Mayhem at Prescott High

by Stunich, C. M.

  I look up at him, trying to push back our romantic issues so I can focus on business.

  I'll be the first to admit that it's hard.

  As much as I hate him, as much as I truly wish I could stab his balls with a very sharp fork, I know what my real issue is here. I want him to fucking love me. That's all I've ever wanted. Life did not give me a mother to love me; life took the father who was supposed to love me. My sister was stolen away in the night by the cruel hands of a greedy monster.

  And so I was left with the obsession of a group of very bad boys instead.

  Whether it's healthy or not, I don't care. I just want Havoc to love me the way I love them. That's what it all boils down to.

  “I called Neil and Pam into child protective services,” I say, trying to puzzle my way through this. CPS is a division of DHS—the Department of Human Services—which Leigh is now the director of. “There should be something on file, right?”

  “Unless someone scrubbed it,” Oscar explains, sitting across from me on the couch where we made love. His ass is quite literally sitting atop what's left of the pinkish stain, but he makes no mention of it nor does he act like he notices or even remembers. I resist the urge to kick him under the coffee table. “You've said before that Neil prevented you and your sister from reaching out before about your abuse. But this one time, just this once, your complaints were listened to and you were placed in foster care. Why do you think that is?” Oscar taps his stylus against his lips. He's wearing a different pair of glasses. They're black and white checkered, like a racing flag. I'm surprised to see so much personality in his eyewear, to be quite honest with you.

  I try not to read into that, assuming that it's the only spare pair he has around.

  “Because Neil let it happen …” I start, trailing off and feeling my breathing quicken as panic takes over me. I walked myself and Pen and Heather into a fucking trap, didn't I? Why has this never occurred to me before? I mean, it's a lot to expect an eleven-year-old to make these sorts of connections, but now that I'm looking at Oscar's flow-chart, I'm fucking terrified.

  What have we just stumbled onto here?

  “Neil let it happen,” Victor agrees, pacing the floor in front of the fireplace and rubbing at his chin while chain smoking. It's pretty goddamn impressive, but also scary. That means he's both thoughtful and nervous, all at the same time. “He knew what was going to happen to you there. He probably worked with Coraleigh to arrange it. Based on her track record, she only sells girls and boys that have no family, that won't be missed, not the children of a motherfucking cop. Neil would've had to know about it. It's impossible to assume otherwise.”

  Oscar looks up at me, taking in the expression on my face before returning his stern gaze to the screen of the iPad.

  “So, we have Neil connected to Leigh, who is connected to Ophelia, who is connected to the Charter Crew.” Oscar sets the stylus down and leans back, putting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers together. “After thinking it over, I've decided your explanation about David and Kali holds some merit.”

  “Oh, you've decided that, have you?” I quip back, feeling my skin prickle with irritation. Aaron sits in the chair to my left, watching me with a gaze that's so intense that I'm afraid to meet it. I can't fall into the endless black hole of my emotions, not today. “It makes sense. Mack is picking Kali up so she can meet with David who's feeding info back to Tom and Ophelia. That's the gist of it.”

  “And Ophelia is getting tired of waiting for Mitch to make headway with us,” Victor continues, picking up the thread. “She's hired some real help and filtered them in through the Charter Crew to hide her own involvement.”

  “She's going to have Bernadette executed,” Callum says, drawing my attention around to look at him and Hael, situated at the table together. Cal taps his blue-painted nails against the wood surface of it as he stares at me, hood up, face shadowed. “Then she's going to use the Charter Crew to pick the rest of us off until only Victor is left. At that point, it wouldn't be difficult to pin something on him and get him charged with a felony. Then that's it. Game over.”

  “According to the rules of the trust my grandmother set up,” Vic begins, pausing with one hand on the mantle, the other holding his cigarette as he stares at the wall in front of him, the gears in his mind turning over Callum's theory. “If I fail to graduate, I still have until I'm twenty-five to get my GED. If something happens to my father, and I can't live with him anymore, I'm allowed to find my own place. Those aren't great avenues for her to use to get the money. Killing Bernadette … she knows me too well. A fake marriage is never going to happen; I'd rather die.”

