“Do you feel any different?” he asks me, redirecting my groping fingers so that they’re woven with his, curved together and trembling. Callum levels his dark stare on me, his hoodie draped over my shoulders, so he can’t bury himself inside of it like he usually does. His blonde hair shimmers as we pass under orange streetlights, but his eyes are dark as pits. “Now that Kali’s dead, I mean.”
“I couldn’t kill her,” I admit, because I’m not sure if Aaron relayed that information or not. Oscar stiffens up in the driver’s seat, and I glance briefly at the back of his head. When he pauses at a stoplight, he very slowly turns his long neck to look at me. The red of the stoplight bathes his face in blood. “My hands were wrapped around her throat; she was going still. She …” I trail off, biting my thumbnail and tasting blood underneath. I can’t decide if it’s mine or not, but I suck it off anyway, feeling a bit like a vampire.
The sun ducks its hideous cloud-covered head below the horizon, but I ignore it. It isn’t time for sunlight anymore, thank fuck. I feel like if its yellow light were to touch my ashen skin right now, that I’d burst into flames.
Callum cups the side of my face, and I look back at him.
“You don’t have to be ashamed that you couldn’t take someone’s life; that’s a virtue.” Cal releases me as I suck in a sharp inhale of breath, finding his sweet, soapy scent marred with the grit of tobacco. I like it though, so I scoot a little closer. Callum stares at someone—Oscar, based on the direction of his gaze—and holds it for some time.
The light turns green, and off we go.
That night, I sleep in Aaron’s bed. I just have to, because that’s where I was last sleeping when he was missing. Now that I know where he is, I’ll wait here for him to come back.
In the morning, I find Hael singing Valerie Broussard in the kitchen. He even sways back and forth as he does it, flipping pancakes in a stainless-steel pan. They don’t even stick when he flips them without a spatula, just the motion of his hand against the pan’s handle.
“Where is Aaron?” I ask, because I’d thought he might climb into bed with me when he got back.
“Outside with Vic,” Hael says, looking me over appreciatively. I’m wearing one of Aaron’s t-shirts and his boxers which are already sagging down around my hips. I don’t need any fucking fabric touching my stitches, and I also really don’t need Heather to see my wounds and start asking questions. “Giving him the rundown on what happened, I think.”
Hael bites his lower lip and looks up at me, brown eyes mirthful and open. It’s all bullshit, that expression. There’s so much more going on behind that pretty face than he wants to admit. He pretends like life is just one, big joke, a party with sex and drugs and alcohol. In reality, he hates it. And himself, probably. I remember what he said, about wanting to be a superhero.
I gingerly lower myself onto one of the stools with a groan, putting my elbows on the counter and my head in my hands. Not only is my side killing me, but I’ve got a fucking migraine from the bullet that grazed my skull. Ding dong, the bitch is dead. So why don’t I feel more excited about that prospect?
Oh, right. Because I’m an adult—have been for years—and have to think about the consequences to everything.
“Like how you told yourself all night that you were dreaming of bloodshed, and then bitched out at the last second? You are pathetic, Bernadette.” Kali’s ghost is still there, at the edge of my vision, a flickering hallucination sent to torment me from beyond the grave.
“Kali …?” I start and Hael barks out a sharp laugh.
“Visiting Tom,” he says not-so-cryptically, and then pauses when Oscar comes in the back door.
We stare at each other for a moment.
“We’re attending the gala for Victor’s mother next Sunday,” Oscar says succinctly. “You’ll need a new dress for that.” He pauses and narrows his gray eyes on me. “Seeing as you ruined the other with your disobedience.”
I just stare right back at him, unyielding.
“We’re attending that stupid fucking thing?” I ask, but I knew we were going to. We have to. We’re adjusting the game here. We’re not playing against novices; this is the big league. “You know as well as I do that the cheap piece of shit I wore on Snow Day wouldn’t pass the security booth at a party like that. Stop being a fucking twat and just say it.”
“Say what?” Oscar challenges, cocking a dark brow at me. His nose is slashed across the middle, slightly swollen on the sides, the skin purpled. It makes him disturbing to look at, so perfect in the mouth and eyes, so beautifully destroyed in the nose.
