Havoc at Prescott High

by Stunich, C. M.

  “I don’t. But fair’s fair. Clearly, Havoc has no boundaries, so why should we?” Billie pulls the knife from my arm and spins it around in her fingers. “And we’re not letting you hurt Kali. There’s not a soul at Prescott who doesn’t know you’re gunning for her.” She traces the tip of the knife against my lower lip. All I can hear is the pounding beat of my heart, and the rush of blood in my ears. If she mutilates me, do I really care? I’ve honestly never wanted to be pretty.

  “Are you enjoying this, Aaron?” Mitch snarls, fresh blood staining the bandage on his shoulder. “I hope so. Because when Billie’s done, I’m going to let Logan and Danny have their way with your chick, right in front of you.”

  Aaron tears his arms from the grips of the guys holding him and manages to slam his elbow into the crotch of one of them before three more guys pile on, crushing him to the floor.

  “Oh,” Billie says, slicing a line from the corner of my eye to the edge of my mouth. Pain follows along in the wake of the blood, but I manage to keep myself stone-still, quiet, blank. I don’t waste energy on protesting; I look for an out or an escape or at least a way to inflict some serious damage. I figure if I go down, at least they hurt with me. “Aaron doesn’t like the idea of sharing. Funny that, considering you whore yourself out to all five Havoc Boys.”

  “Doesn’t bother Mitch that Kali’s cheating on him with some douche from Oak Valley Prep, so I don’t see why you give a crap,” I blurt back, and Billie hits me as hard as she can in the face. I see stars, but all I have to do is keep them busy for a few. The other boys will be here; they’ll come. I fucking know it.

  “We’re running out of time,” Kyler says, glancing over his shoulder, like he can feel the same energy that I feel. Havoc doesn’t play games. They don’t lose. They used to be my tormentors, but now they’re my dark angels. I turn my head and make eye contact with Aaron. He’s gone completely still, building up energy as he pants and bleeds, waiting for one last chance to break free.

  His green-gold eyes meet mine, and I can see a million different truths just waiting there to be revealed. He didn’t want me in Havoc because he knew that, eventually, something like this would happen. In his own way, Aaron was trying to protect me.

  “We should take these assholes with us and go,” Mitch adds, and Billie scowls.

  “Why? Take them where? We’re in the middle of the fucking woods. And you said you had enough guys to deal with Havoc. Let’s bring the other four in here and they can all watch as you take turns on their girl.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Danny says, laughing. His eyes rake over me before he splits off from the group and disappears momentarily. Meanwhile, Billie continues playing with her knife, cutting open the front of my cheerleading costume with a laugh, exposing a large portion of my breasts.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Mitch says, swiping at the sweat on his face. “Let’s just kick the shit out of these two and call it a win. I don’t want to stick around here any longer than necessary.”

  “Don’t be such a pussy,” Billie snaps as Danny comes back into the room and kicks one of the fog machines against the wall, shattering it into black plastic bits. “Well?” she asks, looking up at her boyfriend’s brother.

  “There are a few people passed out in the foyer, but that’s it. Looks like our guys chased theirs into the woods.” Danny checks his phone, scrolling through messages. “Nate says they’ve lost most of them in the trees, and they’re heading back this way now.”

  “Good,” Mitch says, pushing down a little harder on my arm. “What about Vic?”

  “Dunno,” Danny says, tapping out a text message. He pauses a moment and then shakes his head. “We can’t find any of the Havoc Boys.” He glances over at Aaron and then grins. “Except for this one.”

  “Get fucked,” Aaron growls out, and gets a right hook to the face from Timmy for the trouble.

  “I still say we take them with us and get out of here while we have the upper-hand,” Mitch continues, just before the sound of breaking glass gives us all pause.

  “What upper-hand?” Vic asks, appearing from the fog with his bat in hand. He swings it hard and hits Mitch in the thigh, drawing a scream from one of the Charter brothers while the other—Logan—launches himself at Victor. The two of them end up in a fight while I use the moment of surprise to throw a punch at Billie’s face.

