“Remember to stay human,” he warns me, and then he reaches down to grab my hand, pulling me down the hall to my classroom.
After school, I step outside to find the Thing’s police cruiser waiting across the street from Prescott High.
My mouth goes dry and my palms fill with sweat. For a moment there, I’m eleven years old all over again, peering around the corner of the kitchen as Neil palms my older sister’s budding breasts and then laughs.
“What on earth is he doing here?” Oscar asks, and I blink, coming to like I’ve just woken from a coma. I glance his way to find him frowning, his iPad tucked under his arm, purple silk tie smooth and wrinkle free.
“You think Vaughn called him?” Callum asks, cocking his head to one side, hood up to hide his scars. The way he looks at that police cruiser, I can only imagine the violent slideshow that must be playing in his head. The weirdest part about it all, is that he smiles while he’s imagining it.
“There are no outgoing calls from Vaughn’s phone,” Oscar says, checking his iPad. He must’ve installed spyware on Scott’s phone while I was severing his fingertips. What a dreadful team we make. “So, likely not.”
“Kali?” I wonder, because I’ll admit, it seems a bit overdue for her to come at me with some level of retaliation for what I did to her face. The fire-bombing was a nice touch, but not personal enough for her liking. While some people play in tropes and clichés, she likes to steal personal experiences and twist them into dark, ugly things. Like … how she ruined my homecoming for example. Or how she asked the boys to convince horse-faced Kaydence Mane to kick my ass for no reason at all.
It’s been a month, and we still don’t know why she was with Neil on Halloween.
His motivations I understood perfectly: I’m watching you, Bernadette, and I’m coming for you.
But Kali’s? And what’s up with her dating Mitch, but hanging out with some guy at Oak Park Prep? Shit, she has as many possible fathers for this future baby as I might’ve had for mine, had I been pregnant, too.
Speaking of …
Hael comes out the front doors of Prescott High, his mouth turned down in a sharp frown. He’s still pretty, with that red hair of his, those honeyed eyes, his ass encased in tight denim. He’s got a goddamn bubble butt, too, and he knows it, the way he swaggers around town.
“Aw, come the fuck on,” he groans, gesturing at Neil’s car with a tattooed hand. “I’ve got to deal with Brittany tomorrow, and now this? When do we get a trip to Hawaii, huh Vic? We work hard here in South Prescott.” Victor steps out beside his best friend, his emotions locked away behind a stoic face, as always.
“There’s no rest for the wicked, Hael,” I tell him, quoting Oscar. The dickhead in question glances my way, but I return his stoic look with one of my own.
Aaron is the last to appear, pausing with his arm brushed up against mine. It’s meant to seem like coincidence, but I can feel the sharp intention in the move. So can Vic. He looks at his friend for a long moment before turning back to the idling cop car.
“What the fuck is that about?” Vic asks, cigarette hanging limply from his lips. “Is he stupid or something?”
A shiver crawls down my spine as I shake my head.
“No. He’s watching us,” I explain as the car starts to roll slowly down the road, turning the corner and disappearing from sight. “He’s waiting.”
“Let him,” Hael says, cracking his knuckles and glancing over at Vic. “Because we have something planned for him.” He flashes teeth at me. “And soon, something soon.”
“I sure as shit hope so,” I murmur. “Because if he’s here, then he’s looking to start something soon, too.”
And I don’t like that. I don’t like it at all.
Hael is under the hood of the Eldorado when I walk into his garage on Tuesday, pausing near the open door to lean my shoulder up against the jamb. He doesn’t notice me at first, music trickling from his phone, the sound of metal on metal ringing pleasantly around the small space as he tinkers around with the Caddy.
Fortunately, his mom isn’t home or else I wouldn’t have stopped by without asking. She seems to be a pretty sore subject for him, and I don’t want to stir the pot—especially since today is the day we get the results of Brittany’s DNA test. My teeth clench as I think of her weepy face and all the bullshit that spews from her lips. Maybe dousing her in her own pumpkin spiced latte wasn’t the best idea, but I don’t give a crap.
