“Come home right after school today. Your mother and your aunt both work; someone needs to watch Alexis.”
Right.
“I’ll be here,” I assure her, noticing her gaze sliding over to the garage again. “Nothing’s going to happen with the car, I swear. Love you!” I hop out of the Devil to give Patricia’s cheek a quick kiss, and then I’m sliding back into the driver’s seat and backing slowly and respectfully out of the driveway, making sure we’re out of my grandmother’s sight before I ride the gas.
“Earlier, you asked where Widow’s been living,” Lemon starts, reaching out to turn down the radio. “Sad World” by Yacht Money and Jung Youth was playing. Damn. I like that song, too.
“Huh?” I reply, turning briefly toward her and lifting a brow. “Widow? Oh yeah. He come from Antarctica or something? How does that boy know we race, but he doesn’t know how to safeguard his car better?”
“He just got out of juvie,” she whispers conspiratorially, despite the fact that we’re alone in the car. “After five years.”
“Five years?” I choke out, eyes focused on the road as I take a series of shortcuts through the city, avoiding any spot where a less sympathetic cop than Officer Cheater might be waiting.
“He killed his uncle,” Lemon explains, leaning back in the seat and sliding her phone from the pocket of her dress. She wears cute little sundresses, but I’ve seen her stab a bitch. Don’t underestimate this girl. She don’t give a shit if she spatters blood on that pretty daisy pattern.
“Seriously?” I repeat, thinking of the quiet, contemplative guy I met in the hallway. Sure, he’s a dick, but a murderer? And he’s what, probably seventeen if he’s at Prescott High (most eighteen-year-olds drop out of our school), so he killed the guy when he was twelve? That smacks of an abusive situation to me. “Did they ever determine a motive?”
Lemon shakes her head, smiling to herself as she taps out a text with her thumbs.
“Nope. He pled guilty, but never said why he did it. They tried him as a minor and locked him up for five years. He just got let out.”
“Who did you hear all of this from?” I question, because Lemon never has gossip unless she gets it from one of her lovers.
“Jennifer,” she admits, and an icy chill takes over me, that same dark shadow that I felt when I first met Widow. If Jennifer said it, then it’s probably true. She peddles in truths, not lies. Lies have no currency at Prescott because everybody tells ‘em. “And she heard it from one of her brothers who was in juvie at the same time as Widow, so this is only like secondhand information.”
It’s more like fourth-hand information at this point, but I still believe it.
Widow killed his uncle, did he? Interesting.
We return to school with plenty of time to spare, and I make sure to run over the GPS tracker, crushing it with my car before I leave my little red devil in its usual parking spot. Order has been restored at Prescott High and holy-hot-damn does it feel good.
Red shoes, red car, a name that means red.
People often say to me: hey, your name is Scarlett, so like, your favorite color must be red.
Wrong.
I hate it.
My name might be Scarlett, but I hate the color red. Ironic, isn’t it? Being named Scarlett and hating the color red?
The reason I don it, use it, drive it … a challenge to myself and my fucked-up psyche.
“Are you not coming?” I ask as Lemon climbs out, phone still in her hands, and offers me up a loose shrug.
She’s infuriating sometimes.
I storm over to her, heels loud on the pavement. She barely notices, too caught up in whoever it is that’s on the other end of that text. I snatch it out of her hands and take a look at the screen.
“Aspen? Who the fuck is Aspen?” I ask as she snatches the phone back from me, eyes narrowed with hurt.
“I told you, Scarlett: he’s big-time. He’s a chance to get the hell out of Prescott.”
“Oh, Lem,” I say, reaching out to cup the side of her face. She slaps my hand away when I do that, but I just sigh. “No boy is a ticket out of Prescott, honey.”
“What would you know? You’re a virgin anyway,” she snaps at me, and I purse my lips. Was a virgin. Was, was, was. Until about two weeks ago when I ran into Kellin Bohnes while out smoking a cigarette.
