Only … I know a gunshot when I hear it. Pretty much everyone at Prescott does.
Blood explodes from Mitch’s shoulder in a crimson spray, splattering Kali, Billie, and Ivy in red mist. His body collapses into a boneless heap on the pavement and for a minute there, I think he might be dead. Everything is silent but for the echoing ring of the gunshot, and I notice a boy in a black hoodie tuck a gun into his sweatshirt and disappear.
One of Havoc’s lackeys, I suppose. Smart. It’d be damn near impossible to identify him, even with everyone using their phones to film the encounter.
That’s when Mitch starts to scream and students scatter.
“Call the cops!” QB Dude is shouting, but the look Vic turns on him is pure, gleeful hell.
“Go for it. But remember: Prescott High doesn’t like a snitch. Dial the police up, and you’re digging your own grave. Peace.” Victor waves his hand, turns, and heads for the back steps of the building.
Like the naughty little Havoc Girl I am, I follow after.
Mitch might’ve thought he was being clever, but he just dug his crew’s grave by inviting Fuller High to fight for him. Nobody at Prescott likes the Fuller High football team. In fact, Havoc has always acted like the school’s anti-heroes, taking up turf wars on their own time and giving the underdogs some wins that none of us get elsewhere in life.
Their football team might clobber ours on the field, but the Havoc Boys make those spoiled brats bleed.
Still, I can’t shake Kali’s pregnancy … or Brittany’s.
Or the fact that I keep screwing Victor without condoms, like a total idiot. I’ve had sex ed; I know better than that. But really, it all comes back to not caring whether I live or die, if I have a future … The only thing that matters is Heather, but the deeper I get involved with Havoc, the more I start to wonder if maybe I might have a life one day, too.
I’m standing in the bathroom where Billie stabbed me, staring into a cracked mirror and reapplying my lipstick. Today’s color is Venom, this glorious blood-red with a purple tint that makes me look just a little bit scary.
The entire school is buzzing with Friday’s party news. Clearly, the entire event was a power play move by the Havoc Boys; shooting Mitch was not an accident. And now that Mitch’s crew is tainted by their association with Fuller High? Well, the reverence is back in the gazes of the Prescott High students. Guess we did okay because we spent the rest of the weekend at Vic’s and Aaron’s, smoking weed, and working on schoolwork. It seems like the boys know how to take a break every now and again, at least.
The bathroom door swings open and there’s Ms. Keating, staring at me with dark brown eyes, her mouth pressed into a flat line, just like I knew it would be.
“Am I expelled?” I ask, twisting the lipstick and watching the colored tip disappear into the tube. I glance her way as she sighs.
“No, Bernadette. I don’t believe kicking students who need help out of school is a very productive way for a society to better its youth. Come with me, please.” She steps out of the bathroom as I tuck the rest of my makeup away and head after her, turning the corner and moving into her office. She closes and locks the door behind me before taking a seat behind her desk. I notice the windows are also closed and locked today.
I sit down in the chair in front of her desk, and we spend several moments staring at each other.
“I know why you did what you did. Gang life can seem … enticing, when you have nobody and nothing else. It gives you a sense of belonging, of purpose, of family. But none of it is real, Bernadette. No matter what you do for Havoc, you will never be anything but a tool for those boys to use.”
“You sound like you’re speaking from experience,” I say, leaning back in the chair and staring her down. I think about Aaron, taking the blame for stabbing Kali. In all honesty, Ms. Keating is probably right … about most people, about most gangs. But the Havoc Boys …
“I am,” she says, exhaling sharply and folding her hands on the top of her desk. Her hair is twisted up in a pretty chignon today, her makeup subtle but tasteful. I can hardly imagine her living the gangster lifestyle. “My high school career was less than stellar, and I ended up running with a very dangerous gang—”
“Havoc is different,” I say, wondering why I’m bothering to defend them in the first place. I hate them. They ruined my sophomore year. They fucking tortured me. And yet … Aaron with his girls, Hael’s kindness at the pharmacy, and even Victor holding me in bed that night. They’re not so bad really, are they? Ms. Keating’s face softens, and she sighs again, like she feels sorry for me, like I’m brainwashed or something. “They could’ve done so much worse,” I tell her, coming to a sudden realization. “They could’ve raped me. They could’ve beat me until I couldn’t stand. But everything they did, it was calculated to inflict damage without leaving the worst sort of scars.”
