Chaos at Prescott High

by Stunich, C. M.

  “You’re hurt,” Oscar says when I step out of the bathroom. He’s standing in front of me, shirtless and wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants. His tattooed chest and belly are on full display, and if circumstances were different, I’d very much appreciate the view. My breath catches as he reaches out and presses his thumb against the spot on my right sleeve, making me hiss between gritted teeth as he pulls his finger back, stained with blood. “Let’s take care of that, shall we?”

  “No time. I’ll worry about it when I get back.” I move to shove past him when he reaches out and snatches my upper arm in tight fingers, making me cry out. More blood oozes out and dribbles down my arm. With his other hand, Oscar traces the wound on my face, the one I’m too afraid to look at because I know it’s going to scar.

  “It’ll only take a minute,” he says, pushing me back into the bathroom and forcing me onto the closed lid of the toilet. I’m getting mad déjà vu here from when Victor stitched up my arm, looking up at Oscar’s gray eyes through the thick lenses of his glasses. I sneer at him as he pulls a first aid kit out from under the sink, but I don’t have the energy to protest. Oscar turns back to me and shoves my shirtsleeve up, making me gasp. He’s not at all gentle as he goes about inspecting the wound. “You really could use a hospital visit as well. Have that bitch nurse take a look at this while you’re over there.”

  “Aaron is the one who needs help. Slap a bandage on it and let me get out of here.” This bone-weary fatigue washes over me, and my lids close of their own accord. My entire body hurts from the fight, and I’m bruised all over. Strong fingers touch the underside of my jaw, lifting my face up. I open my eyes to find Oscar staring down at me.

  “Chin up, Bernadette. There is no rest for the wicked.” He releases me and tackles both wounds with an antiseptic wipe as Hael pops in the door, worrying at his lower lip. Some of the black hair dye still stains his red faux hawk as he reaches up and runs tattooed fingers through it.

  “Aaron’s all loaded up in the van,” Hael says, studying me, his honey-brown eyes dark. He hesitates for a second before adding, “and he’s asking for you.” My heart twists into a knot as I watch Oscar take some antiseptic gel and squeeze it onto a cotton round. He swipes it over my face and arm then applies some bandages.

  “I’ll add tetanus shot to our list of things to do,” Oscar murmurs, releasing me and stepping back to lean against the opposite wall. He crosses lean, muscular arms over his chest as I notice that his nipples are pierced with little swords. Interesting.

  I stand up, yanking my shirtsleeve down, and exit the bathroom, following Hael downstairs and outside, into the crisp, fall air. Jack o’ lanterns flicker in the yard across the street, but the magic of Halloween is dead to me right now.

  Victor drives us for once while I sit next to Aaron in the middle row. He’s groaning, mumbling things under his breath, but at least when I grab his hand, he squeezes back.

  “Bernie,” he whispers, his head leaned back on the seat. I frown, scooting closer to him and then glancing back to check on Callum in the last row, leaned over with his hood covering his freshly washed hair.

  “You okay?” I ask him, and he lifts his head up just enough to look at me, a frown darkening those perfect pink lips. He’s still holding the bat, like he can’t bear to let it go.

  “I’m okay,” he replies, but I’m not sure that’s true. He killed somebody tonight. For me. He’s bound to be a little fucked-up. Callum smiles, like he can sense the direction of my thoughts. “Just to be clear: I’m not upset that Danny Ensbrook is dead. I’m upset that I did it with too many witnesses, and that I put as all at risk. I’d kill the world to save you, Bernadette.”

  My cheeks flush, and I look down, running my tongue over my lower lip.

  “I appreciate it,” I say, and even though our situation tonight is beyond fucked, I can’t help but like what he’s just said to me. Like I said, I’ve grown up in the dark, so I appreciate the shadows. His darkness is beautiful to me, like a night sky bereft of stars. The sun is just too bright, and it burns. I belong here, in eternal midnight.

  Cal reaches up and takes my other hand, giving it a squeeze as we snake through town toward Nurse Whitney’s house. He doesn’t let go until we pull up outside a modest two-bedroom with fresh paint and a Lexus in the driveway, a vehicle that’s certainly way above the paygrade for a school nurse of any kind, most especially one from Prescott High.