Hael is mine now. Period. Baby or no baby.
I’ve made up my mind for good.
I lick my lips and shift nervously as Hael slides out from under the hood, shirtless and covered in grease. My heart stutters when I see him sit up, raking dirty fingers through his red hair. When he spots me, he smiles in the most infuriating way possible. Cocksure asshole, I think as he stands up, the muscles in his abs and chest rippling with the movement.
The baby can’t be his; it just can’t be.
“Hey, Blackbird,” he says, his voice this melodic purr that’s so at odds with his filthy appearance. I pretend like I don’t give a fuck that he’s shirtless and covered in grease, that I don’t want those dirty hands leaving dark handprints on my jeans. It’s a lie. “Didn’t expect to see you here today. What’s up?”
“Well,” I reply, studying the metal shit heap that’s supposed to be my future car. “We figured you might want company when you get the news.” I shrug my shoulders, like it’s no big thing. In reality, my stomach is in knots.
“Ah,” he murmurs, grabbing a rag and coming over to stand beside me. The smell of coconut oil is unmistakable, and my nostrils flare as I take it in. Mix that with a bit of motor oil and some fresh sweat, and I’m sold. A single drop slides down his stomach, falling into the valley between his abs. Jesus. This boy was born to make me wet. That, or maybe I’m just a thirsty bitch. Who knows? “Right. That. I was about to head inside and get dressed.” Hael glances over my shoulder toward the street, where Aaron is waiting with the Bronco, Vic with the Harley.
I flick my eyes up to Hael’s face, realizing that I haven’t heard a single word he’s just said.
“Miss Blackbird,” he murmurs, stepping close and putting his palm on the wall beside my head. “Were you just checking me out?” He’s smiling, but there’s something more to his expression, something darker and far less pleasant.
It’s because of the Brittany thing; of course it is.
Not a soul on this earth could smile knowing what’s at stake, not sincerely.
“I might’ve been,” I say, putting my fingers on his bare lower belly and savoring the hot sweaty slickness of his muscles. “But that’s only because I’m so damn confident that it isn’t going to be your kid.”
Hael shoots me a grin, but the expression doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“That confident, huh? You want to make another bet? If the baby’s mine, you owe me another blow job at a time and place of my choosing. If it isn’t, I’ll owe you some, uh …” He makes a ‘V’ shape with his fingers and flicks his tongue between them to indicate cunnilingus and then laughs.
“Sounds a bit like a win-win for you,” I quip, even though my stomach hurts, and I’m afraid. I’m so afraid. I don’t want Hael to be connected to Brittany through a child. If he is, then I can never truly just have him to myself. He’ll be a dad; he’ll have responsibilities.
And that’s the allure of Hael Harbin, isn’t it? How free and wild and wicked he is?
“The oral sex part is,” he agrees, but the playfulness is already draining out of him as he checks the time on his phone and sighs. “Not so much the rest of it. Wait here for me?” I nod as Hael slips into the house to change. When he comes back, he’s still wearing the dirty grease-stained jeans, but he’s got on a fresh red tee.
And damn if he doesn’t melt the panties right off me.
“Let’s go, Blackbird,” he says, breezing past and tossing his keys in the air as he walks. “You can ride with me.”
Ha
el leads our caravan of vehicles to a coffee shop—not the one where we got in a fight with the Fuller football team—and parks crookedly across two spaces. After he turns the engine off, he just sits there with his hands on the wheel, staring down at it like he’s trying to get up the courage to go inside.
Brittany is already in there, waiting at a table near the window. As soon as she turns and sees me in the Camaro with Hael, her face flushes with angry heat and she slams her coffee mug down, splashing liquid everywhere.
“Hey,” I whisper, reaching out to lay my fingers atop Hael’s. He lifts his face finally to look my direction, all of his false bravado and cocky bullshit stripped bare. To be fair, I like all of that cocky bullshit, but this … this is intense. I want to see more of Hael without his mask and his flair and his sex appeal hiding what he’s truly feeling. “We can do this. No matter what happens, we’ll figure it out.”