To be honest, I’m not sure how it even happened the first time. I remember rewarding myself for finishing a race by lighting up a clove cigarette—which are illegal now and really hard to steal—and then glancing over to see Bohnes doing much the same. We both turned to glare at one another, he smiled, and then … my mouth was feverishly pressed against his.
I rub at my forehead. I should tell Lemon. I should tell Basti or Nisha. Only, I haven’t told anybody, and I’m not sure why.
“Whoever this guy is—especially if he’s got money—he isn’t going to solve all of your problems.”
“We all have our own ways of getting out of Prescott, okay?” Lemon snaps back at me, and then she’s turning and taking off down the sidewalk. Clearly, she isn’t going to class today.
I decide to head up the steps and then wait just inside the front door, looking out the window to watch as my friend disappears down the street. Huh. If this relationship lasts more than a week, I’ll have to follow her.
The bell rings, and I give up on Lemon for the moment, heading to my sixth period class and smashing the quiz given to us by our math teacher. This shit is too easy for me. I drop the paper on her desk before heading into the hallway and stopping by the women’s restroom.
When someone sneaks in quietly behind me, I turn, whipping out the knife that Officer Asshole slipped me on the other side of the metal detectors. The person coming at me has a knife, too, which is the first thing I notice.
The second thing I notice is that it’s Widow.
I can knife fight with the best of them: just ask my girls. I don’t often lose in a fight, but this time, Widow disarms me by swinging his left forearm under mine so hard that I can feel the impact in my skeleton.
He quivers my bones with that hit, but it doesn’t actually hurt, more like hitting one’s funny bone. It throbs and makes my teeth ache, but it won’t leave a bruise. The sharp blade at my throat however just might.
“What the fuck did you do with my car?” he hisses at me, pressing the blade uncomfortably close to my skin. I have to be careful when I swallow, that’s how close he is to cutting me.
“This might be how things work in juvie, but that’s not how they work at Prescott,” I tell him, breathing in these slow, controlled drags. Staying calm is paramount here. I look into Widow’s golden gaze, but he’s completely empty of emotion. He’s not even frowning; his lips are in a perfectly neutral pout. “Around here, if you steal a car, it’s your car. I played you, Widow.”
He steps in closer to me, forcing my body back against the wall or into the blade. I choose the former, and then there he is, his huge shadow looming over me.
“Go ahead and kill me,” I say with a loose shrug, my hands held up, palms out in surrender. “My girls will have you dismembered by early evening.”
His smell fills the air between us, that ripe fruit and forest scent. Can he smell me from there, too? I’ve been told that I have a cherries and chocolate scent. Heard that from Kellin Bohnes, but I can’t think about him right at this moment.
“If you can steal it back, it’s yours again,” I say with a bit of a smile. I never draw my gaze away from his, and he returns the favor. There’s a power in our combined stare that I don’t miss, but that I also know damn well I should stay the hell away from.
I said Prescott Boys were trouble? This one more so than most.
“If I steal it back, it’s mine?” he asks dryly, pressing even closer to me. At this point, we’re nearly front to front, and I can feel the heat of him against the bare skin of my chest and arms. And oh man, he’s got good arms. My fingers ache to touch them, to tease over the hint of a
brand-new tattoo on his upper left arm. Other than that, and the spiderweb tattoo on his right hand, he has no other visible ink. “It was mine to begin with. Where the fuck did you put it?”
“You should really invest in some better security measures,” I offer up, but then he’s pressing the blade harder against me, and I can feel the tiniest split in my skin. Shit. I really didn’t think he’d take things this far. He seems to be looking at my mouth now, having finally broken our stare.
I take that as a good sign; all good predators know that whoever holds a stare the longest is boss.
Widow steps back suddenly, flipping his knife in his fingers in thought before sliding it into a sheath tucked in his waistband and hidden beneath his shirt. When he lifts the hem of the white tee up, I nearly lose my mind at the sight of the defined lower ab muscles resting there.
If he hadn’t stolen my parking space, dismissed me in front of my crew, and put a knife to my throat, I might actually have a crush on him. I know as well as any other girl here that there’s a certain aura of poison in the air around Prescott, a haze, if you will. It taints us all toxic and makes us do horrible things.