  Vic and Hael climb out, leaving me in the car with Aaron and Cal, and knock on the front door. Slowly, hesitantly, the door opens, and I can see a crack of light from inside. Nurse Yes-Scott was smart enough to leave the chain-lock in place, but surely, she must know that that won’t stop the Havoc Boys. If they want into her house, they’ll get in.

  Speak of the devil and he shall appear …

  Hael shoves his boot into the open door to keep Whitney from closing it. In the same breath, he hefts up a pair of bolt cutters that he’s holding by his side and snaps the lock in its sharp jaws. He shoves the door open and steps inside while Victor comes back to help us with Aaron. I’m fully prepared to get under one of Aaron’s arms and brace him until we get in the front door, but Vic just grabs his friend under the legs and around the waist and hoists him up into his arms.

  My brows go up as I watch Vic carry him toward the front door and up the few steps that lead to the porch. Aaron Fadler is no lightweight; he’s built and muscular, but Vic carries him like he weighs little to nothing at all, setting him gently down on Nurse Yes-Scott’s pretty yellow couch. Well, that’s ruined. I sneer at her as she stands nearby, wringing her hands.

  “He really should be at a hospital right now …” she says, sweat beading on her forehead. She’s dressed in a loose white t-shirt and lace-trimmed black silk shorts, clearly ready for bed. Her blond hair is piled in a messy bun on her head, her brown eyes flicking from Callum and his bloodied baseball bat to the boy moaning on her ruined sofa.

  “Not happening,” Vic says, standing up and turning to face her. “Do what you can do here and give me an assessment of where he’s at.”

  Nurse Yes-Scott swallows hard and then moves into a small bathroom off the main living area, grabbing some supplies, and coming to sit on the coffee table in front of Aaron. He’s shirtless now, so I can see his bruise, the wound in his arm, and the fresh, shiny blood that won’t stop coming.

  “I can clean this up, but he really needs a blood transfusion.”

  “Aaron’s O-positive,” Vic says, his voice like ice. “Where can we get some?”

  “Get some?” Whitney asks, turning to look at him like he’s lost his mind. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, where can we fucking get some?” Victor repeats, and Nurse Whitney goes completely pale. She knows what she’s done, what we did to Scott Vaughn, and she better believe we’ll burn this place to the ground if she doesn’t cooperate. My hands curl into fists at my sides as I stare at her, wishing I’d added her to the list, too. We haven’t had much in the way of personal interaction, but she’s a big part of Vaughn’s operation, tricking the poor girls of Prescott High into making her money off their own backs. “Can we rob an ambulance or something?”

  “A-ambulances don’t carry blood,” she whispers, biting her lower lip as she turns back to Aaron. “He needs a hospital—”

  “The hospital then,” Victor says, not skipping a beat. “What all do we need?”

  “You can’t be serious?” Whitney chokes as Vic passes over his phone, his expression a dark slice of hell.

  “Make me a list. Now. I really hate repeating myself.”

  Nurse Whitney grabs Vic’s phone and quickly types up a list of supplies before passing it back to him.

  “Let’s hit Joseph General,” Victor says, glancing over at Hael. “Security is much lighter, and the place gets tons of trauma patients; it’s a madhouse over there, so they don’t notice shit. Let’s grab some cash before we go. Might be easier to bribe somebody than it would be to just pinch it.” />
  “Got it,” Hael says, nodding as I gape at the two of them.

  “You can’t be serious?” I ask, looking between the boys. I'm torn between being worried and being pissed off. Glancing back at Aaron, I see his pallid expression and my heart seizes in my chest. He can't die on me, not when things are so … confusing between us. Putting my hands over my face, I drag them down and then give Victor a look that could kill.

  He smiles at me, but it isn't a nice smile.

  It's a smile nightmares are made of, and I hate how much I love that.

  At this point, I'm fairly certain we're soul mates. We must be, with how fucked-up we are. Put us together, and the fucked-up factor amplifies by about a hundred times. I put a finger up, pointing directly at Vic. He's the leader: Aaron is his responsibility.

