Chaos at Prescott High

by Stunich, C. M.

  Oscar snorts at me.

  “The only thing that bothers me is the way Vic lets you get away with every little bullshit thing you do,” he says, frowning at me. “You're a weak link in our chain. And despite what you feel about me, it's my job to keep Havoc running smoothly. I don't like speedbumps, Bernadette, and that's what you are. You slow the whole operation down.”

  “Maybe you're just jealous?” I spit back, taking a step away from him and his shiny loafers. He looks so … out of place here. Even with all that ink. There's just something about Oscar that's next level. I wish I knew a little more about his home life, so I could get some understanding about what makes him tick. “Maybe you care so much about Vic's cock because you wish he'd shove it right up your tight, little ass?”

  Oscar just smiles back at me in a placating sort of way. I pretend like it doesn't piss me off, all of that cucumber cool of his, but it does. It enrages me.

  “Maybe,” he says, turning to head back the way he came—which most definitely is not to class. Instead, he pushes open the double doors that lead to the rear courtyard. “I'll see you after school on Wednesday,” he calls out as he slips through the doors.

  “What's happening on Wednesday?” I call out, but he either doesn't hear me or chooses to ignore me, leaving me alone in the beautiful urban decay that is Prescott High.

  “How have your dates with Brittany been?” I ask Hael, glancing over at him as he grips the steering wheel of the Camaro in tight fingers. I've barely seen him since Friday, and it just pisses me all the way off that he's with Brittany when he should rightfully be with … well, Havoc. I mean, he's the first fucking letter in the acronym, right?

  “How do you think? A living hell,” he snaps, swiping a hand down his face as I raise my brows. “Sorry, Blackbird. I don't mean to snap, but I just … I didn't see my senior year being about doctor's visits and cribs and car seats. She wants us to talk to her dad on Friday, too, so there's a good chance I'll be attending my own funeral before the birth of my kid.”

  “If it's your kid,” I add, but maybe that's for my own benefit because Hael doesn't seem particularly optimistic. He scowls, and I have to wonder what Brittany told him about the other possible father. He hasn't said anything, but I figure he's just been gearing up for it.

  “Listen to you complaining,” Callum says with a grin, leaning between the two front seats with his hood down for once, golden hair shining in the sun. Like a poisonous spider with a brightly colored exoskeleton, warning off potential predators. “If you didn't want senior year to include a baby, and all the stuff that goes with it, you could've held back on the sex.”

  Hael grits his teeth as we wait for Oscar and Aaron. With the minivan out of commission, we're a little short on rides around here.

  “It's so easy to say that now,” Hael growls out, revving the engine and then sighing dramatically. He glances my way, almost apologetically. “Besides, I used condoms every. fucking. time. There's no reason this should've happened.”

  I keep my arms crossed over my chest, my attention focused on his beautiful face. I'm not sure that there's ever been a man quite so pretty, yet handsome at the same time. I've been lusting after him for years, but now that he's within my grasp, he suddenly feels even further away. Even if it his kid, that doesn't mean you can't—

  Ugh.

  I’m as addicted to these assholes as Pamela is to being a cunt. It’s impossible for me to stop, to resist, to pull back.

  “What are we up to today?” I ask, spotting Aaron and Oscar across the street.

  The expression on Hael's face softens slightly, and he adjusts his hands on the wheel, flashing the HAVOC tattoo on his knuckles.

  “Today's a good day,” Hael says, nodding his head briefly. “I shouldn't be harping around Brittany, and all that shit. Today isn't about me.”

  “Then who's it about?” I ask as Hael opens his door and climbs out to let the others in. He pauses briefly to peep in at me, lifting a reddish-brown brow.

  “You, babe. You.”

  Hael moves out of the way, leaving Aaron and Oscar to squeeze into the backseat with Callum. They're all fucking huge, so the effect is somewhat like a clown car.

  “You guys looking ridiculous,” I crow, trying to hold back a grin. I wonder briefly why I'm not with Vic, sitting on the back of his Harley. That'd free up another seat and make things way more comfortable. Unfortunately, he's nowhere to be seen, so we're going to have to make do.

  My guess: he’s still furious about me fucking Aaron.