“Bernadette,” Ms. Keating starts as I grip the arms of the chair, blinking through the idea that’s just slid into my brain. They didn’t do those things because they didn’t want to hurt me. They didn’t want to hurt me. They didn’t.
Victor Channing punched me in the face between first and second period for saying Bernadette Blackbird was hot.
The words from that box come drifting back to me, and my heart begins to pound.
Havoc has done worse. They could’ve done worse. They chose not to.
Fuck, I need to talk to them.
“Can I go now?” I ask, feeling antsy, but Ms. Keating doesn’t look like she’s ready to let me off quite so easy.
“Bernadette, you stole a box of administrative files from my office. Do you understand how problematic that is?”
“I burned them,” I blurt, squeezing the end of the chair arms, my nails digging into the wood. “I can’t get them back.”
“I wasn’t going to ask you to bring them back,” she says, “but I am going to ask you to write me a two-thousand-word paper on the implications of gang violence.”
“Okay,” I say, just wanting to get out of there as fast as I can. “I’ll have it in tomorrow.”
“Bernadette,” Ms. Keating starts, but I’m already standing up out of the chair. “Just … please, if you need someone to talk to, I’m on your side.”
“Right,” I say, but there’s no part of me that believes her.
My list includes the principal, the foster brother, the social worker … I’ve tried trusting people like her before, and it didn’t work out for me. I’m not changing my ways now. Not a fucking chance.
I snatch the note she hands me and let myself out of the room, yanking my phone from my pocket and staring at our group text, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to say. Thanks for not kicking my ass too hard? I just now realized you could’ve killed me, and you didn’t? I don’t owe them a thank you for not being worse pieces of shit to me.
I put my back to the wall and take a few deep breaths, putting my phone away.
I must be losing my mind. I’m sitting here defending Havoc? Getting all excited about thanking them for … like, not raping me? This is insane.
I push up off the wall and head to my first period English class with Mr. Darkwood, flashing the note I got from Ms. Keating to excuse my tardiness. Kali doesn’t even look at me when I walk in, but I know she’s aware of my presence because her entire body goes taut. Wonder how she got to school today with no car? Or how she’s doing now that her boyfriend’s laid up in the hospital with a GSW in his shoulder?
Today’s assignment is to write either a cinquain or another haiku. I seriously can’t even understand how the cinquain works other than that it’s five lines, so I go back to the haiku again.
You tormented me
I thought you were all demons
Were you always there?
I frown and cross that out, scribbling down six more versions that are all related to Havoc before I just rewrite the first one and turn it in. My mind is all over the place as I head down the hall to my second period class, and
then float my way through to lunch.
The boys are sitting on the front steps with food from the cafeteria. Usually, I’m the first one to get food since my fourth period class is right next to the lunchroom, but this time, I took my sweet time in the bathroom before heading out here, just to collect myself.
When I see them sitting there, it’s like they’re bathed in a whole new light.
“You okay?” Vic asks, an edge of violence to his voice. I realize he’s waiting for me to say I was bullied by Kali or something. I shake my head and sit down next to the boys in black, all of them but Oscar holding cigarettes and smoking blatantly in front of the security office.
“I’m fine,” I say, leaning back on the sun-warmed brick steps. “Ms. Keating let me off with an essay assignment for stealing that box.” I glance in the boys’ direction and find all of them but Oscar staring at me. Fucking asshole.
“Remind me to make friends with Ms. Keating,” Hael snorts, redirecting his attention back to his phone. Probably fucking texting Brittany again, I think, licking my lips in frustration. He runs his fingers through his bloodred hair as he types out a message.