  He grits his teeth and rubs his right hand over his face.

  “We made a mistake in letting you marry Bernadette,” Oscar says, but not unsympathetically. “Didn't we?”

  “I think so,” Victor agrees, closing his eyes for a moment. “Fuck.” He bends down into a crouch, still holding his cigarette.

  It occurs to me then that the Havoc Boys are human.

  Like, I knew that. I knew they were just teenagers who were forged in fire and really goddamn good at what they do. But they are not perfect. They are fallible. They make mistakes.

  “That's what I should've done, married a patsy,” he murmurs quietly. “But I guess I underestimated Ophelia.”

  “The mistake we made was in assuming she had no capital left,” Oscar says, exhaling sharply. “Or an easy method of obtaining more. She's essentially hired a small army to supplement the Charter Crew.”

  “So what's the plan?” I ask, wishing Victor would stand up, that he'd flash a grin at me and say I got this, princess. As if he can sense my thoughts, he rises to his feet and turns around, sighing as he smokes his cigarette.

  “We need to clean up the Charter Crew. I already told you, I don't like killing kids because it draws attention. But right now, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place.” Victor's face tightens up as he looks back at me. “But I won't let my love for you get you killed, Bernie.” He cracks his knuckles and clenches his jaw, glancing over at Aaron like there's something he wants to say but isn't ready to just yet. “It's time to drop some bodies. I know caution is our game, but we've gotta move on them before they move on us. On Wednesday, we're painting the streets with blood. And then, when I get the chance, I'm going to hang my mother from the rafters of Tom's fancy house.”

  Victor takes off for the front door and lets himself out, slamming it behind him. I'm sure he doesn't go far; it'd be too dangerous for him to leave. But I can also tell he needs some space.

  “Do you want to say it or should I?” Hael pipes up, and I glance back to see that he's looking at Aaron. Hael smiles, but it isn't his usual sex-laden smirk. Instead, he looks almost sad.

  “Say what?” Aaron quips back, but he looks supremely fucking irritated. Personally, I'm still reeling from the day's events. Can't wait to see what pretty little Sara Young thinks about that awful video.

  Hael stands up and makes his way over to the couch, resting his hands on the back of it as he leans over. His face is dead-serious, more so than I've ever seen before.

  “That you were right.” Hael taps his palms against the couch and stands back up again. “You and Oscar. You've always been the most adamant about putting distance between us and Bernie. Well, here's your worst nightmare come true.”

  “We all tried to dissuade Victor from bringing her in,” Aaron says, pushing his hair back from his forehead. He doesn't sound like he has a lot of conviction in that statement though. “We all let him have the price he wanted; we're all at fault.”

  “No.” I stand up suddenly, feeling my skin prickle with annoyance. “All I've ever wanted is to be a part of Havoc. You guys know me. You know I wasn't going to stop until I met that goal. Stop blaming each other, or wishing you'd done more. At this point, it's obvious that no matter what the world—or you guys—throws at me, I'll keep coming back.” I look at Aaron then Oscar, Hael then Callum. �
��Stop wondering and worrying about where I could've been or what mistakes you made, and just figure this out. That's what you guys are good at, digging Havoc out of tight spots.”

  I move away from the table and outside to the backyard, so I can have a moment to myself to think.

  Havoc has always ruled Prescott High. Well, now that the blood is running out of the halls and into the streets, it's time to shift our attention to bigger things. At the end of this year, we'll be graduating. Then what? We can't keep our sights on the high school forever; there are bigger and better things afoot.

  Surprisingly, Oscar is the one who comes to find me first, standing a careful three feet away from me and staring at Aaron's carefully tended rhododendrons in thought.

  “About the other day,” he starts, and I brace myself for whatever this conversation is going to be. Either an apology or another jab. I'm not sure which would hit me harder at this moment. “I intended on coming back for you.” He turns to look at me, that steel-gray gaze of his sweeping me from head to toe. “I wasn't done with you, Bernadette.”