  “Fine,” I start, poking him in the chest. “You let him die, and I'll cut your fucking balls off.” Nurse Whitney makes a small squeaking sound behind me, but I ignore her. She reaped the fruits of others’ suffering, of their labor, their sacrifice. She recruited girls for Principal Vaughn’s bullshit and reveled in that glory. I really should've added her to my list; Oscar was right.

  Vic snorts and grabs my hand, bringing my finger to his lips and sucking it between them in the lewdest possible way. Hael shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips, clearly annoyed with Vic and me and our weird shit.

  “If he dies, I'll sharpen the knife,” Victor says, dropping my hand, but I snatch his wrist before he can turn away, raising his dark brows my direction. “Yes, darling?”

  “Don't pull that darling shit on me,” I growl, yanking him close. He comes to me, but not because I actually have the strength to move him, but because we're drawn together. Because we're beautiful poison together. Perfect toxicity. “You and Hael come back to me. If either of you gets arrested …”

  “Yes, balls, knife, no Havoc babies.” Vic grabs me by the back of the hair with a punishing grip and crushes his lips to mine, taking down my walls with that lush mouth of his. “Don't worry: I'm not going to the hospital.” He lifts his head up and gestures in Hael's direction. “He is. I'm going to find out why none of our crew told us a goddamn pig was at the house.” Vic scowls as he pulls away, nodding at Callum as he passes.

  My eyes meet Cal’s blue ones, and I lick my lower lip.

  Aaron's body is broken; I'm worried about Callum's soul.

  “This is so crazy,” Whitney murmurs from behind me. I turn my head slowly as Vic and Hael slip out the door, just two shadows in the night. Whatever she sees on my face must scare the shit out of her because she stands up, leaving a pale-faced and groaning Aaron alone on the sofa.

  “What can we do to help him while we wait?” I ask, my voice a cold thread of steel. “Because if he dies here tonight, so do you.” Whitney's face pales and she takes another step back, looking at me like she's considering calling the cops and risking sending us all to jail, just to save her own ass. What she doesn't know or maybe just hasn't figured out, is that Callum isn’t going to let her get anywhere near a phone, a door, or a window. She's stuck here, for better or worse.

  “We need to elevate his legs and keep him warm,” she says, swallowing hard, stray strands of hair coming loose from her bun and sticking to her sweaty forehead. She's got full-on hooker makeup on her face, probably from some long-ago Halloween party. My throat tightens up as I think about the altercation in the fun house, of Danny aiming the gun at me, of Callum lifting the baseball bat.

  Fuck.

  “He could go into shock …” Whitney continues, giving Callum a wary look.

  But she needn't worry about him.

  If something happens to Aaron, I'll become her worst nightmare.

  “Fine. Get a warm rag, some blankets, pillows. Get him orange juice or something.” I bark out the orders, even though I have no clue what I'm doing. But somebody has to do something, so it may as well be me. Take him to a hospital, Bernadette. The rational part of my mind is screaming at me, but the other part, the darker part, is fully immersed in the world of Havoc.

  No cops, no hospitals.

  Aaron could lose his sisters. He could go to jail. We all could.

  We deal with this our way.

  “Did she stutter?” Callum asks, leaning casually against the wall, hands in the front pocket of his hoodie. His voice is pleasant enough, his expression serene, almost too calm, as he turns blue eyes over to Whitney, spurring her into action.

  I give Cal a look of thanks as I sit down on the edge of the sofa, sweeping Aaron's auburn hair back from his forehead. My throat feels tight, like there's a sob stuck in there somewhere that I'm just too stubborn—or perhaps just too broken—to let out.

  “He isn’t going to die,” Callum tells me, like he somehow knows this for certain. I look down at Aaron for several quiet moments, trying to commit his face to memory, the smooth line of his jaw, the tiny scar on his right earlobe. But then I realize I’m doing it and why I’m doing it, and I get furious all over again.

  “You can’t know that,” I growl, turning back to Callum and finding his eyes not on Aaron, but on me. We stare at each other for a long time before he finally speaks in that beautifully dark voice of his, like his vocal cords are shaped from the shadows of Halloween night.

