“I've gotten mine sucked enough to know all I need to know. Now focus.” He gestures with his chin in the direction of the wheel. “Grab on, Blackbird, and let's do this. Once you get a taste of the open road, I think you'll like it. Driving is like, the ultimate freedom. You can go anywhere; you can do anything.”
I look back out the windshield; we're parked in the little half-circle parking lot in just such a way that I don't need to back up to get out. A little gas, a turn of the wheel. You've got this, Bernie, I tell myself, releasing the clutch when Hael tells me to. The car thrusts forward, and then shoots off onto the road with a screech.
I scream, but Hael just lets out his usual howling laugh.
“Ah, little bird, if you could only see the look on your face. Oscar would probably pay to have that expression framed.”
“I'd flip you off if I could,” I grumble, trying and failing to keep a consistent speed.
“You're lucky: this car has an adaptive suspension and a smooth-shifting dual-clutch, so it's basically an automatic transmission. The Eldorado might be a bit trickier for ya.” He nods like that's that. “Now tell me: what song will set you free, Blackbird? Drive me to the saltwater taffy shop in Newport, and I'll play it for you.”
It only takes me a split-second to make a decision.
“Trouble,” I say, and my heart seizes. “By Valerie Broussard. That's the right song. It's what I need to hear right now.”
We buried my past when we buried the Thing; I'm starting to actually look toward a possible future.
“You got it,” Hael says, selecting the song and pressing play. The music comes thumping out of the speakers as I brake too hard and we fly around a bit in our seats. But Hael is most definitely right about one thing: there is nothing so electrifying as the feeling of being free. “You got this, Blackbird,” Hael says again and then—and the wind almost steals this last bit away from me—“And I got you. Don’t be scared, little bird.”
I bite back tears, exhaling sharply as Valerie sings about boys that are like poisonous thorns.
Those are my Havoc Boys, that's for fucking sure.
The Ferrari whips around the curves, the mountain on our left, the beach on our right, the world stretched endlessly out in front of us.
“Do not make me regret leaving you alive,” Victor warns the Vincents on Sunday morning, after the girls have finished their cereal and been tucked safely away inside of Aaron's Bronco. The leader of the Havoc Boys crouches down in front of our bald captives as Leigh's brown eyes dart around her ruined living room with a look of such sheer devastation that I feel a little warmth bloom inside of me.
To me, a ruined house is nothing. It's just a place. It's just things. Penelope was a soul, a spirit, a heart, a fucking person. This means shit all to me. But to Leigh and her husband, Marcus, their material possessions are the most important thing, and we've just fucked those up royally.
“Are you listening?” Callum asks, his voice low and dangerous. “Because if you're not, we can make other arrangements.”
“We're listening,” Marcus groans, shaking and holding his still-broken hand to his chest as he looks around at what's left of their house.
“You will clean up, you will tell your doctor some bullshit story about your hand, about an accident with a ladder or a hammer or a giant motherfucking dildo, I don't care. And then you will await my instructions.” Victor turns to Leigh, tears and snot streaming down her face as she stares at her ruined house with a deep-set frown. “You will find a way to place Alyssa with the Peters; they're a foster family already, so they should be in the system. We will drop the girl off tonight. After that, you will keep your head down and report anymore requests for children directly to me.”
“You're going to send us spiraling into bankruptcy,” Leigh says, as if Victor or any of the rest of us cares. Aaron actually laughs, shaking his head and then storming out of the room like he can't fucking stand to listen to this anymore. I don't blame him. The Vincents are delusional. “You are the very epitome of a monster.”
This time, it's my turn to laugh like a crazy person. Wow. Just … wow.
“If you don't do what I say, when I say it, you will be the very epitome of dead. Do you understand me now?” Victor rises to his feet and looms over the couple the way he always does. “Get your shit together and figure out a way to help me nail Ophelia to the cross. If you do, I'll give you a cut of my inheritance, enough that you'll never have to sell another girl again.”
Leigh looks askance at Victor, like she doesn't believe him for shit. She shouldn't, considering that he's lying his ass off, but she's also greedy enough to consider it as a possibility. Whatever works.
“Let's go,” Vic says, nodding at Hael, Cal, and Oscar. Me, he grabs around the waist, pulling me out the door and leading us toward his Harley as he digs a pack of cigarettes out with his left hand. “Jesus, these people are stupid as fuck. I give them until the New Year to piss me off to the point of murder.” He takes a drag and passes the smoke to me.
