Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys Book 5)

by C. M. Stunich

  She quickly learned that life is at its best unfair and at its worst perversely cruel.

  Her dreams became nightmares, nightmares made of monsters new and old.

  And so she summoned them, her five dark horsemen, to wreak havoc and sow chaos, to twist mayhem and denote anarchy, to declare victory over every wicked, ugly thing she’d ever seen.

  They came to her, those horsemen, and in return for their vile vengeance, they took her heart and held it in their inked hands. They claimed her flesh with carnal delight, but it was her soul that they craved most of all. And to them, she gave it freely and without restraint.

  “Your brilliance is a jewel in a wasteland of a world,” Oscar tells me, snapping my reverie, making my heart race. I throw my arms around his neck, and he shudders. But not in the way he used to, when my every touch made him remember the worst parts of his childhood, but in the way of lovers well-familiar with each other’s bodies, in the way two soul mates find comfort in one another.

  Because that’s what they are, all five of them: soul mates.

  That is, if you believe in that kind of thing.

  We head upstairs together, shedding clothes, ten worshipful hands caressing my body. When I fall into bed, I fall into it with five beautiful monsters. Five beautifully broken Havoc Boys turned men. We kiss; we fuck; we meld.

  That’s how I get my happily ever after, wrapped up in ink and bullshit. Wrapped up in motherfucking Havoc.

  Confucius says dig two graves before embarking on a journey of revenge.

  I guess he was right.

  When you go seeking revenge, some small part of you will die a death … someway, somehow. But from the ashes of that, something new will rise, something different, something better.

  “When you’ve been lied to by everyone around you, when you have nothing else, you realize the one currency you can carry is truth. So a single word does have meaning. A promise does hold importance. And a pact is worth carrying to the grave.”

  There are two sides to every story, but usually, only one of them is true. I’ve given you my truth, written my words, told you my tale. It’s up to you to decide what to do it with it.

  The world is built of stories, crafted of pain, outlined with beauty; every story deserves to be heard.

  This one, this one is mine.

  There’s one word you don’t utter at Prescott High, not unless you want them to own you.

  H.A.V.O.C.

  Hael, Aaron, Victor, Oscar, Callum.

  And of course, Bernadette.

  Cry ‘Havoc’ and set us loose, baby.

  Blood in, blood out.

  The End

  Dear Reader

  Wow. Did that seriously just happen? I’m still reeling from everything Bernadette and the Havoc Boys have been through, but I’m also so, so glad to see them get the ending they always deserved. This was the longest and most difficult book I’ve ever written. At around 170,000 words, it’s the size of two normal novels stitched together, but oh so worth it.

  I’m already missing these characters and looking forward to a few short stories about their future that I’ve got planned … For now, let’s leave them be to enjoy the fruits of their labors. If you’re craving more, more, more then I highly suggest starting “I Was Born Ruined”, the first book in another series of mine, one that’s similar to Havoc in so many ways. Only, our leading lady Gidget isn’t quite as hopeful as Bernadette but just as badass. And her men? Well, they’re even bigger assholes. This is the next series I’ll be finishing up!

  If you’d like to see more high school romance and drama from me, check out “Flithy Rich Boys” (the first in a completed series), “Devils’ Day Party” (a complete stand-alone novel), or “The Secret Girl” (the first in another completed series). For fantasy, give “Allison’s Adventures in Underland” (also complete) a try.

  For now, I want to thank you so much for reading this series. It was extremely personal and born out of some painful events in my own life. Just knowing that you were here to follow on the journey with me makes every drop of blood, sweat, and tears that went into this series worth it.

  See you in the next world, dearest reader!

  Love, Caitlin aka C.M. Stunich

  Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club, Book #1

  I'm the princess to a dirty throne of motorcycles and madness, daughter of the president of the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club. My father's four closest officers; men dressed in blood and death and sin; they're my honor guard, cloaked in leather vests and tattoos. Only, there's nothing honorable about them at all.

  Flip the page for an excerpt of chapter one.