  Speaking of …

  I don’t look over my shoulder at my ex. Shit, I don’t even know if I’d really call him an ex anymore. The sex was … explosive. I’d been expecting good, nostalgic, comfortable. Aaron Fadler could give Vic and a Hael a run for their money.

  “Don’t get started on that whiny crap,” Oscar says, and I spin around to glare at him as Hael revs the Camaro’s engine like he’s fucking her.

  “Goddamn, that’s beautiful,” he murmurs, giving his crotch a squeeze and winking at me as I glance his way. But then we take off and I turn back to berate Oscar for being a prick.

  Oscar’s not looking at me though, his attention focused on Aaron as he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the seat.

  Ah.

  I’d almost forgotten that he was claustrophobic. It’s apparent now that Oscar’s quip was meant to shame him. Doesn’t make me any less angry, but more so.

  “Oscar, do you masturbate by sticking a razor-coated dildo up your ass every morning? Because you sure as shit act like it.” I reach back to touch Aaron’s hand and he cracks both a smile and a single eyelid, so that he can look at me.

  “I even use the blood as lube,” Oscar responds smoothly, looking down at a spreadsheet on his iPad. I’m impressed by the quick clapback actually, but I still feel bad for Aaron.

  “How long is this drive anyway?” I ask, because I have no clue where we’re going. Realistically, for most girls, you’d have to be a brain-dead idiot to get in a car and start driving with four guys to an unknown destination. This, though, this is different. Like I said, nothing about this is normal.

  “Fifteen minutes at most,” Cal answers, tucking a knee up against his chest and leaning his chin on it. He watches me from sky-colored eyes. “We’re taking you to the garage.”

  “The garage?” I start, before the pieces of this puzzle finally click together. “Like … for cars?”

  “As if there were any other kind,” Oscar murmurs, and I dig my nails into the back of my seat to keep from punching him. Instead, I focus on the spreadsheet he’s playing with and see that it’s a list of people.

  My list of people.

  By first and last name.

  My eyes widen as Oscar flicks his gray gaze to me. He doesn’t care that I’m looking. Actually, I’m pretty sure he wants me to see it.

  The first column of that spreadsheet holds names like Neil Pence down its vertical length, followed by rows of numbers. At the top of each column, there are acronyms that I don’t understand.

  “Curious as a kitty cat?” Oscar quips as Hael throws us around curves in the road like he’s got something to prove. He rolls his window down to let the air ruffle his red hair, and just laughs. Okay, nope, I was wrong. He isn’t proving anything: he’s just in love with the road. “Do you want to know what this column is for?”

  Even though I know Oscar is baiting me, I bite. Why the hell not?

  “What?” I ask as he leans forward and gets in my face, glasses shining with a stray shaft of sunlight.

  “These are my calculations for risk. That is, how likely is it that we’d be caught if we murdered the person in question.” My eyes widen, flicking back down to the spreadsheet to read the numbers. I barely get a chance to see anything before Oscar is shutting off the screen and tucking it away. He weaves his fingers together around the knee of his crossed leg and stares back at me in challenge, daring me to beg.

  I’d rather die.
/>   But at least I saw one thing of interest: Eric Kushner’s column for risk … was only three percent.

  Uh-oh.

  I’d sure as shit hate to be him right now.

  When we arrive at the garage, Victor is waiting, sitting on the hood of some rusty junker without wheels. It looks like it hasn't been in service for, like, decades.

  “What the hell is this?” I ask when I climb out, pausing at the end of the grease-soaked driveway and looking around. Off to one side, there's a row of pretty vintage cars, their paint shiny and fresh, their interiors sleek and freshly remodeled.

  “Our garage,” Vic says with a shrug of his big shoulders. He hops off the hood of the car and parks a cigarette between his lips, talking around it as he cups the end and lights up.

  “By our, you mean …”

  “Havoc's garage,” Oscar says, pausing beside me with his mouth in a thin line. “We collect junkers and flip them for profit.”

  “You mean I collect junkers and flip them for profit,” Hael says, moving over to stand beside the rusty piece of shit that's propped up by cinder blocks. He taps the side of the car and flashes one of his shit-eating grins at me. “And this one right here, Blackbird, this is for you, baby.”

