“Well,” I start with a roll of my eyes, letting Aaron take my hand in his good one and pull me toward the bus. “You wouldn't want to inconvenience any of Oak Valley Prep’s finest.”
We move carefully across the icy driveway as Trinity mutters something under her breath and climbs onto the bus ahead of us.
Everyone stares at us from their seats, dressed in designer clothes and looking like they're on their way to a movie set instead of a rustic lodge on the outskirts of the city.
I stare right back at them, this strange chasm opening up between us that promises me we have absolutely nothing in common. These students, they might as well be from a different planet. I’d probably have more in common with an alien from Mars than I do with the student body of Oak Valley.
I take a seat next to Aaron in the rear of the bus, trying my very hardest not to burn a hole in the back of Trinity's head with my violent stare. She’s sitting next to my husband, and she’d do best to remember to keep her hands to herself.
Aaron curls his fingers through mine, and I lean toward him, resting my head on his shoulder. If I have to sit here and watch my husband pretend to be interested in another girl, I may as well do it resting against the side of a man I love just as much.
“Don't worry, Bernie,” Aaron breathes, nuzzling into me. “Eventually, you'll get your chance to show that girl exactly how you feel.”
He's right, yet again, but like I said before: it doesn't make it any easier. Sometimes, the right thing feels so wrong that it hurts. I keep that in mind as the bus pulls onto the street we make the three hour drive up to the lodge.
Rogue Elk Resort is a busy place, this soaring building with log walls, wood ceilings, and old fir floors. Everything is decked out in plaid or printed with bears; it's not my aesthetic, but I do my best to appreciate it. Students from four different schools make up the crowd, half of them interested in hitting the slopes while the other half are most concerned with sneaking away to fuck.
Looks like teenagers will be teenagers, regardless of income bracket.
Since we’re not officially part of the school group, we're not beholden to their schedule, one that seems to consist of planned meals, group activities, and scheduled excursions to ski or snowboard. Frankly, if I had to participate in that crap, I'd likely consider myself trapped in the ninth circle of hell.
“I cannot believe Victor talked me into coming on this,” I say as I lay out an outfit for dinner on the bed in our shared room. The boys and I have two connecting suites with only two beds, but considering everything that's going on, it doesn't seem safe to split up. We’d all rather share a room than risk being caught off guard.
“Would you have rather he come by himself?” Aaron asks with a shit-eating smirk stretched across his full lips. He’s relaxing in a chair near the fireplace, his chestnut hair falling over his forehead in just such a way that I can’t possibly find it in myself to be pissed-off at him. “Spent the weekend with Trinity while you sat at home and pined after him?” Aaron laughs as I flip him off, but he's not entirely off base with that.
There is no way in fucking hell that I would have let him go on this trip with Trinity without me. After our talk in the closet the other day, I’ve come to realize that it isn’t Victor that I don't trust: it's myself. And I'm going to do my best to change that.
“Good point,” I admit reluctantly, turning around to look at Aaron and crossing my arms over my chest. He studies me with the careful fragility of somebody who's in love, somebody who, when they look at you, stares at you like it might be the last time, every time—just in case. I move over to him, curling my fingers together behind his neck and playing with a few loose strands of hair as I straddle him. “The thing is: I hate skiing, you're too injured to snowboard, and I'm not about to spend my time hanging out with prep school assholes. So, what do you think we should do?”
Aaron gives me a heart-stopping grin before running his fingers through my ponytail and giving it a little tug. “I can think of a few things we could be doing,” he whispers as he puts his hands on my hips and pulls me just a little bit closer to him.
“So, Aaron Atlas Fadler, you want to fuck me, is that it?”
“I wouldn't say no …” he says, drawing out the word for a moment. With a grin, and a very un-Havoc-like squeal from me, I let him pick me up and carry me over to the bed. He manages it just fine, even with the medical boot and the cast. I’d say it was because he’s so close to being done with both of them, but we know that’s not it at all.
It’s because he’s a badass.