  She howls with pain as Oscar appears and grabs Kyler around the neck, putting him in a chokehold and yanking him back. There’s a momentary burst of pain before Kyler loses his grip on my hair, and I sit up, shoving Billie off of me. She sprawls to the floor as I crawl over her, hitting her in the face. Once, twice, three times. As she groans and tries to crawl away from me, I stand up and turn to help Aaron.

  But Callum’s already there with his own baseball bat, hitting Danny in the shoulder before he goes for Timmy next. Hael is on the other side, taking care of two more of the clown-masked wearing idiots.

  I stand there stone-still in the middle of the brawl, breathing hard, watching as the boys systematically take down their rivals—skeletons versus clowns. It’s a ghastly sight, the fog swirling around our feet, clown faces leering at us from the ceiling. I have to say, Stacey Langford is one crazy bitch to have set all of this up.

  Aaron finally finds his feet, panting and covered in blood. Our eyes meet, and his go wide.

  “Bernadette!” he shouts, and I turn just in time to see Danny Ensbrook lift a revolver up and point it at my face. His finger clenches on the trigger, and my heart stops in my chest.

  Callum’s bat hits him hard in the side of the neck, knocking him over and sending the shot wide. Danny stumbles, falling hard to the ground, the nails from the bat raking through the side of his throat. And then there’s blood, so much fucking blood.

  The fight doesn’t stop though, the remaining members of Mitch’s gang throwing themselves at Havoc in one, last frenzied attack. Even Billie gets back to her feet, coming at me again. You’d think she’d have enough sense to get the hell out of there, but she must really want to prove herself. She throws her body into me again, knife point forward, but I knock the thrust aside and then hit her right in the throat.

  She stumbles back as several more skeletons appear from the fog, tying up the loose ends and quieting the last of the dissenters. A few of the clowns take off when they realize this is over, that they’ve lost, abandoning their comrades in a way that Havoc never would.

  “Everybody out,” Oscar says, nodding at Mitch Charter, groaning and passed out on the floor by Vic’s feet. “And take everyone but Danny with you.”

  The unnamed Havoc Boys scramble to follow Oscar’s orders, leaving us alone with Danny Ensbrook. It takes me a minute to figure out why he’d be the exception to the rule. But then I look down and notice that my sneakers are standing in a pool of ruby red.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Cal says, kneeling down and putting his hands on the side of Danny’s neck. “He’s bleeding everywhere; I think I hit an artery.”

  “Femoral artery, more like,” Vic says as Oscar drops down next to Danny’s body.

  “And Cal,” Oscar says, pulling his friend’s hand away from Danny’s neck. “He’s not bleeding anymore; the nails tore right through his neck.” Oscar looks at up at the leader of the Havoc Boys with an expression that says it’s already too late for Danny. “He’s dead,” Oscar confirms coolly, rising to his feet and giving Vic another look.

  “Are you serious?” Hael asks, cursing under his breath as he moves over to stand beside the … body. I have to admit, my mind’s gone completely blank at that word. Dead. Danny is dead? Despite the guns and the bravado tonight, I don’t think anyone was supposed to die. If they were, Victor would’ve put a hole in Mitch Charter’s head.

  “Unfortunately,” Oscar says on the end of a long sigh, staring down at Danny’s slumped form.

  Callum stands up and stumbles against the wall, hands over his face. There’s fucking blood everywhere. The metallic
smell of it is making me sick; I feel like I might throw up.

  “I’ve screwed myself, haven’t I?” he whispers, shaking all over. But all I can think is you did it to save me. I move over to Callum and put my hand on his arm. He stiffens up, but he doesn’t push me away.

  “It was self-defense,” I say, and then pause. “Well, defense of me anyway. He was going to shoot me, and I don’t think he cared where that bullet hit. It didn’t look like a warning shot to me.”

  “We should’ve made her wear the fucking Kevlar,” Aaron grinds out, giving Vic a look.

  “A vest wouldn’t have protected her head,” Vic replies calmly, sighing and swiping a hand over his face. “Okay, we can deal with this. Aaron,” he says, and my ex raises his head a bit, looking like death warmed-up. “Take Bernadette back to your place.” Aaron manages a nod as Hael helps him to his feet. I cling to Cal’s arm, shaking from the rush of adrenaline, marveling at the fact that I almost died here tonight.