  “No? You were just going to pop out and fuck Leigh up a bit before you came back?” I ask, but I'm not really that angry anymore. I said I was going to trust the Havoc Boys, so that's what I'm going to do. Oscar says he was coming back? So, guess what? I believe him.

  “Leigh was waiting for me in a foreclosure about three blocks away. I had a crew waiting for me; it was supposed to be in and out.” Oscar moves a bit closer to me, reaching down to run a single finger along the side of my face. I close my eyes against the touch, imagining those pink silk ropes binding my arms, their knots a pattern, a work of brilliant, violent, carnal art. “Violence works me up, Bernadette. Maybe you're lucky that I wasn't able to come back for you?”

  I just laugh at him and brush his hand away.

  “Oscar Montauk, put your money where your mouth is then and show me. Show me what I'm supposed to be so afraid of.” I move away from him and into the grass, sitting down in the sunshine for a moment. Even more surprisingly, Oscar joins me. “I've never seen you do something so mundane as sit on a lawn before,” I say with a slight smile. “You might get grass stains on your perfect suit.”

  “It's black, isn't it?” he replies, leaning back on the grass and looking up at the sky. “What's it like?” he asks finally, after several minutes of silence.

  “What's what like?” I reply, glancing back at him and finding his gaze no longer on the clouds but on me.

  “Finding out that Havoc isn't so perfect after all?”

  I laugh at him again. Actually, I laugh until I'm in tears and swiping them away with my fingertips.

  “Oscar, believe it or not, I never thought that.” I smirk at him as I curl forward and wrap my arms around my knees, resting my chin against my arms. “From the outside, the world needs to think we're a well-oiled machine. On the inside, I'd rather we were all human—even you.” I stare at him for a moment, and he looks right back at me until, eventually, I stand up and go back inside.

  Rome was not built in a day; Oscar Montauk cannot be tamed in one.

  But we'll get there.

  Provided of course, we don't end up dead beforehand.

  Fate can be a fickle mistress.

  Oscar Montauk

  I’m standing in the kitchen, staring down at a knife on the counter and trying to remind myself that I’m only supposed to be doing one thing with it: cutting a block of cheese into slices. It’s not meant to shed blood, not today. But I’m getting close to using it, to sneaking out and hunting Ophelia Mars in shadows until she’s gurgling wet breaths and wearing a second smile on her throat.

  My hands find the knife and start to cut, creating nice, even pieces of cheddar to have with my apples. I have to eat sometime, even if the whole exercise of doing so bothers me. My mother was extremely particular about my weight; I think she’s left me with some sort of eating disorder.

  “What are you doing in here?” Cal asks, padding into the kitchen at four in the morning in black leggings and an unzipped, sleeveless hoodie. He understands me better than anyone else in the family. Despite his pretty smiles and his gold hair, Callum is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He enjoys the taste of blood as much as I do.

  Victor is brutal, but he’s also level-headed, and he isn’t afraid to feel. Aaron is still determined to be a good guy while playing bad. And Hael … don’t even get me started on Hael Harbin.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” I ask coolly, lifting my gaze up to stare into Callum’s blue eyes.

  “It looks like you’re trying to find something to distract you from Bernadette,” he says, sliding onto a stool and parking his elbow on the counter. He rests his head in his hand as he watches me. Luckily for him, there’s no judgement in his gaze.

  If there were, I might get angry.

  I turn back to the block of cheese, noting that it isn’t my usual brand. We’re on a budget here, and someone has selected some organic hippy brand in place of the generic store brand we usually get. I smell a woman’s touch and scowl.

  “I do have to eat, you know? I’m not a robot, despite outward appearances.” I finish with the cheese and push it aside, grabbing an apple and very carefully piercing its flesh with the tip of the knife. Sugary juice runs down my fingers, and I resist the urge to lick it off. I’m fucking starving.

