“What do you do with them when you get them into those rooms?” Cal asks, putting another apple-cheese slice into his mouth. “I mean, why pick them up at all?”
I sigh and take another bite of apple, closing my eyes against the sweetness of my tongue. You should’ve eaten Hael’s hideous spaghetti dinner, I chastise myself. I’m not helping anyone by trying to hide that I eat, and I fuck, and I bleed like a normal person.
I told Bernadette I wasn’t human; I’m afraid I’m even more human than anyone else in this fucked-up little family. That scares me. It terrifies me.
“I tie them up,” I say, because I do. I bind their legs and their arms, and I look at them like a fucking serial killer, and I try to get myself worked up enough to fuck them. It never happens though. The darkness looms inside of me, and I know that if I start to let it out, I’ll go too far. I’ll hurt somebody, and I won’t be able to stop.
Only Bernadette can save me, and that isn’t fair. That’s not what I wanted, for her to stroke and pet and soothe demons and monsters, to swim in blood, and wreak havoc.
But … it’s too late now, isn’t it?
There is no going back for any of us.
“Now that makes sense,” Cal says, pointing a finger at me. “See? Why not just tell Bernie that? She hates you for running off after you guys made love. You hurt her, Oscar. And I don’t mean by leaving bruises on her throat.” He gives me a warning look that very clearly says he won’t hesitate to hurt or kill me in order to protect Bernadette. Makes me like him more, not less, to be quite honest.
“Make love,” I hiss the words out like they’re poison, but I can’t deny it. I have no idea what came over me that day. Maybe it was the sight of blood because I’m a fucked-up individual? Or maybe it was because her face was so soft and sweet, a bit of innocence still left underneath all of that bossy bitch she throws around like it’s nothing? For whatever reason, my carefully crafted resistance broke, and I did the one thing I’ve always wanted to do.
Touch her, feel her, kiss her.
I exhale again, and Callum smiles.
“She doesn’t know what you’re thinking, O,” he tells me, nodding his head and crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re all so used to operating around Bernadette and for Bernadette, that we forget to work with her.”
“You sound as stupid as Aaron right now,” I say, pausing when I hear a stirring from the couch. My gaze flicks toward Bernadette’s sleeping form as she groans and shifts onto her side, hugging a pillow close to her chest. Hael is on the couch opposite her, an episode of South Park muted but still flickering on the TV.
“You’ll feel a hell of a lot stupider than that if you don’t tell her the truth. And sometime soon.” Callum puts his palms on the counter and stands up, wincing slightly. He hurts everyday that he dances, or fucks, or fights, but he never stops. He never lets his pain win.
Me, I let it rule me, and I hate myself for it.
I say nothing as Cal limps his way up the stairs.
Because I know he’s right. I know it; I just have to get up the courage to do something about it.
My fingers curl around another apple, bringing it to my lips for another too-sweet bite of flesh. My face hurts, and I wish I hadn’t been on a sidewalk in public, so that I could’ve killed the last two remaining Ensbrook brothers.
It’s been all about sex around here lately; I’m ready for a little violence.
I get my wish at around seven in the morning, my temper hot from not sleeping, my body aching from having to look at Bernadette flounce around the house in short-shorts and a tank top that dips too low while she gets the girls ready for school.
“Put some clothes on,” I growl at her, and she whips around so fast that her long hair hits me in the face. The scent of it makes me want to scream. My hands ache to touch her, but I keep a scowl fixed firmly in place. It’s too early, and I’m far too cranky to take any of Cal’s advice today.
But I am considering it.
Truly.
“You know what? Whenever you tell me to put clothes on or act decent or cover up, it just encourages me to do the opposite, Oscar Montauk.” She glares up at me, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why she’s standing so close. Back up, you little wench, I think, gritting my teeth and wishing I could teach her some fucking propriety. We’re far too near to each other; when she breathes, her breasts brush against the front of my chest.