“That you were worried about me, so you’re angry now that I’m alive and okay enough to be angry with.” I tap my nails on the counter. Before I came downstairs, I spent a half hour scrubbing dried blood out from underneath them. Can’t wait to hear about the gang members the boys killed at the party. That should be fun, a gang war—a real gang war. And against a racist, big-time criminal circuit while worrying about biology tests and English papers on the side. We’re just a barrel of laughs over here in south Prescott. “Just admit it and stop making a fool out of yourself.”
Oscar laughs at me, and both Hael and I jump. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard him let out anything more raucous than a gentle, mocking chuckle.
“You want me to confess my undying love?” Oscar asks, coming over to the counter and splaying his long fingers atop it. I stare at them and look up at him, at that sharp and perfect face, the face of an aristocrat. He might be poor now, but there must be some blue, blue blood in his veins. He looks it.
“That would be nice, yes, thank you,” I tell him, leaning back on the stool and groaning. I cross my arms over my chest and fucking wait. Our gazes lock, energy cracks between us, a rend in the universe made of wills and bullshit. “I’m waiting.”
“Then you are to wait, though waiting so be hell,” Oscar purrs, looking over the top rim of his glasses at me. He’s quoting Shakespeare again, some sonnet with a number instead of a name, I think. I do actually pay attention in some of my classes, thank you very much.
“Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well,” I retort, finishing the last line of the poem. He just stares at me then, this wicked smile frozen on his face. I’ve surprised him, and he hates it. “What? Can’t handle someone playing at your level?” I quip, but then the sliding door opens, and Oscar lifts his attention from me, looking over my shoulder at Victor and Aaron as they come in.
Swear to god, when I turn, it’s in slow motion.
“Bernie,” Aaron breathes, my name a desperate sizzling promise, and I find myself scrambling out of my chair and cursing. I throw myself into his arms and he grunts. He’s wearing a cast on his right hand, a black medical boot—basically like a cast made of hard plastic and Velcro straps—on his leg. Broken fibula or … something. “Oh, baby,” he purrs, nuzzling his head against mine. “Fuck.”
We hold each other like two people who know they’re running out of chances to make things work, who realize that tomorrow is not promised to anyone. My fingertips dig into his back, and he holds me so hard that I can’t breathe.
“Jesus Christ,” Victor says with a long sigh, storming past us. This is going to take some getting used to, showing them both how I feel without pissing the other off. Right now, though, Vic has to take a back seat. He just has to. I thought Aaron might be lost forever.
“She didn’t touch you, did she?” I ask as he lays the fingers of his left hand on my cheek, staring down into my eyes with his green-gold ones, like spring with bits of fall flecked through. Even though it’s winter in reality, I smell sandalwood and rose when I close my eyes.
“She tried,” he says, which reminds me that he also said that last night. “She couldn’t get me hard.” I open my eyes just as he grins at me. It’s not a pretty smile though; it’s a tired, wary one. “I wouldn’t get it up.”
“Who knew your impotence would come in handy someday?” Hael jokes, but I feel f
or Aaron. He’s gotten to experience something that most men don’t understand: the fear of carnal torture. I put my hands on his chest and lean into him.
“I can’t fucking believe her,” I whisper, because rape is next-level fucked-up. Murder has all sorts of possible justifications, but rape? I’ve got nothing. “I guess I should be grateful for her weird obsession or you might already be dead.”
“Ophelia was going to use him against us,” Victor says, playing with a shotgun. I see that there truly is no rest for the motherfucking wicked. He lifts his obsidian eyes to mine. His ebon eyes. Ebon, ebon, ebon. Take that, Mr. Darkwood, you fuck-nut, it really is a word. “We’re lucky she’s running out of money; she’s a snake.” Vic loads two shells in and pushes the barrel back into place. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Like I was hit with a Mack truck,” I say, looking back at Callum as he slips in the front door. “Or one of Cal’s bats.” He smiles at me and then very carefully lowers his hood. It’s a purposeful movement, one that draws my eyes along with it.