  I’ve been waiting for death for a long time, almost praying for it. But now that I’ve gotten a glimpse, I’m not so sure I like what I see.

  Before I get a chance to delve too far into the darkness of my thoughts, Vic is grabbing me and putting his arms around me, hugging me so close that I can smell the musk and amber scent of him, even through the sharp copper smell of blood.

  “It’ll be okay,” he tells me, and maybe he even believes it. I want to have faith in Havoc, but holy shit. This is so much more than turf wars between rival high schools. This is some real-life shit with real-life consequences. “Go home, clean up, and we’ll meet you there later.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask, but Vic just purses his lips.

  “Later,” he tells me, gesturing in the direction of the cold draft from the now open back door. His makeup is smeared, giving it an even ghastlier sort of look. “Now get the hell out of here and drive fast.”

  Aaron doesn’t speak as he drives us back into town, taking the dark roads at an almost alarming speed, and then slowing down when we hit the edge of Springfield. Getting pulled over right now would not go well for us. That is, if we couldn’t convince the cops that all of this blood was fake.

  We left the limo behind, grabbing an SUV out back that the boys had planted there as a getaway car. When they did that, I’m not sure, but it’s quite clear that they had a lot of things planned for tonight.

  I just don’t think they intended for Danny Ensbrook to die.

  “Are you okay?” Aaron asks me when we hit the quiet suburban streets near his house. “I mean, obviously not, but …”

  “I’m fine,” I say, because I know what he means. Am I broken? Am I shattered? Am I scared? But I’m none of those things because those things were stripped out of me a long time ago. I’m amped up on adrenaline and nerves, and I’m worried about Cal, but that’s about it. What happened to Danny Ensbrook … that shit was deserved.

  Still, I don’t want the boys to get in trouble, to go to prison.

  I swipe both hands down my face and then drop them into my lap. Aaron’s driving one-handed, his left arm resting in his own lap. I’m tempted to reach out and take his hand, but then what would I say? There are no words.

  I turn back to face the windshield as we turn the corner.

  The first thing I notice is that there’s a second car parked in Aaron’s driveway, next to the minivan. The second thing I notice is that the car is a police cruiser.

  The third thing …

  My throat closes up, and I feel the very first edges of panic rolling through me.

  “What the fuck?” Aaron snaps, raking his fingers through his hair. He makes a split-second decision and pulls the SUV over, calling up Jennifer Lowell’s number and waiting for her to answer. When she doesn’t, he curses and sends a text, waiting several minutes before shoving his phone into his pocket. That’s when he notices the look on my face. “What?” he asks, his voice laced with panic. The girls are in there—our girls are in there. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Worse,” I choke out, fisting my fingers in the bloodied skirts of my cheerleading uniform. I’d recognize that police cruiser anywhere. “My stepdad.”

  Aaron whips his head back around and then guns it, parking next to Vic’s motorcycle on the curb and climbing out. We should probably clean up before we go in there, but all I can think about is Heather, Kara, and Ashley in the same room as that pedophile fuck.

  We burst through the front door and find the Thing sitting on the couch with a girl by his side.

  But not one of our girls.

  No, it’s the infamous Kali Rose-Kennedy that stares back at me.

  And standing in front of the fireplace, bags under his eyes and hair disheveled, is none other than Principal Vaughn.

  “Hello, Bernadette,” the Thing says, dark eyes sparkling. “Take a seat, and let’s talk.”

  To Be Continued …

  The Havoc Boys, Book #2

  Link Will Not Work Until Book Releases in January, 2020

  Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club, Book #1

  Adamson All-Boys Academy, Book #1

  Rich Boys of Burberry Prep, Book #1

  Flip the page for an excerpt of chapter one.

  Prologue

  My uniform—and my dignity—are in tatters.

  My eyes scan the gathered crowd, but there are three faces in particular that catch my attention. Cold, cruel, beautiful. An ugly sort of beautiful, I think as I meet a narrowed silver gaze and catch the faintest edges of a smirk. Tristan Vanderbilt thinks he’s beaten me; they all do. But what they don’t understand is that I’m not the nervous, eager little charity case I was when I first started at Burberry Prep.