She doesn’t know that I ask her to cover up because I can barely control myself. It isn’t her problem, but it makes me furious at myself because I know it’s all me. Self-inflicted. Stupid. Bernadette is here to stay; she’s a part of Havoc. These things are signed and sealed in blood, and, like Aaron, I just have to accept that this is reality, that the freedom I fought so hard to give her is now gone.
It’s just this, her and us and her bouncy tits and her ass hanging out of her shorts. It’s her fiery expression of rage, the way she pops her hip out, the way she smirks at me.
I turn away before I break under that stare and look at Victor.
He’s much easier for me to handle; we understand each other.
“I just got a text from our boys. The police were called to the Vincents’ home in Oak Park. They’re dead, Victor.” I deliver this information with as much feeling as a weather report. Bernadette balks at me, but honestly, I’m just irritated. That horrible social worker is dead, and she did not suffer the way she was intended to. A muscle in my jaw twitches in irritation. “It’s a bloodbath, quite literally. The walls were dripping crimson, according to the police scanner.”
“What the fuck?” Vic asks, halfway to pulling his shirt down. He just stands there for a minute with it caught up around his waist. Finally, he seems to pull himself together and drags the fabric down the rest of the way. Clearly, we’re going to be late for class today. No matter. There are no challengers for my place as valedictorian. That’s what’s important, that I win. “Jesus, it has to be Ophelia, doesn’t it?”
“Who else would care about some useless slag of a social worker?” I ask as Bernadette blinks in shock, flicking her gaze between the two of us.
“Leigh is dead?” she repeats, like she’s trying to wrap her mind around it. “Why would Ophelia kill her? She’s her contact; she supplies her with girls.”
“We brought Leigh to heel, and she lost her usefulness,” Victor muses, sighing and rubbing his hands over his hair. The way Bernadette watches him, hunger in her eyes even now, fills me with a terrifying and righteous sense of jealousy.
She should be looking at me like that.
And I have only myself to blame if she does not.
“It’s gotta be pretty easy to just snag a new lackey, right?” Cal asks, stretching in the sun near the sliding glass doors. He’s fully dressed in long, black shorts, and another of his signature sleeveless hoodies. “I’m sure Ophelia has other contacts in DHS and CPS.”
“This has Mitch and Charter Crew written all over it. Grunt work. I bet she isn’t even paying them yet, just giving them new cars and guns as toys, and promising rewards for later.” Victor works his jaw some more and nods. “Shit, this is out of control. I should’ve strangled my mother when we were at the beach house.” Victor grabs his boots and sits down on the sofa, right over the spot where the bloodstain is.
Well, there are many bloodstains on it, but I mean specifically the one that Bernadette and I left there.
“We’re still playing it too safe,” I say, tucking my phone into the pocket of my slacks. I take great pride in stealing these suits and not getting caught. I then have them tailored by a woman that lives in the Southside. She gives me containers of hot soup to take home, too, whenever I pick them up, but I never eat it. Part of me wonders if I should. “We need to move law enforcement down our list of priorities and take some action, regardless of the risks of getting caught. It’s that or end up with our heads severed from our bodies.”
I don’t show Bernadette the picture my boys managed to
get of the crime scene.
I won’t, unless she asks.
“Well, fuck,” Bernie says, scrubbing at her face. “Leaving Leigh alive was brilliant; we had names. We knew when deals were going to take place. This isn’t good, is it?”
“It’s not,” I confirm, looking over at Vic and meeting his eyes. We need a new plan. We’ve always moved slow, kept things tight, foolproof. The last place on earth I want to end up in is prison; I would rather die. But things are escalating, and we cannot allow them to get any worse without getting the upper hand. “You know, the easiest way to kill something is to cut off its head.”
Bernadette shivers, but she fills in the metaphor for me as Hael comes tromping down the stairs like an elephant, Aaron close behind him. I ignore them both.
“Like say, if the Charter Crew’s head was made up of Mitch, Logan, Kyler, and Timmy?” she asks, and I smile.
The way it feels on my face, I’m not surprised that Bernie gives me a long, studying look. I’m sure it’s hideous.
“Exactly that,” I say, and then I find my iPad on the coffee table and start to plan.