“You thought of me,” I whisper as he braces himself above me with his one good hand. Looking down at me with green-gold eyes, I can see that he knows exactly what I mean. You thought of me when you made the choice to break your hand, when you attacked a man in the woods with his own gun, when you took a chance on carpooling with David Benedict. All of that, for me.
“I thought of you,” Aaron agrees, and then he pauses, like he’s been thinking about something for awhile and has just now made a decision about it. “That night …” He trails off. We both know which night, the one where I fucked all five Havoc Boys, one after the other. “When I told you not tonight after you put your lips near my ear … What were you going to say?”
Shit.
“You know what I was trying to say,” I tell him with a dramatic roll of my eyes. But he just lifts an eyebrow and stays where he is, waiting for me to answer the question. Aaron might seem like the nicest of the group, but he’s definitely one of the most stubborn, too. Sometimes, he’s a little too stubborn, a slave to his own morality. But it’s an endearing trait, too, and very likely the one that saved both our lives. Too damn stubborn to die.
“Maybe I’ll go out and find one of Trinity’s pretty friends to flirt with—just to gather intel, of course.” He smiles to soften the blow of the joke, but I know he could, if he wanted to. With his tattoos, that hair, that smile … It wouldn’t be very hard.
I glare at him, but my body is aching; I just want him to touch me.
“I was going to say …” I pause to gather a breath for courage. Like I said, intimacy issues. Lots of them. “That you’re a part of me, and I can’t live without you. That’s it. Seriously not a big deal.”
“Telling someone they’re a fucking part of you isn’t a big deal?” he chokes out with a laugh. “Oh, Bernadette.” Aaron presses his mouth to mine, even as I consider kneeing him in the junk as hard as I can. And then that’s it for me, there’s no more resistance after that. It’s not even worth pretending that I’m not wet and hungry for him. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispers as he balances on his forearms and reaches between us to undo his pants. “You’ve always been a fucking part of me.”
Two hours later, we find ourselves sweaty and disheveled and grinning like fools at a table in the dining room. It’s swanky as fuck in here, but it doesn’t feel any safer than a dive in south Prescott. People are still duplicitous; they still covet and crave and desire.
My afterglow only lasts so long as it takes me to spot Victor and Trinity, sitting at a table of their own in the corner of the room. Victor stares at Trinity with that endless dark gaze of his, and she stares back at him like he’s something to be obtained, something to be conquered and consumed. What she doesn't understand is that a man like Victor Channing can never be tamed.
What she doesn't understand … is that he isn't looking at her like he wants to consume her in a carnal sense, he's looking at her like he's planning on how he might kill her one day.
Oscar joins me and Aaron at the table, sliding into the seat beside mine and throwing that sharp silver gaze of his across the room until he spots James Barrasso. It seems that I'm not the only person in the restaurant who’s staring at Vic and Trinity. James can't seem to take his eyes off of them.
“What do you think that's all about?” Oscar asks absently, fingers teasing the edge of an empty wineglass that's upside down on the table. I wonder if the Oak Va
lley students have their own secret code, something they might say to one of the waiters to get them to actually pour some wine.
If there is, I certainly don’t know it. Instead, I managed to steal a bottle on my way past the bar earlier; this place is obviously not used to the sticky fingers of Prescott students.
“Trinity and James are fucking,” I say, grabbing a piece of bread from the basket on the table and wondering how long it's been since I actually sat down at a restaurant without the Thing present. He liked to take us all out to dinner and then rape my sister afterward. I feel suddenly sad and set the bread aside for a moment.
“You think so?” Aaron asks, looking between the two of them like he isn't quite convinced. “I mean, I guess it would explain why he's here.”
“What does a mobster’s son have to do with an Oak Valley aristocrat?” I query, shrugging my shoulders as Oscar swings his attention my way. “Only one thing: dick.” I finally pick up the piece of bread up and tear into it, earning a raised brow from Oscar and a smile from Aaron.
Hael and Cal are nowhere to be seen, doing their usual sweeps and collecting gossip.