  “He won’t go, not when there’s so much uncertainty between the two of you. He’s never stopped loving you, and he’s never had the chance to truly prove how sorry he is for the things that happened.” Cal pauses as Whitney comes back into the room, carrying a glass pitcher of orange juice and several glasses. He takes one from her and then looks her dead in the face. “Sit down at the kitchen table, and don’t try anything I might not like.” He taps the end of the bloodied baseball bat with the toe of his boot and her face pales even further, a feat I hadn’t considered possible.

  Callum brings me some juice, letting his fingers linger against mine for longer than is really necessary. Neither of us misses how much they shake, but we both know that emotional wounds can be dealt with later. Physical ones have an expiration date.

  I try my best to get Aaron to sip some juice, but he isn’t moving. Fuck, he’s barely breathing. After a while, I give up and drink it myself. The sugar rush goes straight to my head, giving my adrenaline-addled body the boost it needs. I set the glass down on the pristine surface of the coffee table, hoping it leaves a ring and ruins the furniture.

  “Happy Halloween,” I whisper to Aaron, leaning down to press my lips to the clammy skin of his forehead.

  I'm going to give Vic and Hael two hours, no more.

  And then, even if it costs me everything, I'm taking Aaron to a fucking hospital.

  If he dies, something inside of me will die with him, and there isn't that much left of me to give. I'm a tree with barren branches, one lone blossom clinging to a wooden wasteland. I will not let this part of my childhood go, no matter what the cost.

  Pretty sure the Havoc boys like to torture me. Must help them get off or something. It's quite literally two hours and three minutes into this nightmare before we hear back from Hael and Vic. There's a loud knock at the front door of Nurse Yes-Scott's house, a sound like a cop’s knock, the pounding of a frantic fist.

  Callum checks the peephole, and then wrenches it open, revealing a blood-spattered Hael Harbin.

  “What in the actual fuck?!” I shout, standing up as Hael steps inside, clutching a plastic grocery bag by his side. His face and chest are drenched in crimson, and he scowls as he swipes a hand over his full lips, smearing blood across his too-handsome features. His honey-brown eyes look wicked, surrounded by all of that crimson. I’m surprised by how scared I am for him. Little bit more than just a sidepiece, eh, Bernie? That’s when I know for certain that I’m well and truly screwed. Havoc has its claws in me, and it’s never letting go. I force my next words out through clenched teeth. “Are you okay?”

  I pray to every dark god I don’t believe in that it’s not his blood. How messed up is that? I want to hear that he
slit some asshole’s throat, that Hael isn’t hurt in any way, shape, or form.

  “I broke one of these fucking things,” he says, handing me the bag. When I glance down to see what's inside, I find several sealed bags of blood and some clear bags of saline, among other things. My stomach turns as I lift my head to look at him. “Ran into trouble on my way back. Mitch is on the warpath tonight; our boys are even starting to refer to his goons as the Charter Crew.” He shakes his head and drags his arm over his mouth again, flicking the blood onto Whitney’s perfect white walls as I pass the bag to her.

  She looks into it, face paling, before lifting her brown eyes up to Hael's bloodied face.

  “How did you get this?” she whispers, but Hael just laughs. He's not going to answer her. She should know better than to speak to us like we're anything but her captors.

  “Never you mind that, sugar tits,” he says, lighting up a cigarette with shaking hands. Hael might look like a cocky asshole right now, but he's as afraid for Aaron as I am. I flick my attention back to him as Nurse Yes-Scott starts to set up a blood transfusion, right there in her Pottery Barn-inspired living room. Fitting, I think, since everything in here was paid for with blood money. “Use some of your wasted medical knowledge on fixing up our friend.”

  “I'm not a surgeon,” Whitney begins, but the look she gets from Hael clearly relays the fact that we give zero fucks. “But I'll … I'll try.”

  “Try really fucking hard,” Hael warns as Callum closes the door behind him, and Hael strips off his shirt, using it to scrub the blood from his skin. If this were any other moment, I’d most definitely appreciate his crimson-covered chest. “Vic'll be back soon. Doubtful you want to hear what he'll say if you screw this up.”