I’ll still go to school today. I have a calculus test, after all, but that doesn’t mean I can’t plot murder at the same time, now does it?
Bernadette Blackbird
Wednesday at Prescott High is interesting in that it's so unremarkable that it becomes remarkable. Mitch is as annoying as always; Kali continues to gossip and spread lies, even with her lips swollen and disfigured. Stacy Langford is hilarious and has taken to wearing a t-shirt that says Wreak Havoc while making out with her boyfriend in the hallway.
The police do not come on Wednesday; I do not hear from Sara Young.
“Do you think I surprised her with that video?” I ask Callum, sitting at the peninsula in Aaron's kitchen after school. He, on the other hand, is outside hanging Christmas lights. We're a bit late to the game, and we most definitely did not get the tree the day after Thanksgiving like I wanted.
Instead, it's lying on the living room floor now waiting to be put into a stand, just one week before Christmas.
“I think you made it very difficult for her to want to continue her quest to bring someone to justice over Neil’s disappearance.” Callum adds some chopped-up fruit and veggies to the blender he’s using and turns it on. Once it’s finished, he takes a spoon and tastes it, grinning a bit before pouring the chocolate-colored mixture into two cups. “Here. Chocolate-blueberry smoothie. Ridiculously healthy. It even has kale hidden in it.”
I give him a look and a wrinkled nose.
“Kale, Callum? Really?”
He pushes the drink toward me and then jabs a metal straw into it.
“I was trying to be a professional dancer, remember? Trust me: I know how to make a health food smoothie that tastes alright.” He winks at me and starts sipping his, flipping his hood off at the same time. As Victor’s smoking and chin rubbing are tells, so is Callum’s hood. He puts it on when he needs time to think or when he feels the situation might get uncomfortable. He only takes it off in good company.
I smile down at my cup and then drag it close. Tentatively, I wrap my lips around the end and Cal leans forward to smirk at me.
“Don’t suck on that so slow and sensual. Might give me ideas on what we could be doing together next.”
I almost choke on the smoothie as I try not to laugh. Shockingly enough, it really is good. Tastes a bit like brownie batter actually.
“Ideas, huh?” I retort as Hael moves into the room and starts laying guns out on the counter. Thank fuck the girls are, once again, at Jennifer’s house. She’s a decent babysitter, and she lives in a stupid gated community with a dad who works for the sheriff’s office. As many issues as we have with the police currently, it’s still a safer place than here.
Especially tonight.
“Look, silencers,” Hael says, lifting up a piece of metal and then screwing it onto the end of one of the rifles. He holds the damn thing against his hip, like he’s in a fucking action flick or something and grins. “This should be fun.”
I take another sip of my smoothie and do my best to keep my nerves at bay.
Victor wants us to go out tonight and clean up the Charter Crew. Not all of them, obviously, because like he said: you can’t kill several dozen kids at the same school without a media circus. But if you pick off the leaders …
Mitch Charter. Logan Charter. Kyler Ensbrook. Timmy Ensbrook.
Kali is pregnant, so for now, she’s getting a pass. Nobody’s mentioned Billie.
There’s a race being held tonight, at the track that Aaron and I used to escape from Sara Young. Since Mitch’s crew essentially runs the races now, they’ll be there, no doubt.
Knowing we have to kill four people tonight though, that’s a tough one.
“What time are we leaving?” Callum asks, noticing that I’ve drained half my smoothie already and winking at me conspiratorially over it. “Because I owe Bernie another dance lesson.”
“You mean another fuck?” Hael quips, pretending to fuck the counter. He lifts the rifle up and aims it at the sliding glass doors before dropping it down again. “Just be honest man. Everybody here knows you’re jonesing for some of that sweet, sweet Bernie pussy.” Hael grins at me, and I flip his ass off with both hands. “Speaking of …” He sets the gun down beside the others and leans down to put his elbows on the counter. “After we get back tonight, and we’re both soaked in blood and violence and sin, let’s fuck on the roof. Nice and flat, stars above our heads, an entire neighborhood of suburban prudes to freak out with our moans.”