“Ms. Keating hates you,” Cal says with a chuckle. “Nothing you can do to change that now. Just accept that for the next seven and a half months, you’re her bitch.”
“I’m nobody’s bitch,” Hael snorts. Vic narrows his eyes and reaches over, snatching the phone from his best friend’s hand. “What the fuck, man?”
“You’re nobody’s bitch? Because it looks like you’re Brittany’s. Stop fucking kowtowing to her.”
“Kowtowing? That’s what you call it when she’s threatening to sic her dad’s anti-gang squad on us, and I’m doing damage control?” Hael says as Vic pockets his friend’s phone, his purple-black hair shining in the sunlight.
“You wouldn’t have to do damage control if you’d stayed the hell away from her,” Vic says, and Oscar nods in agreement. The way Hael looks at his friend, I can sense a simmering anger that wasn’t there before. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with what happened between the three of us, but maybe it does? “We will deal with Brittany after Halloween.”
“Fuck, whatever you say, boss,” Hael grumbles, looking back at me as Aaron pretends to be interested in a slice of pepperoni pizza. Has he noticed that I’m wearing his hoodie today? Or that I haven’t washed it since I took it from him? I tell myself it’s because I’ve been too lazy to do laundry, but that’s not true at all.
It’s because I like putting it on and being enveloped by his smell.
I pick up a chocolate milk off the tray between me and Vic, sticking a straw into it.
“Stay low this week, don’t stir up trouble.” Vic glances over at me, his obsidian eyes catching the light and taking my breath away. In the sun like this, they’re not quite so dark. In fact, I can see shades of chocolate brown twisted with russet and auburn. “I’m sorry about the slow progress on Kali. On your list, in general.”
“I just said it had to be done before graduation,” I say, wondering why I’m being so damn lenient. I hate them, right? This is torture, right? “I get it. Let’s deal with Mitch and his merry band of assholes first.”
Vic chuckles and shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair.
“Let’s,” he says, a strange emphasis on the word. He stares out at the street, like he’s searching for something.
Whatever that something is, it never comes, the bell rings, and we all head inside.
The week passes by relatively quietly. There’s no sign of Principal Vaughn, and no trouble from Mitch’s buddies. Billie, Kali, and Ivy steer clear of me in the halls, and nobody mentions the trashed cars.
But instead of feeling relieved, I start to get nervous.
I’ve been with Havoc for two months now, and every goddamn day, it’s something. Having things be so quiet makes me wary.
On Thursday, I ride with Aaron after school to pick up Kara, Ashley, and Heather. There’s no after-school program today which is fine because our plan is to take the girls trick or treating at dusk, and then hit Stacey’s party after.
Everyone knows the only good parties start after dark.
“What sort of costumes did you get the girls?” I ask, my voice loud in the quiet minivan. Aaron’s hands tighten a bit on the wheel as he slides his green-gold gaze over to me, the brakes squeaking as we pause at a stop sign. Red, yellow, and brown leaves swirl against the windshield as a group of costumed children dart through the crosswalk.
“Last year, I tried to make their costumes, you know? Like I sat down and tried to sew shit.”
“You tried to sew?” I ask, blinking in surprise and then clamping a hand over my lips to stop a surprised giggle. Aaron raises a brunette brow at me.
“You think that’s so funny? Me sitting down to sew a princess costume?”
“I think it’s hilarious,” I reply, finally giving into the chuckle. “A seventeen-year-old inked-up asshole sitting down with a needle and thread? That’s the punchline of a joke if I’ve ever heard one.” He smirks at me and shakes his head, easing the van forward and heading toward Heather’s school.
“Yeah, well, I wanted to give the girls something authentic or … like, something I used to have …” He trails off, and his eyes go dark, looking at something far, far away from here. The past, most likely. Until Aaron’s mom left, she was the Suzy Homemaker type. She baked, sewed, decorated. His past and present are two completely different realities. “Anyway, the costumes fucking sucked, so this year, I gave in and just bought some bagged shit from the Hellhole.”