It makes Lemon fuck old, married guys searching for a way out; it makes Nisha punch the walls in the hallway when she’s mad, leaving dents in the drywall; it makes Bastian dance for money at the gay club with a fake ID.
It makes me steal cars and get crushed on by psychos.
Because, undoubtedly, both Widow and Bohnes are psychotic.
Thankfully, so am I.
“If I ask around and find out that you’re feeding me bullshit …” Widow starts in that low, angsty baritone of his. But I don’t care what he has to say. I’m not even listening anymore. Instead, I’m dropping to my knees and snatching my fallen knife, pushing up to my feet and throwing myself into Widow before he can react.
The point of my blade comes to rest directly over his belly button, pushing into him until I know he can feel the prick of the tip.
I look up and our eyes meet again.
There’s a clash of thunder there, the bright hungry burst of lightning.
“It’s not bullshit. Ask around. Then get your damn car back if you can. Next time, don’t park in my space.” I pull my own blade back, sliding it into my back pocket and taking off before Widow can think up a reply.
Scarlett
I manage to hold onto Widow’s car for the rest of the week. Pretty sure he tried to boost mine, but I have eyes all over Prescott High. One of the girls told one of my girls who told me. By the time I got outside, Widow was nowhere to be seen.
Not that he could’ve stolen my car anyway. I keep a boot on it. That, and several trackers, a kill switch, and a steering wheel security lock. Takes a while to put all that shit on and take it off again at the end of the day, but that isn’t my job. I have girls who do that for me in exchange for protection on campus.
“Thank fuck it’s Friday,” I comment as my girls—including Basti—and I head out front and down the steps. Friday is racing day at the old track. It hasn’t been in ‘proper use’ since the fifties, but we put it to plenty of improper use.
We have our own league here at Prescott High. It has no name. It has few rules. There are no trophies, no prize money, but there sure as shit are rewards. We play in bets and favors here at Prescott. Sex or violence, favors or stolen goods, quality intel or fake IDs, it’s all up for grabs at the racetrack.
“What are we doing tonight?” I ask, snacking on a chocolate bar with the paper rolled down to the base. I stroke it with my tongue in a completely inappropriate manner as Bohnes walks by, pounding down the steps and disappearing down the sidewalk with the hood of his skeleton hoodie thrown up over his shock-white hair.
He doesn’t even look at me.
I snap the end of the chocolate off with my teeth, turning away and almost missing the way he pauses near the end of the sidewalk. He glances back and even with so much distance between us, his ice-blue eyes catch and hold me. The edge of his mouth quirks up slightly, and then he turns away and takes off.
My heart is pounding, but I refocus on the conversation and do my best to pretend like Bohnes is nothing to me. Nothing. He’s nothing. I bite the chocolate again as Nisha goes over tonight’s plans.
“Nothing on the books, just a free-for-all,” she says, trying to get me to look at her. I turn her way, studying her mostly shaved head and the clever designs buzzed into it. We have a kick-ass barber around here. Today, Nisha’s sporting an anarchy symbol on one side and a heart on the other. Last week, she had the word Fuck buzzed into the back, but our principal—this total cock named Scott Vaughn—made her shave the whole thing off. Prick. I could’ve made a fuss about it, but Nisha didn’t think it was worth the effort. “Are you even listening or are you too busy staring at Kellin Bohnes?”
“I was not staring at Bohnes,” I hiss-whisper back at her, glancing over to make sure that Bastian’s made his way down to Lemon. The two of them throw their arms around each other with identical squeals, and Basti spins her in a circle, Lemon’s white flats popping off her heels as she shrieks.
They’re such children sometimes.
I make myself look back at Nisha, her dark brown eyes lined with thick kohl, her ebon skin dusted with gold powder that highlights her strong cheekbones. She’s staring at me like she wants to slap me.
“You’re supposed to be my girl,” she says, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. “We both know there’s no love found in Prescott that lasts. The dent the headboard leaves in the wall outlives any seedy romance found here. Don’t fall for him, Scar. He won’t do right by you.”