“Same difference,” he whispers, and then he laughs. It’s a very pretty laugh, too. Like a tease. Like, Cal could’ve been different if his life had been different. Being an asshole isn’t stamped into his DNA the way it is with Victor. “Good thing Kali’s an idiot.” He nods his head in Victor’s direction. “The cop just drove by again.”
Vic nods, like he already knows what’s going on.
“Not Sara?” I groan, but Vic gives me a look that tells me all I need to know. “Motherfucker.” I’m supposed to stop by her house sometime soon. She might already know I was in the hospital; she might already know Kali is missing. Not good.
I sink into Aaron with a sigh, putting my forehead against his chest. He holds me with his one good arm, squeezing me tight. I should ask about his injuries; they seem pretty severe. Yet again, if we were at any other hospital than the one servicing Prescott, maybe we’d have gotten better care, maybe they would’ve kept us longer. In the southside, the ER does the bare minimum to keep you alive and then kicks your ass out on the street.
We’ll both probably have to follow up somewhere else.
I decide that I don’t have the energy to ask questions, so I just let myself melt into him for a second, falling back into our shared nostalgia. Memories of his hand in mine, memories of sitting at this table with a sandwich and a smile, memories of sappy texts sent in the middle of the night. I knew I shouldn’t have smoked that joint before coming downstairs. Sometimes pot does that to me, makes me crave the past.
I would never go back though because the sort of pain I’ve suffered … it can’t be recovered from twice. That’s why I think that, after we die, we’re reborn without any of our previous memories. It’d be too much, to keep living life and gathering up so much pain.
Today feels like an epilogue, like we should be resting and recovering, an in-between space to prepare for whatever life throws at us next. Unfortunately for Havoc, there’s never truly a day off.
“Ophelia’s shitty party is next Sunday,” Victor repeats, putting the shotgun on his shoulder. He’s wearing a tucked-in white t-shirt and black slacks with the faintest of pinstripes. He even has suspenders on. Makes him look like a fucking mobster from the twenties. “Find something to wear. That’s all I need from you this week.” He pauses and wets his lower lip, leaning in toward me and smelling like sweet musk. Motherfucker. “You are under strict orders to rest, so don’t get any ideas in that stubborn-ass head of yours.” He pauses and his full mouth twitches in amusement. “And don’t forget your spankings.”
“Shove off,” I growl at him, lifting my head to see Aaron frowning. Victor takes off for the master bedroom and Oscar follows him. Hael keeps making pancakes as Callum watches me and Aaron with a curious expression on his face.
“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Cal asks, and I’m guessing that Victor’s the only one that knows the whole truth thus far. Very slowly, Aaron shakes his head once. His eyes darken, and he exhales. “No worries at all.” Callum holds up his hands, palms out.
Aaron and I end up sitting at the table. Our chairs are side by side, but we’re facing each other instead. Hael brings us pancakes and then inserts himself into what’s shaping up to be a pretty intimate moment.
“You know,” he begins as I finally glance down and realize my pancake is in the shape of a dick and balls. My brow goes up as I lift my eyes to meet his brown ones. Seriously immature, but funny as hell. Plus, let’s admit it: that took some serious pancake-ing skills. “We were worried we never going to see you again.”
“Mm,” Aaron starts, sucking his lower lip under his teeth and closing his eyes. “You almost didn’t. Good thing Kali was a fucking nutcase.” He opens his eyes again, but there’s something different in them.
He doesn’t like what he had to do to Kali. We’ve been going to school with her for years. Plus, she was pregnant. With Heather’s half-sister no less. I sigh again and reach my fingers up to fluff my hair. I gave him that look; I did that to him, added darkness to his already dimming gaze.
“Because you’re a coward,” Kali’s ghost hisses at me. I ignore her. Eventually, the drugs the hospital gave me will wear off and she’ll disappear. Like I said, one day, I bet I’ll wake up and her name will be the faintest wisp of a memory, something so fragile a light breeze could take it away forever.
“If ridding the world of my demons was supposed to make me happy,” I start, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the center of the table. “Then why do I feel so goddamn empty?” I pause for a moment, eyes flicking toward the sliding glass doors. Aaron, understandably, doesn’t like anyone to smoke inside the house.
