“You see that, Bernadette? I pull the trigger without hesitation—and I always hit my target. Do you understand me, girl? When I shoot, I shoot to kill.”
I fire my weapon before my attacker can do the same, nailing him directly in the forehead. Blood spatters the wall of the alley in red as his body slumps to the dirty ground. I fucked Hael in this spot, I think, a slight smile working its way to my lips. And now I’m defending my school and my city in the same damn place.
Ducking back down, I feel around for the second gun and manage to tear the duct tape off just in time to see James Barrasso and the remaining five men in his party appear. With both weapons in hand, I make my way to the delivery entrance, the one that leads into the cafeteria. Every student here knows that after that Pepsi truck backed up into the metal doors, they’re bent just enough that they can be jimmied open.
I do exactly that, slipping into the darkness of the cafeteria kitchen.
It’s eerily silent in here. Seeing as the GMP caught us mid-morning, there are no students in the cafeteria itself. The cafeteria staff has likely locked themselves into the walk-in. It’s just me and shadows in here now.
“Find the little bitch and put a bullet in her. I’m done playing games,” James snarls as I crawl over to the door that leads from the kitchen to the cafeteria proper. There’s a dark zone in here, on the opposite side of the room near the windows. The camera that faces that direction has been broken for years. A severed cord dangles from the bottom of it, cut by some long-ago student ready for trouble. Trust me: it isn’t wireless, we can’t afford that sort of shit here in the southside.
But it’s a good thing.
For me, that is.
I stand up and shove my way through the door, listening to the shouting behind me, the thundering storm of boots. This is my school though, and I know everything there is to know about it. As soon as I’m out of view of the other cameras—the last thing I need is video evidence of me with a pair of illegal firearms—I crouch behind the giant wooden carving in the corner.
It’s a man, a logger presumably, with an axe in his hand. It’s one of those chainsaw carvings, made out of a solid piece of redwood. It’s covered in graffiti—tits and penises mostly—and band stickers from various local underground concerts. It serves as a hiding place while I get one gun tucked into the waistband of my shorts, and check to make sure the safety on the other is off.
I can hear the men enter the room, their footsteps slowing as they look around the dingy cafeteria with its three wood tables, and its sea of plastic ones, all of them tagged and marked by Havoc.
Every inch of this school is pissed on, claimed, owned.
Wait, Bernadette, I tell myself, wetting my lips with my tongue and tasting blood. Whose blood, and from where, I’m not sure. Probably residual spatter. Remember what Callum told you. Take your time; good things come to those who wait.
The men make a sweep of the cafeteria and even though it kills me to sit so still, to hide in shadows when I can hear gunshots and I know people are dying, I do it. I use the shadows as a blanket, and I wait for the right opportunity.
One of the men sticks his head around the statue to look for me. He doesn’t think I have a gun. What an idiot.
I lift the weapon up and fire once into his face.
It’s gruesome, and I end up wet with blood, but I don’t hesitate. I don’t think about it. I don’t let myself feel sorry for him. Instead, I get up and sprint for the doors that lead into the hall.
I’m not three steps outside the cafeteria doors when James crashes into my right side, surprising me and knocking the weapon from my hand. We end up in a tangled heap on the floor, his hands scrabbling for my throat. I get the briefest of looks at his face, at the stark violence carved into every feature. He thought he could use me to lure my boys out of the school earlier, but now he knows better.
If he can, he’ll kill me here—and he won’t hesitate like I did with Kali.
Because he managed to surprise me, James has the upper hand, using gravity to his advantage to lock his fingers on my wrists and push them into the ground. There’s a dead kid lying nearby, some freshman that I only recognize because I once saw him hand a bag of weed to Victor on the front steps of Prescott High.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I push back at James with a scream, preventing him from pinning my arms the way he wants to. When he gets frustrated and goes for my throat, I let him. As soon as he lets go of my arms, I shove by thumbs into his eyes. He screams in rage and agony, putting all of that fire into his grip on my throat.
As soon as I start to choke, I think about Kali, about how I might’ve let her go if she’d fallen to her knees and begged the way Billie did. I’m not without mercy.
I’m also not a little bitch either.
I shove my thumbs even deeper into James’ eyes with a choked gasp, the sensation making my stomach churn. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do, but I keep on the pressure until he rears back with a wail. If he were a bigger man, or I were a smaller girl, I might not’ve had the reach to get him.
Keep moving, Bernie, don’t stop.
I shove up to my feet, wrenching the second gun from my waistband, but James grabs my ankle and yanks me down to the floor before I can take a shot at him. My head hits the ground hard, and I see a flash of stars before I finally regain control.