  Chapter One

  My first memory is of feeling protected, safe. Even now, the scent of leather and motor oil calms my nerves, the roar of an engine a siren song that I can't resist. For years, I lived under the blanket of a lie, knowing that there were people out there who would protect me, no matter what, who had my back. It made the world seem less scary, more manageable.

  Then one day—I can't remember when—I woke up and realized it.

  My protectors, my family, they were the monsters.

  And their protection came with a hefty price.

  My legs are cloaked in black, smooth lines of leather that hang over the edge of the crumbling brick wall. In one hand, I have a cigarette. In the other, a small paper bag wrapped around a bottle. Inside, there's about half a liter of Jameson with lipstick smudges around the rim.

  “Jump, Gidge,” my best friend, Reba, says from below. She's dressed like a nun, in a long navy skirt that tangles in the brambles, and a white cardigan slung over slim shoulders. It's why we get along, me and Reba. I'm sin and she's salvation, that's why we work. I don't think I could handle two of me in the same town let alone the same school or party or sleepover. “I know you're afraid of heights—” she starts, but I'm already taking another swig of the whiskey and hopping down to land in a crouch beside her.

  I might be wary of heights, but I'm not sure that I'm afraid.

  I'm not sure that I'm afraid of anything, not anymore.

  That's what growing up around monsters will do to ya.

  “There must be easier ways to get to the bonfire,” she says, unhooking a stray thorny blackberry arm from the shoulder of her sweater. “Like, say, in a car.”

  I take a drag on my cigarette and give her a look.

  “Nobody in their right mind would risk giving me a ride,” I say, pushing past her and following a narrow trail through the brush. “And even if we could find somebody crazy enough to pick us up, there's always the chance Cat or somebody else in the club might see us on the road. Can't risk it.”

  Reba sighs and pushes some of her wavy red hair over one shoulder. Yet another reason we're friends—her father's the pastor of a local church. Mine's the president of an outlaw motorcycle club. She's been trained to hate him from birth; I've hated him since I was fifteen. We might be complete opposites, but we have that in common.

  Everybody else in this town … they're too scared of my dad to hate him. Reba thinks she's got God on her side. I'm not sure that I believe in God, but I sure as shit believe in the devil. I've seen him, him and his demons.

  And they all ride in Cat's motorcycle club: Death by Daybreak MC.

  They wear leather vests and smoke cigarettes, fuck groupies and drown themselves in booze and the skunk-y sweet scent of pot. They tame wild beasts made of chrome, bury men in the woods behind my grandmother's house, and they don't lose a wink of sleep about any of it. I used to think of them as giants, guardians, big men with beards and tattoos and arms rippling with muscles that stood watch over me like an honor guard over a princess.

  I don't think that anymore.

  “I can't believe you talked me into going to this,” Reba whispers, her Southern accent as thick as the humidity clinging to the late evening air. It's getting dark, and in the distance, I swear, I can see fireflies. They don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, but a girl ca
n dream, right?

  I lead the way through the brush, alternating drags of my cigarette with sips of the whiskey. It burns my throat going down, but it's the only thing that keeps the memories at bay, locks them up and throws away the key. I'm only seventeen—I shouldn't have to deal with this kind of shit yet. Hang-ups and nightmares and emotional triggers are for people who've lived and loved and experienced and traveled.

  I've been trapped in a cage my whole life.

  So why is this happening to me? Old memories flicker up from the darkest depths of my soul.

  Blood drips to the floor in thick, crimson drops. It pools around the knife, stains her white shirt red. It's too personal, the way she watches that blade, like she knows. She knows she's going to die—and I know it, too.

  Ain’t nobody wants to relive that shit; I shake my head to clear the image of my dead sister.

  “It's our last big hurrah before senior year,” I say, looking up at the yellow-brown leaves on the trees. It's been a hot summer, too hot. Everyone in our neighborhood has a dead lawn and shriveled bushes, dusty driveways and a newfound hatred for the sun—our little Oregon town is more than ready for fall. “We have to make an appearance.”