So far, the only interesting bit of gossip I've encountered personally is that Trinity got a boob job when she turned sixteen. Unremarkable except for the smugness I get at knowing Prescott girls keep it real. I mean, we can't afford fake tits anyway. But otherwise, it seems our mystery woman is squeaky clean.
That, or she's just really, really good at keeping her secrets steeped in shadows.
Oscar Montauk
For weeks I've been watching Bernadette and waiting for the right time to move forward. The day of the murder mystery party, I almost did it, spilled everything out into the open for her to hear. Of course, Victor fucked that up when he interrupted.
Truth be told, I probably would’ve backtracked anyway, said something that I regretted. Despite how hard I've tried to keep Bernadette at arm’s length, she just keeps coming. At this point, she's too entangled in our world for me to save her by driving her away.
All I can do now is help her embrace the darkness.
“Where are you going?” she asks when she sees me standing near the door to the hallway, dressed in black jeans and an Oak Valley Prep hoodie. Don’t ask how I got it. Obviously, I stole it. I might not be as skilled in that arena as Callum, but you don’t survive in Prescott without learning how to take what you need.
“One of Trinity’s friends,” I begin, gesturing absently at my face, “has a big mouth. I learned from her that Trinity has plans for tonight.”
Bernadette gives a curt nod.
“Based on the way you were just gesturing, I’m going to guess this is the friend with the fucked-up nose job?”
I stare back at her, but the joke falls flat because I refuse to laugh at it. Because I’m so goddamn worried about staying in control all the time. It’s just force of habit now, something I’ve learned to live with. But it’s a habit I’d quite literally kill to break.
Then again, I kill for all sorts of reasons.
“Okay, never mind then,” Bernie says, standing there in a loose-fitting t-shirt and some borrowed boxers. It takes me a moment to realize that she’s wearing my boxers. My fingers twitch and then curl into fists.
Seeing her in my clothes makes me feel … impossible. As in, I have no idea how to behave. Emotions burn through me like flames, but there’s no outlet for them other than my wicked tongue.
“Why don’t you go join Victor in the shower? I don’t need a companion for this, and your skillsets lie elsewhere.” I blink through the acidity of my own words, the contacts I’m wearing burning my eyes as I hold them open for far too long in between.
“Did you just … call me a whore?” Bernie asks, putting her hands on her hips and looking down at the floor with her green eyes closed for a brief moment. “Because if you did, we’re going to have problems.”
I feel all of that hate and pain inside of me twist into a tight knot, and then a scoff comes out that I barely register.
“Put on some proper clothes and meet me in the hallway.” I step out and slam the door behind me, only to find Cal waiting against the far wall. He’s got one foot up on the paneling behind him, hands tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie. “Don’t start with me today,” I warn him, moving past him and pausing below a terribly unflattering impressionist painting. It’s as if Claude Monet’s Poppies were vomited out the mouth of an amateur.
I sneer at the wall because I sincerely despise the wealthy.
My father was one. He thought of himself as an aristocrat. And then, one day, he found out we’d lost everything, and he snapped. I ended up half-strangled in a hole with my dead mother’s arms wrapped around me. My skin ripples in a shiver that I can’t control; there are many reasons why I hate being touched. Every time those thoughts get so loud that I can’t breathe, I get a new tattoo or a piercing and the pain drives it away like a cross wielded by an exorcist.
“O, don’t fuck this up for yourself,” Callum warns, and I glance back to see that he’s stood up and thrown his hood back. Once, right after it happened, I let Cal hug me. Just once. It lasted ten minutes, and then I never let anyone touch me again after that. But we both remember. He’s always been the closest friend I’ve had in Havoc. “Tell her why you’re struggling, tell her that you love her, and then stop fucking punishing yourself. I swear to god, I just had this same conversation with Bernadette.”
Callum pauses as the door opens and she appears as if summoned … wearing one of my fucking button-downs and a tie over my boxer shorts.
“Found some proper clothes,” she quips, wearing heels that are so tall they’re almost obscene. “Where are we going?”