I roll to the side and away from James. He’s got blood all over his face, so I’m not sure he can even see me, but I’m not taking risks. I snatch up Mr. Darkwood’s doorstop. It’s a piece of rock, some polished crystal thing that he got on a trip to Yellowstone. I could give two shits less, but I am grateful to have such a heavy object at my disposal.
With a scream, I smash the item into James’ face until he falls backward. And then I climb to my feet, aim the weapon at him, and pull the trigger.
Once, twice, three times …
When a familiar hand grabs onto my arm, I jump and nearly drop the pistol to the floor.
“Bernadette,” Vic says, his face grim as he yanks me around to face him. Blood runs down the side of his face as he presses his lips into a thin, grim line. “You got our guns, princess. I’m proud of you.”
“Where are my other boys?” I ask, but he just shakes his head. I don’t know what that means. Does that mean he doesn’t know? Or that they’re dead? But there’s hardly any time to process it because Victor’s bending down and retrieving the gun I dropped when James tackled me.
“Come here,” he murmurs, opening one of the lockers and shoving me inside of it. Vic slams the door as I slow my breathing, listening to the sound of him as he hauls his body up to lie on top of the bank of lockers. It’ll provide him some cover. Not a lot, but some.
The rest of the GMP’s murder squad shows up just seconds later; I can see them through the slats in the locker door. They must really be afraid of Victor, to send their men to a high school. And you know what? They should be. They should be terrified because someone like Vic, they don’t mellow out as they mature; they darken in their very soul.
Both Vic and I remain silent as the men sweep the hall, pausing only to examine James’ body.
“Maxwell is going to be furious,” one of them hisses, looking back at the others. “How the fuck did this happen? These are high school kids.” His voice is incredulous and full of venom.
High school kids.
No.
Havoc.
One of the men lifts up James’ body and tosses it over his shoulder before the group turns and leaves the way they came. For several minutes there, neither Vic nor I moves. As soon as he thinks it’s safe, Victor jumps down and lets me out of the locker.
Panting, I look around at the bodies on the floor, trying my hardest not to think of James’ ruined face. We’re not going to just walk away from this, now are we? There are bodies everywhere, and witnesses, cameras and … Both Victor and I look at one another as the sound of sirens echoes in the distance.
�
�Shit,” he murmurs, looking down at the gun in his hand. He takes mine from me, opens his locker and shoves both of them inside. At the last second, he withdraws that red box that I haven’t seen since Snow Day.
Carefully, he opens it and lifts out the crown he bought me with two, bloody hands. I turn back toward the front entrance, heart racing, blood spiked with fear. Part of me wants to run; the rest of me knows there’s no way in hell I would ever flee a scene like this.
This is my school; I defended it.
Victor steps up behind me and places the crown on my bloody head, dropping it into place and then taking his rightful place by my side. He lifts his arms in the air, palms out, and then lowers himself to his knees.
I do the same, dropping to the ground as the sound of sirens descending on Prescott High colors the air like the sound of screaming, incessant and shrill.
“I told you not to worry,” Victor says, and I glance his way just in time to see him smile.
Police cars fill the street outside, officers scrambling out and hiding behind their doors, guns raised. Not a minute later, another car pulls up and both Sara Young and Detective Constantine appear.
“Worry about what?” I whisper back, my words barely audible over the shouts of the officers, the wailing of Prescott students, and the distant echo of gunfire from the remaining members of the Grand Murder Party.
“About being queen,” Vic says, just as the officers swarm up the steps and into the building, and we end up prone on our bellies, covered in blood and surrounded by corpses.
And all the while, the crown stays right where Victor put it, on the top of my head where it fucking belongs.
To Be Continued …
The Havoc Boys, Book #5 Releases Friday Nov 13th 2020
Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club, Book #1
Devils' Day Party, Standalone
Rich Boys of Burberry Prep, Book #1
Flip the page for an excerpt of chapter one.
Prologue
My uniform—and my dignity—are in tatters.
My eyes scan the gathered crowd, but there are three faces in particular that catch my attention. Cold, cruel, beautiful. An ugly sort of beautiful, I think as I meet a narrowed silver gaze and catch the faintest edges of a smirk. Tristan Vanderbilt thinks he’s beaten me; they all do. But what they don’t understand is that I’m not the nervous, eager little charity case I was when I first started at Burberry Prep.
Lifting an arm up, I swipe a bit of blood from my mouth. My bra is showing through the torn remnants of my white blouse, and it’s the pretty red one I wore just for Zayd. He made me believe he cared about me. Flicking my eyes in his direction, I can see quite clearly now that he doesn’t. He isn’t smiling, not like Tristan, but the message in his green eyes is clear: you don’t belong here.