“Looking at her now, can you tell?” he asks me, and I glance back to find Brittany staring at me like she’s got murder on the mind. “Like, does she look upset or …?”
“She looks furious, to be quite honest,” I reply, and he grins.
“Good.”
Finally, he takes his hands off the wheel and we get out together, meeting the other boys just inside the front doors of the coffee shop.
“Why are they all here?” Brittany demands, looking past Hael to glare at the other boys—but mostly me. “This is a private matter between us, Hael.”
“Eh,” he says, giving a loose shrug of his shoulders. “You sort of called Havoc in order to get me to play along, so it’s really more of an all of us issue.” He pauses for a moment and then cocks his head to one side. “So, you gonna tell me or not? I’m guessing since you haven’t thrown yourself at me with tears of joy running down your face, that it’s not my kid?”
Brittany pauses for a moment, swallowing hard, eyes flicking to Oscar as he fires up his iPad like one might discharge a weapon.
“If you lie to me, I will know,” he says, without even looking up from the screen. I have no doubt that the boys will find a way to verify the results of the test from a means other than Brittany herself.
“Hael, please …” she whines, and his attention snaps over to her in a way I’ve rarely seen before. The predator in him is coming out, and he is pissed.
“You made a deal, Brittany. We’ve done everything you asked on our end. I’ve taken you to the movies, to the mall, out to dinner. Our boys beat Rich up; I got beat up by your shitty dad. Tell me the fucking results now.”
She stares at him, eyes watering in a way that makes me realize that she really and truly loved him. Still does. The baby isn’t even important to her. That’s not what this was about, not ever.
It was about Hael and how much she craved him.
My stomach flips, and I exhale sharply.
“This isn’t fair,” Brittany says, burying her face in her hands and letting out a deep sob that draws the eyes of everyone else inside the building. “It’s just not fair. You were mine. You were fucking mine.” Her shoulders shake as I exchange a look with Aaron.
“We should go, maybe,” he says, because we already know the answer to our query, even if Brittany refuses to say it outright.
The baby … is not Hael’s.
But also, this moment is personal and sad and weird, and I just want to get the fuck out of there.
“I’ll stay for a bit,” he says, tucking his fingers into the front pockets of his dirty jeans. Brittany sniffles and lifts her head up to look at him, but when she reaches out to touch him, he moves back. “Hands to yourself and we can talk. Otherwise, I’m out of here and you will never see me again.”
It hits me then that Hael—despite the things he does in Havoc’s name—is actually sort of … nice.
Oscar seems to realize this, too, and scowls like he’s a disappointment.
“What a fucking relief,” Victor murmurs, exchanging a look with Callum. “Not our baby, not our problem. Let’s roll. Hael, meet us back at the house in twenty? We have wedding shit to plan today. You can be my best man as long as long as Callum is Bernie’s maid of honor.”
“Just so long as I don’t have to wear a dress,” Cal quips, giving a dark anti-smile. “They don’t suit my frame very well.”
“This isn’t a joke!” Brittany screams, but she just sounds reedy and desperate.
We ignore her, turning right back around to head outside. Just … not before I put my hands on Hael’s massive bicep and rise onto my tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth.
“You owe me oral sex now, too,” I whisper, just loud enough for Brittany to overhear. Hael grins at me as I drop back to my feet and follow the other boys outside.
As soon as I’m situated safely inside the Bronco, I just throw my head back and laugh, and I don’t stop until we get back to Aaron’s place.
Two years earlier …
Hael Harbin
I cannot, for the life of me, understand how Batman sleeps at night. He holds the power to kill the bad guys, but yet … he lets them go. Every. Fucking. Time.
That’s my problem, right? Like, I go home, and I lay my head down on that goddamn pillow, and I can’t stop thinking about Bernadette Blackbird.
Sure, my friends and I have been into her since she showed up at our inner-city elementary school, quiet and reserved and too pretty for South Prescott. The other children didn’t like her because when she first started going to school with us, her clothes were too nice, her hair plaited, like a little doll.