“Fuck it,” he growls, reaching out to take the pack from me. He withdraws two cigarettes, lights one up, and then slips the other between my lips. I watch him, mesmerized, as he leans forward and uses the burning tip of his smoke to light mine. I couldn’t look away if a hurricane tore the roof off the house and whipped my hair around my head in gale force winds. “We almost died. We get to play around a little, right?” Aaron laughs, the sound dry and caustic. He can’t know that even such an awful sound makes my heart soar.
I sit back, drawing in two happy lungfuls of nicotine.
Surprisingly, it’s Hael who answers my question, instead of Aaron.
“Because whatever it is that was haunting you, has yet to be exorcised.” Hael rises to his feet, taking off the stupid apron he was wearing and chucking it across the surface of the counter. Aaron and I exchange a look as he disappears up the stairs and slams the bedroom door behind him.
In the corner, Kali’s ghost howls with laughter.
Aaron and I take a nap on the couch together, curled in one another’s arms. When I wake up, it’s to perfect darkness and the distant murmur of male voices. I sit up, groaning at the pulling in my stitches and pausing when I hear Aaron chuckle from behind me.
“Look at us,” he whispers, sitting up and then glancing down at the cast on his hand with a scowl. “A pair of useless cripples.”
“Oh stop,” I whisper back, trying not to break the warm quiet of dark. Heather and the girls should be back by now. Hael promised he’d pick them up in the Bronco if I didn’t wake up in time. Based on the state of the house—buttoned up, dark as pitch, and silent but for the whir of the fridge—I know I most definitely did not wake in time. “We’re soldiers, wounded in battle.” I grab another cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and light up.
Aaron watches me for a moment, sitting up and putting his elbows on his knees. The way he’s staring at me, I can’t help but stop and turn to look at him. He’s pretty in the dark, even prettier in the light. Whenever his chestnut hair catches a bit of moonlight, it shimmers a different color. Brown, red, gold. Just like his little sister. Shit, even his cousin Ashley wears the family’s DNA in her hair color.
I bet we have a kid together someday, with hair the color of fall leaves and green-gold eyes.
“Bern
ie,” he starts, glancing away for a moment. I can feel the tension in him, desperate to be broken but too fragile to come at with a sledgehammer. I wonder if I couldn’t find another way to break it? I adjust myself, feeling a certain slickness between my thighs that promises I was not dreaming of sugar plums and sweet things. Carnal nightmares, more like. Aaron turns back to stare at me, and I can feel his gaze like an arrow through the heart. “When my mind got really dark, you know what helped more than anything?”
I can’t speak. My mouth just feels too dry. Sometimes life is like that. You want to wear glossy lips and a smile, but you’re cursed with a tongue like sand and a mouth that’s cracked and bleeding.
“What?” I ask, my voice husky and strange. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve always sounded that way, like some sort of wannabe porn star who’s trying too hard. I take another drag on the cigarette, certain that they’re stolen, positive that they taste better because they were obtained with crafty fingers and tomfoolery. I assume that about literally everything though, don’t I? That it’s stolen. Because nice things are not given to you; they must be taken.
“You,” Aaron says, looking me dead in the face. The shadows make his green-gold eyes hard to make out, but that’s okay. Just as I’ve memorized Vic’s gaze, his smell, his taste, his feel, I’ve memorized Aaron’s. I’m going to carry little parts of their dark souls inside of my own. “Not the girls, not my friends … just you, Bernadette.” He leans in toward me, capturing my chin in gentle fingers. “You’re my endgame.”
“Stop it,” I gripe back at him, trying to pull away. Aaron tightens his fingers on my face in a very un-Aaron-like way and forces me to stay still. His mouth hits mine in a rush of violent heat and teeth and tongue. He takes me with a single kiss, obliterating my thoughts and forcing me to drop the burning cigarette onto the carpet.
The smell of singed fabric teases my nostrils as Aaron slides his tattooed fingers around to the back of my neck, proving with a single kiss that his words are the purest form of truth: the kind that hurts. It isn’t easy to be someone else’s everything. It’s a terrible burden, one that sits crouched inside your heart for eternity. You will always know that your actions, no matter how necessary, are like ripples in somebody else’s pond.
Anarchy at Prescott High Page 9