  I lift a brow and then glance over at the baby pink convertible on my left that matches my leather jacket.

  “That …” I start, pointing at the rusted crap-heap. “That's my car? Why can't I have one of those?” I switch my finger over from the junker to the classic beauties on my left. “I'll give you a hint: one of these makes me wet, and the other turns this cooch into the Sahara Desert.”

  Hael howls with laughter, and Vic grins as Callum hops up onto the hood of the pink convertible.

  “Those cars are already marked for sale,” Oscar says, glancing down at his goddamn iPad again. Sometimes I want to tear it from his hand and smash him in the face with it. Fairly sure at this point that he's married to the damn thing.

  “Besides,” Vic says, gesturing with his chin in Hael's direction. “He picked this one out for you, all special and shit. You want to tell her about it, Hael?”

  I cross my arms over my chest as Hael walks around the junker, whistling under his breath like he's checking out a particularly beautiful woman.

  “Well, my dear Miss Blackbird,” he says, grabbing onto the trunk and pretending to fuck the crap out of the car's trunk. I'm not amused. I raise a brow at him, waiting for an explanation.

  “I'm sure you think having your semen splattered across the trunk of the car makes it more valuable, but to be quite honest, I'm not buying it. Explain, or I'll start to think you don't like me.”

  “This,” Hael begins, flashing a sharp smile. “Is a ‘57 Cadillac Eldorado.”

  He pauses for dramatic effect, but since I don't know shit about cars, I just stand there, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Hael sighs and comes back around to stand next to Vic.

  “Do you know what one of these things is worth fully restored?” he asks me, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He makes a nice complement to Victor, I must say, like they're two halves of the same deal. Like, maybe, if I were really lucky, I could have them both.

  “I have no clue. Enlighten me,” I say dryly and Aaron smiles, scrubbing his hand over his chin. He likes seeing me saucy, even if he doesn't care to admit it.

  “Girl, come on,” Hael says, throwing up his arms in mock frustration. “You impressed me on that first day, when you came sauntering up to us in your leather pants, all sexy and saucy, with that pretty mouth of yours, talking about my baby's grille.” He gestures in the direction of the Camaro, and then moves over to stand in front of me, hooking his thumbs into the belt loops on my leather pants.

  “Say pretty mouth again and see what happens,” I quip, smiling at him. I pretend like I don't enjoy having his hot, tattooed body pressed up against me, but you know, I'm not a complete and total hard-ass.

  “I stand corrected: a pretty mouth with an acerbic tongue, and teeth that'd just as easily bite off a dick as suck it. Better?” I cock a brow, and he nods, continuing. “Well, cranky Miss Blackbird, listen to this: a ‘57 Caddy Eldorado is worth a hundred and fifty grand when it's fully restored.”

  “When it's fully restored,” I correct, peeking around him at the heap of trash propped up on the driveway. We're in a seedy part of town, not far from Billie's trailer. I wouldn't want to be caught alone out here after dark. Not without a gun, I mean. Or a knife. I could probably handle myself with a knife. “It doesn't even look salvageable to me.”

  “Yeah, well,” Hael says, like the cocky motherfucker he is. He runs his tongue over his lower lip and steps back, walking backward until he gets to the side door of the garage. Hael kicks it open with his boot without even bothering to turn around, and then steps back, holding out a hand to beckon me forward. “You've never had the services of Hael Harbin at your beck and call, now have you?” I step up to the doorway and look aside, finding several other half-eaten rust heaps stacked inside the room. “Between all of these, I've got the parts I need to make this shit happen. I'll even let you pick the paint colors.”

  I look at him, skepticism riding me hot and hard. I can't figure why the boys would give me a car, when neither Callum nor Oscar ever had one. And now, Aaron doesn't have one either when he needs it most.

  “Why don't Cal and Oscar have their own cars?” I ask, truly curious. But even though I don't mean to, my voice is thick with disbelief and suspicion. Nothing good ever comes for free. Fucking nothing. I'm under no illusion that I'm a goddess to these boys—these men. Victor might be into me, Aaron maybe even loves me still, but I've seen what they can do, how easily I can be thrown away. That, and I'm still pissed about the video. There was a breach of trust there, and it's not something I'm going to get over easily.