“Oh, off to do some spying?” Cal whispers mischievously, pausing to give Bernadette a kiss on the cheek as he passes. “The place is secure; there aren’t a lot of people here who aren’t students. You should be pretty safe, but keep your eyes peeled and try not to get caught.” He slips into the room like a shadow, leaving me and Bernadette alone.
“I would hardly call that a proper outfit,” I quip, and she cocks a brow at me.
“I’d hardly call you a proper boyfriend. What was it you said to me? You asked for me, so you’ve got me.”
I visibly cringe, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes for a brief moment. What a socially maladroit thing to say. But I did say it. I meant it, too. What Bernadette doesn’t understand is that this is me trying. I have given myself to her. I’m surrendering, but it’s like the slow drip of ice from a glacier.
“Let’s go.” I turn and take off down the sweeping hall like I know where I’m going. Really, I’m just following the numbers of the doors until I get to the one I’m looking for. I dig the stolen skeleton key from my pocket, the one that Cal filched from the groundskeeper, and then I open the door.
It’s just an empty room, a bit larger and a bit nicer than the connecting suites we’ve got, but there’s nothing of interest in it. Yet. All I know is that this is where Trinity Jade will be somewhere in the next few hours.
“She’s meeting someone here?” Bernadette asks, but I don’t know, so I just shake my head.
“Her friend—” I start, and she interrupts me.
“Nose Job.”
“Whatever you want to call her,” I continue with a slight growl. Bernadette smiles when she sees that crack in my control, but I pretend like I don’t notice. “She said that Trinity couldn’t make some movie night thing in her room because she was going to be in this one. I don’t know what that means or what she’s doing, but we’re going to find out.”
The room consists of two parts, a small sitting area with a fireplace and a bar. Through a sliding barn door, I can see the bed, but I stay well away from that. With Bernadette wearing my shirt, and me in this mood …
I wish I’d packed my rope.
“Should we wait in the closet or something?” Bernie asks, moving around the room and letting her fingers trail across the back of th
e couch, a decorative side table, the top of the bar. I watch her like my gaze is spelled, like I couldn’t look away without cutting my eyes from my own skull.
“Depends on how fast you can find a hiding place,” I reply, opening up a large cabinet near the fireplace. There’s always the chance of being caught, no matter where you hide. But that’s also why I brought a knife. That, and a revolver.
I close the cabinet—there’s nothing in there but extra wood for the fireplace—while Bernadette opens a massive wardrobe, one that’s easily big enough for two people.
“This should work,” she says, and then she climbs in and leans against one wall. It’s a decent place to hide considering the nature of this game. Trinity already has a room, so she obviously won’t be staying in this one. Without needing to put away any clothes, why would she ever open the wardrobe?
I join Bernadette, taking up the opposite side of the space and closing the doors behind us. A thin bar of light cuts her shadowed face in half, but it’s about the only part of her that I can see.
“Reconnaissance is incredibly dull; it’s why we usually make our crew do these kinds of things.” I keep my voice low enough that if Trinity were to come into the room quickly, the sound of the door opening would muffle it completely.
“So let’s make it less dull,” she challenges, pushing up off the wall and coming toward me. I let her do it, too, let her push her body up against the front of mine. My cock stirs in my jeans, and my jaw clenches so hard that my teeth hurt. “Tell me why you’re so mean all the time.”
“Because, Bernadette,” I growl back at her, reaching up to grab her chin. She lets me dig inked fingers into her face and then she smiles in triumph because I’m now willingly touching her again. But I don’t stop. Instead, I curl my other arm around her waist. For a split-second, I just keep her there, reveling in the fact that I’m not as awful and wicked and disturbed as I think I am. Because I can hold a girl in my arms, and I can like it. Even as I choke on the words I need to say like I’m coughing up blood. “I’m broken. My father tried to strangle me, and then he wrapped my dead mother’s arms around me and pushed me into a dark hole.”
Anarchy at Prescott High Page 35