“I give them until Christmas,” I reply and Vic chuckles, taking the cigarette back and pulling in another drag before he flicks it to the ground and crushes it out with his boot.
“See you at home,” Aaron calls out, climbing into the driver's seat of the Bronco and waving his arm at me. There's something cozy about the way he says that word. Home. I don't feel like I've ever had a real home before. The thought excites me as I climb on the back of the Harley behind Vic, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face against his back.
Callum and Oscar hop into the Camaro with Hael, and off we go.
Our Havoc honeymoon is over.
It was very … appropriate, I felt. Kidnapping. Threats. Destruction.
Sex.
Lots and lots and lots of sex.
I feel like Victor has branded himself on my skin.
And yet, I'm looking forward to spending the night in that king-size bed with him.
Victor and I head straight home while the other boys veer off to deal with Alyssa.
“Who are the Peters?” I ask when Victor lets us into Aaron's house and slides a pistol from his waistband. He checks the house like he's part of a SWAT team while I follow along behind him. He waits until the house is clear before he turns and looks down at me.
“The Peters are Oscar's foster family,” he tells me, and I swear, my jaw nearly comes unhinged.
“How did I not know that he lives with a foster family?” I ask, wondering if that's the real reason why Victor sent Oscar with me to check out the Kushners' house, if that's why he let Oscar do the actual killing.
“A good one though,” Vic assures me, pausing as the front door opens and the other boys—sans Oscar—come in, the girls preceding them with tired yawns. It's only mid-day, but they most definitely took advantage of the trip, staying up all night and bingeing on candy and Netflix.
I watch as they slink up the stairs and disappear into Kara and Ashley's room.
“A good what?” Aaron asks, pausing beside us. He looks relieved to be home, but there's a different sort of tension in his eyes. He levels his gold-green gaze on Victor and waits to hear what we're talking about.
“Oscar's foster family,” Vic murmurs, looking Aaron up and down briefly before he locks eyes with him. “She wants to know about the Peters.”
Aaron glances over at me with a sympathetic sort of expression on his face.
“Maybe if you knew more about Oscar's family, you'd understand him better,” he says, and then he pauses for a long moment. “Doesn't excuse fucking any of his behavior, but it might help you figure out a way to accept him for what he is—a complete and total asshole.”
“Where is that complete and total asshole anyway?” I ask, my eyes drifting over to the slight pinkish stain on the couch. I almost cringe but manage to hold it together. No need to show all my emotional cards, right?
“At home, with the Peters,” Victor says with a frown as he checks his phone. “Speaking of
, I have to go in a few myself.”
“What?” I ask, blinking stupidly at him. “You're leaving?”
The grin that stretches across that man's lips makes me want to stab him with the blade that's tucked into my boot. Fucker. He looks so damn pleased with himself as he scoops me into his arms and Aaron rolls his eyes.
I get the sense that the other boys are being patient … but also quickly losing that battle.
Victor must know that, right?
“In order to get my inheritance, I have to live with my dad until graduation. Legally, I can only spend two weeks away from the house before Ophelia can call that shit in. Trust me: she's watching.” Victor pauses, skimming his hands down my back and sighing in just such a way that his breath ruffles my hair. “With the days I slept here before the trip, and the trip itself, I cannot stay here with you tonight.”
I close my eyes against the sound of his voice. The way he's talking, you'd think we were going to be separated for eons, not one night.
“I'll take good care of her,” Aaron replies for me, snapping both me and Vic out of the obsessive bubble we're trapped in. I flick a glance over my shoulder as Vic scowls.
“Oh, I'm sure you'll try,” he tells him, looking Aaron right in the face. “But not in the way you're thinking.”
“No?” Aaron asks, taking a step forward. The tension in the room amps up, and I start choking on the extreme levels of testosterone. It takes like ash on my tongue. “We've all been nice, Vic. Way fucking nicer than we needed to be. Tell me: what's it to you if Bernie and I spend some time together while you're gone?”
Shit.
I look between Aaron and Vic, and I just know this is about to spiral out of control.
I wanted Aaron to stand up for me, and it looks like he just might.
But at what cost?