The thing is, while they saw all of that and thought of wealth and snobby Oak Park assholes, we watched Bernadette morph from a doll into a statue. Day after day, the same clothes. Her hair got wilder and more knotted, her shoes worn.
For years, we watched her dip lower and lower into poverty and pain, and we felt powerless.
The only thing we could agree on was that none of us could ever have her. Because as much as we loved Bernadette, we always loved each other, too. She could destroy us from the inside out and we knew that, even at a young age.
Thinking back on it, I’m like, what the fuck, bro? Destroy us from the inside out? Huh? How? By being the perfect Havoc Girl? By fitting in and getting along with five fucked-up misfits that barely belong in society?
No way.
The only reason Bernadette couldn’t be one of us at first, was because we were all selfish.
Well, not today, Satan.
My hand squeezes around the handle of the knife. We have guns, Havoc does. I mean, we didn’t used to, but things are changing. We’ve morphed from a kiddie gang ruling a high school into something else, something sinister and wicked and black.
“You can do this, Hael,” I tell myself, waiting for the front door of a particular motel room to open, for Neil Pence to step out. Once he gets down the steps, I can move out of the shadows, wrap my arm around his neck, and drag him into the trees at the edge of the park.
I can kill him.
Quietly. Painfully. Cover my hands in blood for Bernadette.
My entire life I’ve watched my father beat on my mother, use her as a punching bag for his drunken nights and his jobless days. There’s nothing I hate more than a man who chooses to treat a girl in his family with disrespect.
Nothing.
Besides, I’ve turned into something strange, a whore who can’t stop fucking, who doesn’t know what to do with his feelings, or how to help anyone. This is the least I can do, really. Dad is still in prison and, god-willing, he’ll stay there. Mom is safe, at least for now. I mean, if the parole board doesn’t jam their heads up their own asses and decide to let him free.
I lick my lips, adjusting my grip on the knife. Neil Pence is out here, fucking a prostitute who looks about the same age as Bernie. Blonde hair, big tits, curvy. I should kill him just for that.
Mostly, I’m killing him because I’d do anything to make sure that Bernie makes it to adulthood without falling into the hands of a predator.
&n
bsp; That’s all I want. I’ve got simple needs, you know. I’m easy to please.
Something in the darkness draws my attention, and I shove to my feet, spinning around and swinging the knife in an arc at my would-be attacker. Fortunately for me, the person coming at me is just as good as I am and manages to miss having his throat split open from ear to ear.
I would never forgive myself if I killed Aaron Fadler.
“Dude, what are you doing here?” he asks me, sounding tired. We’ve stopped chasing Bernadette around, sure, but it’s impossible to miss her when she steps foot on campus every morning.
Her sister is dead; she looks broken.
I drop the knife to my side as Aaron studies me, waiting for an explanation of some sort.
“You know what I’m doing here,” I retort, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that Neil hasn’t left the motel yet. All seems quiet on the Western front. I look back at Aaron, and in his eyes, I see a reflection of my wants and needs.
“We followed you,” Aaron adds, stepping back to lean against a tree. He looks like a strong wind might blow him over. I slip the knife—the very same one my dad used to cut me once upon a time—back in its leather holder and then tuck the whole thing in my pocket, so I can cross my arms. “They’re all here, around the corner.” He pauses and looks away. “Waiting for me to bring you back.”
“Is this an order from Vic?” I ask, not even sure why I’m bothering. I know the answer to that.
“You know it is.” Aaron looks up, meeting my eyes just as I hear the door swing open and look back to see Neil swagger down the upstairs walk toward the stairs. Fuck. I look back at my friend. “Bernadette is a part of us, but so you are. Havoc has to look out for every member, not just Bernie. You going to prison for life for stabbing a cop doesn’t do anyone any good. Pamela will still have Bernadette, she’ll still be trapped by Heather, by Heather’s grandfather and uncle …”
Chaos at Prescott High Page 32