  “We don't have to do a darn thing, sugar,” Reba says with an exasperated little sigh. I glance back at her and see her pinching the scooped bridge of her button nose. She's the perfect Southern belle, Reba is, a Tennessee transplant with a closet-alcoholic mother and a proselytizing father. I'm not judging her or them—I don't have room to judge anyone—but I can sense that this is where the conversation's heading. “We're better than them, than all of that nonsense.”

  “You might be,” I say, giving her one last look before I turn my attention back to the trail, “but I know I'm sure as hell not.”

  I ignore Reba until I finish my cigarette. As much as she complains, I know she wants to be here, too. Everybody else will be. The whole goddamn senior class. She wouldn't miss it for the world. Reba and I might be best friends, but she's also friends with three other girls—Dena, Chardou, and Amiya. She'll want to see them, let them know that even if she hangs out with me, she can just as easily slip into their group and be one of them, too.

  A few minutes later, I'm starting to feel the Jameson in my blood and my steps get a little wobbly, my leather boots stumbling to the edge of the path as I weave my way through pines still green with needles and deciduous trees with sun-bleached leaves. Buzzed like this, the whole landscape looks prettier somehow, less dead and dry and more … I don't know, magical.

  Despite the heat, a chill runs down my spine.

  “Do you hear that?” Reba asks from behind me.

  I do.

  “Music,” I say with a sloppy, whiskey-laden grin.

  The sound of an eighties rock ballad sneaks through the trees, weaves itself into the wind and teases my hair. Johnny R. must be DJing tonight. He's the only person I know under the age of thirty who still listens to Lynyrd Syknrd. But since he's also the only person with a professional DJ for a dad (a dad who lets him borrow his equipment, mind you), he gets to play whatever he wants.

  We hit the edge of the trees and break through to the flickering light of a bonfire, built up and burning in an old swimming pool behind an abandoned country house. According to my mom, the family that lived there lost it to foreclosure in the seventies. It's been empty for so long that even she used to party here.

  There are people everywhere—at least half the senior class and some of the juniors, too—mingling around the edges of the pool, sitting on the weathered old deck with the missing railing, even lounging on the roof.

  I don't wait for Reba—she'll want to check in with Dena, Chardou, and Amiya first—and head straight across the patchy, shriveled stretch of lawn and weeds over to where Johnny K. is sitting, smoking a joint and watching his friends feed wood from a stack of old pallets into the flames. In sixth grade, both Johnny R. and Johnny K. wanted to simply be “Johnny”. Our class organized a fight out on the blacktop, right over the faded mural of all fifty states in bright primary colors. They beat the shit out of each other, so bad that by the time the teachers caught onto us, both boys had to pay a visit to the local emergency room.

  After that, it was pretty obvious that both Johnny Ranier and Johnny Kinner were going to have to settle for sharing the name. It hasn't been an issue since.

  “Mind if I have a drag?” I ask, sitting down next to him and not caring that the school's star quarterback is checking out the low plunging V of my shirt. I wore it on purpose. Not for him, but for me. It's my body and I'll decide how it's dressed. Not my father. Not the club. Not anyone.

  God, if he knew I was here tonight …

  I laugh and Johnny K. gives me a strange look, his blue eyes flickering like he wants to fuck me, but also like he thinks I might be crazy.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Johnny passes over the joint and then runs his palm over the short, shaved brown hair on the top of his head. He's got a nice wide chest, big arms for a high school boy.

  But I'm not interested.

  I'm ruined for high school boys.

  I think I was born ruined.

  I take the joint from him and pause at the sound of squealing tires, glancing over my shoulder too see our school's running back, Trevone Hundley, coming down the curving dirt and gravel road like a bat outta hell. A plume of dust rises in his wake, highlighted by the two massive floodlights posted near the road. It curves past the collapsed fence of the old house's backyard and winds its way down the hill into town. I have no idea what Trevone and his crew were up to in the woods back there. Frankly, I don't want to fucking know.

