did not love me. You did not show me. You used me. You treated me like an accessory and a toy. I was for your pleasure, and the pleasure of your friends. Mother, you kidnapped Aaron. You tried to kill Bernadette. You won’t stop taking and taking and taking.”
“If you do this, you’ll never forgive yourself,” she says, watching as I reach toward her, for her. To end this. To finally fucking goddamn end this.
“If I don’t do this, I’ll never forgive myself,” I correct. “Because I’m a monster, and the only way I know how to deal with other monsters is to dance in shadows.”
And then it happens, and it’s over, and I’m back in the woods, scooping Heather into my arms.
That’s when the phone call from Hael comes in; that’s when I hear the howling.
Aaron Fadler
Ten minutes earlier …
There are seven men, including Maxwell Barrasso, on the other side of this standoff. This shouldn’t be so goddamn hard.
I end up on the upper part of the road, closer to the crossroads, with Oscar beside me. Callum slips back around the trunk of the car, shaking with adrenaline and panting hard. He stopped Maxwell from hurting Heather, but now we’re in the middle of a shoot-out and our fucking leader has just disappeared into the woods.
“We either have time or we have ammo,” Oscar remarks, reloading his weapon and taking aim at the men sheltering between the two black Maybach sedans.
“And that means, what, exactly?” Cal asks, shoving up to his feet and taking a position beside Oscar. I steady my hands, considering if I’m actually going to take the shot or not. We’ve already blown out the tires on the cars—and our enemies have retaliated in kind.
Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys Book 5) Page 44