“I’m no Lemon,” I snap back, and then immediately feel guilty about that, letting my attention swing back toward my friends. Lemon isn’t a bad person. She’s just … broken. Like all the rest of us.
“I know you’re not Lemon,” Nisha says, reaching out to take my arm. I glance back at her, jealous that she’s gay and doesn’t have to deal with dick. Not that any of the girls here at Prescott are much better. Still. “You’re worse than Lemon. Lemon fucks guys looking for an out. She doesn’t love or care about them. You …”
“Are a hopeless romantic?” I finish with a dark laugh. I should tell Nisha that I’ve had sex with Bohnes every Friday and Saturday for three weeks. I should. But I don’t. Because she’s right, and I’m only half-kidding about the hopeless romantic thing.
“Exactly.” Nisha exhales and shakes her head, reaching up to tug at one of her gold hoop earrings. Actually, I think those might be mine. “Lemon is enough to deal with. Shit, Lemon and Basti both are too much sometimes. Don’t fuck me over for a fuckboy.”
I feel my chest tighten at the idea of Nisha catching me in a lie, but she’s already walking away and calling out to Lemon—likely to chastise her for skipping school today. She doesn’t know. She’s just teasing me.
Tell her, Scar! What the fuck?
The fact that I’m reluctant to tell one of my best friends—if not the best of the best—should be proof enough that what I’m doing here is wrong.
Widow comes down the steps and pauses beside me.
Much to my surprise, he throws a look my way. He hasn’t so much as glanced at me this entire week. He has, on the other hand, tried to follow me home. But really? Does he think he’s the first pervert, psycho, or Prescott princess to try and stalk me?
Not going to happen.
I gave him the slip every day this week.
“I’m really enjoying your baby,” I say, biting my lower lip and making my face pouty. “She drives like a dream.”
Widow’s amber eyes narrow even further, but he slowly breathes in and out, shaking his head at me. In the end, he doesn’t even bother to reply, continuing on down the steps and stalking off down the street while I stare after him with a sharp frown creasing my lips.
He’s so goddamn weird.
He sits in the hallway and strums an acoustic guitar sometimes, ignoring the guys who heckle him and toss coins and r
olled up balls of paper his way. Other times, he comes into the library during fifth period and sits down in the tattered armchair in the corner, legs up, a book in his hand.
He barely talks, hasn’t made any friends, hasn’t joined any of the male cliques that offer protection in and out of Prescott. He also hasn’t retaliated against me for stealing his car. The problem is, a guy who comes at a girl with a knife right off the bat like that doesn’t give up so easily.
Widow’s plotting something; I can smell it.
Since there isn’t much I can do at that point, I head over to my car and climb in, heading back to my house to grab Widow’s Stingray. Basti—who never races and has a mechanic’s magic touch in a way that I never will—follows me in his own car with Lemon as a passenger. They wait for me to change rides, then Lem hops into the Pantera, and off we go as a group. Me in front, Nisha just behind, Basti next, and Lemon taking up the rear.
Together, my besties and I drive four vehicles to the track, pulling into the hard-packed dirt of the parking lot alongside several dozen other cars. It’s like a classic car show up in here. We’ve got everything from a Morgan to an MGB lined up and ready to race. I recognize all of them save for one.
My jaw drops as I climb out of Widow’s Stingray, making my way over to the sleek, shiny ebon curves of a ’63 Shelby Cobra.
“Do you know what this is?” I choke out, glancing over at Nisha to gauge her reaction. I can’t be the only person at the track whose mind is blown by what I’m seeing. “It’s worth six hundred K, easy.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” she murmurs, dressed head to toe in blue leather. It’s sort of her color. Matches her car, too: a white 1964 Lotus Elan that she’s been fixing up since she was thirteen. You heard me: fucking thirteen. Nisha’s father was a mechanic who taught her everything she knows. Even though he passed last year, his legacy lives on in his daughter. “You can’t steal this.”
“Really? No shit,” I mutter, looking around for the possible owner of the car.
F*ckboy Psychos Page 3