  I ignore him as he climbs out of his car with a hoot, dragging his best friend, Kellen Doughty, and the girl they're always fighting over—Tina Flacco—behind him. I haven't seen the three of them at all this summer, but last I knew, she was sleeping with them both.

  Good for her.

  I doubt either of those football douches saves it just for Tina anyway.

  “Whoa, look what the Cat dragged in,” Trevone says, flashing a white-toothed grin my direction, dropping his legs over the side of the pool and reaching for the joint. I take a long, hot drag, smoke burning my lungs as I hold it in as long as I can and then pass it over. “Miss Daybreak herself. Daddy let you out of his cage for the night?”

  “Let's just say I picked the lock, shall we?” I tell him with a smile, leaning back and enjoying the warm summer air on my bare shoulders and arms, the silver bracelets on my left wrist tinkling. Raven-dark hair falls down my back in a silken wave as I look up at the stars, silver pinpricks of light in the navy wash of sky.

  “Good deal,” Trevone says, taking two drags before giving the joint to Tina. He hops down in the pool and within seconds, the bonfire is climbing with orange and red fingers, digging its claws into the darkness and driving it back to the fringes of the yard.

  More people arrive—big groups of them stuffed into cars, bringing coolers and kegs and unbridled laughter. I watch them all, part of the group but somehow still alone, sitting in my red satin halter top and leather pants, kicking the soles of my black heeled boots against the side of the pool.

  For a while there, I almost forget who my dad is, laughing and drinking and smoking until my head feels like it's spinning.

  “Well, somebody sure is havin' a good time,” Reba says, sitting down beside me, proper in all the places that I'm improper. Almost indecent, really.

  Cat would so kill me for this …

  Some people—ignorant people—think that having a dad named Cat is a little weird, especially considering his … chosen profession. But the guys call their president that for a reason. Cats are some of the most efficient hunters on the planet, taking down a wide variety of prey … and also, everyone knows that well-fed housecats kill for fun. Toy with their prey, play with it, torture it before they kill it.

  That's my dad. That's Cat, president of Death by D
aybreak MC.

  And sometimes I think he's just as hard on his daughter as he is his enemies.

  “A really fucking good time,” I say, leaning into her.

  The acrid smell of smoke curls around the pair of us, me with my Jameson and Reba with her plain old Coca-Cola. We sit there for the longest time, until Johnny K. asks Reba to dance and she accepts, joining the crowd to the right of the pool and hitting the makeshift dance floor with moves that were probably outdated by the time this old house was built.

  A few minutes later, Johnny R. gives up on trying to convert us all to records and old-school rock and sets up a playlist on his iPhone, leaving the DJ station to invite me to dance next. I abandon the now empty bottle of whiskey, run my tongue over my teeth to make sure there aren't any lipstick stains, and take his hand.

  It's warm and sweaty and unsure. Joining Johnny R. in the empty dirt patch where my classmates grind and bump and grin and grope, I know I'm dancing with a boy instead of a man.

  Flickers of a different party, a different moment, a different dance partner skitter around the edges of my mind, but I ignore them, letting the booze and the weed keep control of my brain and all the horrible things crawling around inside of it.

  After a few songs, I push Johnny R. away and stumble over to the edge of the yard, where the black silhouettes of trees stand guard like silent ghosts. Putting my hand on the faded white paint of an apple tree trunk, I lean over and try to fight the sudden, overwhelming nausea spiraling through me. It doesn't help that on the ground near my boots, the plump corpses of rotten fruit litter the dirt like splotchy scabs.

  The scuff of a rubber sole on the ground nearby draws my attention up and over to the black-on-black shimmer of a shadow hiding in the trees. As sick as I feel right now, my head still spinning with THC and alcohol, my hand drops to my boot and the hunting knife buried in a sheath behind the leather.

  “Shouldn't mix pot and booze, Gidge,” a rough voice says, just beyond the orange-yellow pool of light cast by the bonfire. It dances through the dark, vertical bars of the forest, highlighting the dry brown sea of undergrowth.