“Had enough yet?” Harper du Pont purrs from behind me. I don’t bother turning to look at her. Instead, I let my attention slide to the last of the three guys. My three biggest mistakes; my three greatest betrayals. Creed is frowning, like this whole confrontation is a necessary evil. Get rid of the lower-class trash, clean up the school.
The wind picks up, the ragged red pleats of my academy uniform billowing in a salty breeze. In the distance, I can hear the sea. It crashes against the rocks in time to the frantic beating of my heart. A storm is coming.
Tristan moves toward me with predatory grace, his expensive loafers picking up droplets of dew as he comes to stand toe-to-toe with me, as close as he was that first day when he insulted me and then laid out the challenge: how long do you think you’ll last? Well. It’s the final day of freshman year, and I’m still standing here, aren’t I? Tristan, though, he thinks that while I’ve won the battle, he’s going to win the war.
I stay stone-still as he lifts his fingers and tangles strands of my paint-splattered hair through them, giving the short rose gold locks a light tug. Red paint smears across his perfect skin as I meet those gray eyes of his with a defiant glimmer in my own.
“I take it you won’t be coming back next year, will you, Marnye?” he whispers, his voice like whiskey over ice. Tristan thinks he’s the master of this school, a veritable god. The other boys think of themselves like that, too. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when a confrontation finally comes. They think their money will buy them the world. Maybe, in a way, it will.
But it won’t buy them true friendship, and it won’t buy them love. It definitely won’t buy them me.
I glance past Tristan to Zayd and Creed, and then I refocus my attention back on the asshole that started it all. From day one, he went out of his way to make my life a living hell. He succeeded. And Zayd and Creed, they loved every horrible, filthy second of it.
“Just go home, Marnye, and it’ll all be over,” Tristan says, the softness in his voice edged with cruelty. He’s like a predator who’s too cute to be afraid of. I made the mistake of letting him get too close, and now I’m cut and bleeding—physically and emotionally. I’m fucking shattered. “You don’t belong here.”
Zayd listens to the whole conversation, and then slides his tattooed arm around Becky Platter, putting the final nail in my coffin. He’s chosen her over me. He’s chosen her and her cruelty and her mocking laughter over me. My hands curl into fists so tight that my nails dig crescents into my palms.
I meet Tristan’s haughty, self-assured stare. There are tears on my face, and when he removes his fingers from my hair, he touches one with his knuckles, bringing it to his lips for a lick. It’s a derisive, awful move, like a knife in the back. I can feel the blade beside my heart, but it’s just missed. I’m not broken yet.
“I’ve already enrolled in my classes,” I state, and the entire courtyard goes silent. Nobody is expecting this, the poor girl, the lamb in a pack of wolves, standing up for herself. What they don’t know is that the hardest hearts are forged in fire. With their cruelty and their jokes and their laughter, they’ve forged me into something spectacular. “Come September, I’ll be the first in line for orientation.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Tristan says, still cold as ice, still full of wicked triumph for what he thinks he’s done. His dark hair flutters in the breeze, softening some of his hard lines. It’s all an illusion though. I know that now, and I won’t make that same mistake again. “I’ll make your life a living hell.”
“You can try,” I retort, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my registration form. I’ll be back at Burberry Prep come hell or high water. This is my opportunity, and I won’t let three handsome faces, three pairs of hot hands, three sets of ardent lips destroy that. “Because what you don’t know …” I take a deep breath, and then bend down to grab the handle on my ratty, old duffle bag. Everybody else here has hired help to carry their luggage. Not me. Straightening up, I lift my chin in defiance and Tristan scowls. “Is that my life outside of these walls was already a living hell. This is just another level of Dante’s inferno, and I’m not afraid.” My gaze flicks past Tristan and back to Zayd and Creed. “Not of any of you.”
I move around Tristan, intent on the school gates and three months of freedom from these jerks, but he puts his hand around my arm and holds me back. Glancing down, I stare at his fingers pressed against my flesh, and then look back up at his face. He’s smiling, but it’s not a pretty smile.
“Challenge accepted,” he purrs, and then he releases me.
As I head down the path in my torn uniform, I keep my chin up and my fears pushed back.
Challenge accepted is right. I won’t be driven away from the best opportunity in my life. Not by Tristan, not by anyone.
As I walk, I can feel three sets of eyes on my back, watching, waiting, plotting.
I’ll have to make sure I stay one step ahead.
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C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn't mind - especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.
She hates tapioca pudding, loves to binge on cheesy horror movies, and is a slave to many cats. When she's not vacuuming fur off of her couch, C.M. can be found with her nose buried in a book or her eyes glued to a computer screen. She's the author of over a hundred novels - romance, new adult, fantasy, and young adult included. Please, come and join her inside her crazy. There's a heck of a lot to do there.
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