He gestures to the plastic bag between our seats, and I reach down to peep inside. There’s a pre-packaged fairy costume, some glittery wings made of wire and tulle, and various accessories. The second costume is a sassy little witch with striped tights.
“At least you went the extra mile and bought add-ons,” I remark, noticing the carved wood broom beneath the bag, and the witch’s hat peeking out from the back seat. “After Dad died, I didn’t get costumes anymore. Well, I mean, there was that one year when I was eight and cried about it, so Mom cut holes in my sheets to make me a ghost …”
“A pink ghost patterned with a gaudy Minnie Mouse print,” Aaron adds, and I smile. It’s not a nice smile though, more like a melancholy one. I’d almost forgotten that he knew all my stories. We have history together, I think, my fingers picking at the holey knees of my jeans. Silence reigns supreme for several moments before Aaron speaks up again. “But you’re right: they’ll remember I put in some effort, at least.” He pauses again and wets his lower lip, like he’s nervous. “Do you think you could help with their makeup? I fucking suck at it. No matter how many YouTube videos I watch …”
I lift my head up to look at him, tucking some blond hair behind my ear. He really is pretty, isn’t he? I think, shifting in my seat and trying not to let those old sour feelings of mine rush to the surface. We have to learn to get along. Blood in, blood out …
“I’d be happy to,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt, so I can climb out and grab Heather. As I reach for the door handle though, I feel Aaron’s fingers on my arms. Adrenaline shoots through me as I glance back.
His face is resolute, determined, his jaw clenched.
“I know it can’t possibly make up for everything that happened, but for what it’s worth, Bernadette, I’m … I’m sorry.” My eyes widen, and I try to pull away, but Aaron won’t let me go. His fingers dig into my skin, and my hands start to shake. “I’ve never stopped loving you; I just thought you should know that.”
I tear my arm from his grip and slam the car door, putting my back to it and closing my eyes. I don’t even care that Aaron can still see me standing there. What the actual fuck?! How dare he throw that shit in my face like that. How dare he. How fucking dare he …
“Are you okay?” Heather asks as she approaches me cautiously, dressed in an orange and black Halloween sweater. Neither my little sister nor Aaron’s girls were allowed
to wear their costumes to either school. Makes me sad. I remember how everyone used to get dressed up, and we’d have Halloween cupcakes and candy during class. Guess times have changed a bit since I was in elementary school, huh?
“I’m fine,” I say, pushing up off the van and signing the school monitor’s little clipboard. I throw open the back door and hold her backpack while she climbs in. She, of course, is more than happy to see Aaron. The two of them start chatting about possible trick or treating routes—for years I’ve taken her to the rich people neighborhood in Oak River Heights—and I stare out the window, trying my best to process Aaron’s words.
“I’ve never stopped loving you.”
And that means what? That he still does love me?
I decide I can’t deal with this revelation, not tonight.
We grab Kara and Ashley and then head back to Aaron’s place where the rest of the Havoc crew is waiting for us.
“We have four hours until we need to leave for Stacey’s party,” Oscar informs us, leaning over the counter in the half-bath near the front door. He’s got a black makeup crayon in his hand, turning to face me with some ghastly dark circles around his eyes. I won’t lie, I have to stop and do a bit of a double take.
“What are you supposed to be?” I ask, and a sharp smirk curves over Oscar’s lips.
“You’ll see,” he warns, a dark note in his voice that makes me shiver. I shake the feeling off and roll my eyes, guiding the girls upstairs to help them into their costumes. Aaron hovers nearby, but finally gives up and heads outside to smoke a joint.
“Something happen between you two?” Vic asks me, cornering me as I herd the girls back downstairs for better lighting. He cuts me off at the staircase as the three little ones skip past. My skin feels suddenly too tight, and I have to resist the urge to squirm under that sharp gaze.
“If it did, would it be your business?” I ask, and he gives me this shit-eating grin.
Havoc at Prescott High Page 32