  “Nobody thinks that,” Cal reassures me, which is annoying as hell considering Bernadette just went on a rant about it, about how I’m human. She’s clearly in love with me which both bothers and excites me at the same time. Why, Bernadette? Why can’t you just leave and find something better? The thing I’ve always feared is coming true, that dark fruit blooming on the tree of my own terror.

  I can smell its cloying scent, like the sugar of this apple and the rotten sweetness of death.

  There is no doubt in my mind that Ophelia is going to try to kill Bernadette. I shouldn’t have caved and let Victor marry her. I should’ve fought harder against his price, but I was too busy trying to prove that I didn’t care.

  In reality, she is all that I care about.

  “Nobody thinks that,” I repeat with a sigh, continuing to cut the apple until it lies in neat, perfect little slices. Callum reaches over and steals nearly half of it, plus all of the cheese. I curl my lip at him, but I just grab another piece of fruit and keep going. At least the activity keeps my hands busy and keeps me out of Bernie’s bed.

  She’s asleep on the couch, of all places, right now. Either she just needed a break from the constant fucking, or else it was a sweet accident. I’ve already stood above her and admired her perfect face. The spot where Billie cut her might leave a permanent scar, but it’s still too early in the healing process to be sure. Either way, it doesn’t diminish her beauty or the shine of her spirit.

  When I said she was incandescent, I meant it.

  “Were you really a virgin?” Cal asks, and there it is, that fucking awful word again. I resist the temptation to stab the knife into the countertop. That’s something Victor might do in a pissy mood, and even though I know he’s better at controlling his emotions than I am, I can at least pretend, can’t I?

  “Why do you care?” I ask Caol, which, I suppose, is as much an admission of guilt as the word yes. “Why do any of you care? What does it matter?”

  Callum puts a piece of cheddar onto a slice of apple and sticks the whole thing in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he turns his blue eyes to the ceiling. I just wait there, jaw clenched, hoping that I can get some clarity here. I’d rather talk about this with Cal than anyone else.

  Especially Bernadette.

  I don’t know how to explain it to her. I’m not like Aaron, holding the sweet flower of my virginity back for my soul mate. My nose wrinkles, and I turn back to cutting the apple.

  “It doesn’t matter in the way you think it does, but Bernie deserves to know. She deserves to know why, too. And I think we’re all pretty curious because it isn’t like you haven’t pi
cked up girls before. Actually, I’ve seen you take girls into locked rooms at parties. What are you doing in there?”

  I don’t look at Cal, but I feel that cold, icy anger sweep through me.

  Why am I like this?

  Is it because my father killed my mother, killed my siblings, and just barely managed not to kill me? A family wipeout, they call it. It isn’t as uncommon as you might think.

  Living with the Peters for the past five years has taught me exactly how fucked-up I really am.

  “She has access to Google, you know,” Callum says softly, obviously reading the directions of my thoughts based on my face.

  “I’m a minor; my name has been withheld.” I stab the apple, creating a jagged slice that doesn’t fit with all the perfect ones lined up on the counter. My nostrils flare with irritation.

  “Oscar, you don’t want her to find out some other way. Just tell her where you come from, where you’ve been. That’s all she wants.” Cal spins in a circle on the stool, tapping his bare heels against it as he comes around again. “She doesn’t care that you’re a monster. She likes them, O. She likes dark and scary things.” Callum wiggles his fingers at me, but I’m not playing with him today. And I hate being called O. He does it on purpose to rile me up.

  “I’ve never fucked another girl because I didn’t care about other girls,” I say, and it’s strange, hearing those words come out of my mouth. “Because the things I want to do in the dark are dangerous. How can I expect to hold myself back when I don’t give a shit about the person I’m with?” I throw the knife in the sink, letting it clatter as I pick up what’s left of the apple and bite into it. I’m done with the meticulous cutting; I just want to eat.

  Juice sluices between my lips and slides down my chin. With long, careful fingers, I wipe it off and suck it away.

  Callum watches me for a moment, and then nods, like he understands where I’m coming from. I knew he would; I knew he wouldn’t judge. Hael, on the other hand, is absolutely eating up this virgin nonsense, acting like he has something to lob at my face in a fight.