  Lifting an arm up, I swipe a bit of blood from my mouth. My bra is showing through the torn remnants of my white blouse, and it’s the pretty red one I wore just for Zayd. He made me believe he cared about me. Flicking my eyes in his direction, I can see quite clearly now that he doesn’t. He isn’t smiling, not like Tristan, but the message in his green eyes is clear: you don’t belong here.

  “Had enough yet?” Harper du Pont purrs from behind me. I don’t bother turning to look at her. Instead, I let my attention slide to the last of the three guys. My three biggest mistakes; my three greatest betrayals. Creed is frowning, like this whole confrontation is a necessary evil. Get rid of the lower-class trash, clean up the school.

  The wind picks up, the ragged red pleats of my academy uniform billowing in a salty breeze. In the distance, I can hear the sea. It crashes against the rocks in time to the frantic beating of my heart. A storm is coming.

  Tristan moves toward me with predatory grace, his expensive loafers picking up droplets of dew as he comes to stand toe-to-toe with me, as close as he was that first day when he insulted me and then laid out the challenge: how long do you think you’ll last? Well. It’s the final day of freshman year, and I’m still standing here, aren’t I? Tristan, though, he thinks that while I’ve won the battle, he’s going to win the war.

  I stay stone-still as he lifts his fingers and tangles strands of my paint-splattered hair through them, giving the short rose gold locks a light tug. Red paint smears across his perfect skin as I meet those gray eyes of his with a defiant glimmer in my own.

  “I take it you won’t be coming back next year, will you, Marnye?” he whispers, his voice like whiskey over ice. Tristan thinks he’s the master of this school, a veritable god. The other boys think of themselves like that, too. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when a confrontation finally comes. They think their money will buy them the world. Maybe, in a way, it will.

  But it won’t buy them true friendship, and it won’t buy them love. It definitely won’t buy them me.

  I glance past Tristan to Zayd and Creed, and then I refocus my attention back on the asshole that started it all. From day one, he went out of his way to make my life a living hell. He succeeded. And Zayd and Creed, they loved every horrible, filthy second of it.

 
“Just go home, Marnye, and it’ll all be over,” Tristan says, the softness in his voice edged with cruelty. He’s like a predator who’s too cute to be afraid of. I made the mistake of letting him get too close, and now I’m cut and bleeding—physically and emotionally. I’m fucking shattered. “You don’t belong here.”

  Zayd listens to the whole conversation, and then slides his tattooed arm around Becky Platter, putting the final nail in my coffin. He’s chosen her over me. He’s chosen her and her cruelty and her mocking laughter over me. My hands curl into fists so tight that my nails dig crescents into my palms.

  I meet Tristan’s haughty, self-assured stare. There are tears on my face, and when he removes his fingers from my hair, he touches one with his knuckles, bringing it to his lips for a lick. It’s a derisive, awful move, like a knife in the back. I can feel the blade beside my heart, but it’s just missed. I’m not broken yet.

  “I’ve already enrolled in my classes,” I state, and the entire courtyard goes silent. Nobody is expecting this, the poor girl, the lamb in a pack of wolves, standing up for herself. What they don’t know is that the hardest hearts are forged in fire. With their cruelty and their jokes and their laughter, they’ve forged me into something spectacular. “Come September, I’ll be the first in line for orientation.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Tristan says, still cold as ice, still full of wicked triumph for what he thinks he’s done. His dark hair flutters in the breeze, softening some of his hard lines. It’s all an illusion though. I know that now, and I won’t make that same mistake again. “I’ll make your life a living hell.”

  “You can try,” I retort, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my registration form. I’ll be back at Burberry Prep come hell or high water. This is my opportunity, and I won’t let three handsome faces, three pairs of hot hands, three sets of ardent lips destroy that. “Because what you don’t know …” I take a deep breath, and then bend down to grab the handle on my ratty, old duffle bag. Everybody else here has hired help to carry their luggage. Not me. Straightening up, I lift my chin in defiance and Tristan scowls. “Is that my life outside of these walls was already a living hell. This is just another level of Dante’s inferno, and I’m not afraid.” My gaze flicks past Tristan and back to Zayd and Creed. “Not of any of you.”