  “I totaled my last car,” Callum says with a shrug of his shoulders, pulling out a packet of salted almonds from his pocket and pouring them into his palm. “Got my license taken away. We pull enough illegal shit without bringing the cops’ attention to me on a technicality.”

  “I have no interest in owning a car,” Oscar explains, completely deadpan. “If I wanted to waste my time playing chauffeur, I’d have been born as Hael Harbin.” He tucks the iPad under his arm and gives me a look. “Trust me: if it were up to me, I wouldn't give you such a nice car. Hael has enough to do without spending hours every day under a hood.”

  “Who fixes these up then?” I ask, pointing at the other cars.

  “I consult; we have people who do the grunt work,” Hael says, moving back over to the shell of a vehicle that's supposed to be mine. He taps the side again, caressing it with tattooed hands like an adoring lover. “But not on this one. I'm going to have everything I need towed to my place, so I can work on it on the regular.”

  “But why?” I repeat, genuinely curious. I can't for the life of me understand why they'd do this for me, not without getting something in return. And trust me: I've been giving them the one thing I thought they truly wanted. Unfortunately, they're going to keep playing the mysterious card on me, and I'm not going to learn shit now am I?

  “It doesn't matter why,” Vic says, going back to being an asshole. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, Bernadette?” He drags my full name across his tongue like it’s poison.

  I ignore the entitled fucker.

  “What about Aaron?” I ask, thinking of the girls. I’m not about to accept a car when his got freaking fire-bombed—and likely because of what I did to Kali’s face.

  “We’ve already selected one for him,” Vic adds, pulling a pair of keys from his pocket and tossing them to Aaron. “Happy early birthday from the rest of us assholes.”

  “Hint,” Callum starts, hopping down off the hood of the car he’s standing on and pointing down the row of vehicles. “It’s the Bronco.”

  “It’s a ’96. Highly desirable. Already a classic. The value on these rises every year,” Hael expl
ains, so euphoric sounding that if I didn’t know better, I’d think he were rubbing one out over there.

  Aaron studies the white SUV with a slight smile.

  “What about our other gift?” Aaron asks, looking from me to Vic and back again. “For Bernadette, I mean. Are we really doing that here?”

  “Oh, we're doing it now,” Vic says, reaching into a bag on the ground beside him and pulling out a box of latex gloves and a tattoo machine before he turns his attention to me, lifting the items up for emphasis. “Get ready, Bernie, because you're about to get your Havoc tat.”

  “Officially becoming one of us,” Callum adds, grinning as he stuffs almonds into his mouth and flashes a monster's smile. It's scary, how pretty he is but how dangerous. I never expected I'd see him kill a boy though, not now, not ever.

  Much to my surprise, Victor ends up handing the tattoo machine over to Aaron, of all people. One of my brows goes up.

  “Last person to join tattoos the newbie,” Vic says with a grin, tossing Aaron a pair of the black gloves. “Hope you've been practicing.” My eyes find the letters inked into Victor's knuckles, the lines blown-out and ragged. It adds to his attractiveness though, adding a hint of danger to an already sharp appearance. My attention slides to Oscar and Hael next. I'm not sure who the true second-in-command is, but one look at their knuckles and I can take a guess. Hael's work is fine-pointed and exact while Oscar's is more utilitarian. Oscar then, had to be second. I would recognize Vic's work anywhere.

  I look up at Aaron as he fingers the silver machine in his hand, his gold-green eyes contemplative as he studies it with an expression somewhere between resignation and fear. When he looks back over at me, I can tell he's conflicted.

  If he does this, it might be too late. I might never escape.

  Little does he know: I don't want to.

  “Are you sure?” Aaron asks, as if he or I have some choice in the matter. We look at each other, and it's as if the rest of the world falls away. The smell of grease from the open garage, Hael's coconut oil, Callum's cinnamon-sugar almonds. Oscar's intense scrutiny, Vic's unrelenting stare. Aaron takes another step toward me, putting the toes of our shoes together. “I mean, do you want me to do this for you?”