“You’re assuming we’re making it back alive, mission accomplished, no cops?” I ask, and Hael shrugs.
“Why would I assume any different? This isn’t our first time at the rodeo, Blackbird.” He pats the top of my head, and I slap his hand away. Can’t deny that his offer is appealing as fuck.
“Tell Vic I’ve already reserved you tonight, so he can fuck off.”
“Why don’t you tell Vic yourself?” Victor asks, appearing behind me and making me jump. Hael doesn’t seem to give a shit, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugging his shoulders.
Callum watches the two of them with interest, straw tucked into his mouth. I imagine if Hael and Vic started fighting, he’s probably strong enough to get them apart, at least long enough for them to cool their heads enough to walk away.
“Don’t start on me with that cocky shit tonight,” Vic growls, grabbing the rifle with the silencer and examining it carefully. He barely looks at me. Actually, he hasn’t looked at me much since yesterday. “We made a mistake in letting you marry Bernadette.” Victor agreed with Oscar’s statement. Shit, maybe they were both right. But also … Victor is mine. No fucking way would I have let some other girl marry him. Besides, even if I would’ve, he’d still have had to stay married to her for a year; we would’ve had to fight to protect her life instead of mine.
I’d rather fight for my own crew, baby.
I pick up a rifle and screw a silencer onto the end.
“Victor,” I start, and he pauses to glance over at me. Our eyes meet and power shoots through me. He is fucking fierce, my new husband is. “You know I was never going to let you have another girl, right?”
He smiles at me, but there’s a wariness to it; he knows he fucked up a little bit.
That’s what counts.
“You’d be surprised at the things you’d do for love,” he says, eyes flicking to Hael and Cal before returning to me. He puts the rifle into a strap and swings it over his shoulder before bending down to press a kiss to my mouth. “But even if marrying you was a mistake, I don’t care. I told you: I’m selfish as fuck. I’d do it all over again. And I’d happily kill to protect you, Bernie.” Vic lifts his head up and gestures in a circle with his finger. “Suit up, boys, and let’s do this thing.”
He takes off down the hall, and I stand up to change.
The Charters wanted a war?
Well, it looks like they’re gonna get one.
And the easiest way to win a war … is to shoot the general.
Aaron drives Hael’s Camaro to the race. He’s going to enter it while the rest of do what needs to be done.
“Do not die on me,” I warn him, the same way I warned Hael and Vic the night we had to take Aaron to Nurse Yes-Scott’s. I run my palms up Aaron’s chest to rest them on his shoulders. He smiles at me, smoking a joint for luck. His chestnut hair is slicked up with gel, a pair of tight blue jeans on his ass that make me feel stabby. If any girl at that track goes for my man tonight … trouble. Big motherfucking trouble.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” he asks me, offering up the joint. I take it from him and pull in a drag before handing it to Callum. Aaron leans down and kisses my lips, and I blow sweet, thick smoke into his mouth. He chuckles. “You think I’d die before getting another taste of you?” He squeezes my ass with his hand and kisses the side of my neck, gently sucking on the flesh until I shudder and melt into him. “I’ll win this race while you slit some throats. Deal?”
“Got it,” I say as Aaron gives me one, last searing kiss and slides into the Camaro. The rest of us are riding over in another stolen vehicle. This time, it’s a white Mercedes, a G-Class. Ugly as hell, but it works.
“Don’t you fuck that car up,” Hael calls out, snorting as Aaron flips him off before shutting the door and pulling out of the driveway to wait for us. Hael flicks his attention over to me. “They’ll let him race before they try to kill him, Blackbird. No worries.”
“Oh, well, that makes me feel so much better,” I murmur, climbing into the backseat while Callum and Oscar slide in on either side of me. Victor takes the passenger seat while Hael drives.
My thigh is pressed up alongside Oscar’s, too close for comfort really. He looks over at me, gaze scanning my body before he turns away. I scoot a little closer, just to see what his reaction is.
Mayhem at Prescott High Page 30