Victor is amped-up, hyper aggressive from the wedding …
“I'm going to shower, and then I'm going to curl up with a book,” I blurt out, because, let's be honest, I'm sore and I just spent two hours on the back of a motorcycle. My poor lady parts need a break. “Let's just … shelve this conversation for now, okay?”
“Pussy,” Hael calls out from the kitchen, chuckling at himself. “I mean, ball sack. Stop being a ball sack, Bernie, let 'em fight over you.” I flip him off, slipping past Callum and heading for the stairs.
I almost expect Vic or Aaron to stop me, but neither of them does. When I get to the top of the steps and look back, I can see it's because they're in a stalemate. If one of them had moved, the other would've, too, and a fight might've broken out.
Jesus.
I can almost hear Oscar's mocking tones ringing inside my head.
“We are not letting Bernadette break us apart.”
But he needn't have worried because Bernie won't let Bernie break Havoc apart.
This is all going to work out; it's just a matter of balance.
I slip into Aaron's room and lock the door behind me, putting my back to it and sliding down until I'm sitting on the floor. And then I start to laugh, and I don't stop until I'm in tears.
Happy tears, to be specific.
This is going to be fun.
Prescott High is in rare form when we roll up on Monday, parking the Camaro across the street and settling in for a moment to watch the mayhem unfold.
“Fuck,” Hael murmurs, folding his arms across the steering wheel and resting his chin atop them. Cal leans forward from the back seat and we all watch as uniformed police officers hassle students outside the front doors. “This is worse than usual.”
“It'd have to be, considering the nightmare we left before break,” Callum muses, flipping his hood up like armor. He's always been notorious for sneaking weapons in past security. I wonder if even he can get anything past these guys. Instead of the usual duo of derpy idiot cops that patrol campus, we have six officers whose faces seem carved of stone.
By now, they'll have found Neil's cruiser, flipped over and burnt. They'll have realized that he's missing. They'll have noticed that I've been gone.
Long. Deep. Breath.
We get out of the car.
Oscar, Aaron, and Vic are waiting for us on the sidewalk in front of the school steps. Not a single student passes by us without craning their heads around on their necks to stare. Mark Charlin is so busy gaping at us that he doesn’t notice the steps at the front entrance, beefs it, and ends up cracking a tooth and bleeding everywhere.
“Idiot,” Hael murmurs, lighting up a cigarette. Even now, with six police officers—I’m just assuming Havoc doesn’t have any of these guys in their pocket—the boys flaunt authority from moment one. “How do we do this, boss?”
“It’s a school day, like any other,” Vic says with a shrug. He heads right for the front steps without waiting to see if we’ll follow. He doesn’t need to, right? Because he knows we will.
I have to skip ahead to catch up with Victor, wearing my pretty pink Havoc jacket with pride.
The police officers stop us, frisking us from head to toe. I can feel the boys watching me to make sure I’m treated with respect, that hands don’t wander or squeeze where they shouldn’t. Either the officer that’s patting me down is one of the good ones or he can sense that he’s being watched by predators.
Once they release us, we go through the usual metal detector/drug dog bullshit that we do every morning. After that, it seems to be business as usual.
We step into the building with me and Vic at the head of our ‘V’ shaped formation, the other boys fanned out behind us. At the end of the hallway is Mitch Charter, his brother Logan, and the two remaining Ensbrook brothers. Kali and Billie are with them, watching us. They’re all watching us.
Someone near us is listening to the song “Start a War” by Klergy and Valerie Broussard. It seems appropriate as it drones out of their phone’s speaker. The owner of said phone is frozen, holding a pair of earbuds in his palm. Guess he just paused in the middle of turning on his Bluetooth. The music keeps playing as we start down the hallway, my heeled boots loud against the old linoleum floors.
Principal Vaughn is waiting about halfway down, his arm still in the sling, his eyes shifty and unfocused.
“Detective Constantine is here and looking for Bernadette,” Vaughn simpers, slinking up to us like a kicked dog who’s finally found its rightful master. Best he remember not to bite the hand that feeds. Victor very briefly glances in his direction. “He’s waiting in Ms. Keating’s office.”
“Tell us about the officers out front,” Vic says casually, lighting up a cigarette. Vaughn cringes, but what is he going to do? We cut all the fingers on his right hand off. He most certainly isn’t going to be calling Victor to the office for smoking on campus.
“The police think Prescott students were responsible for the riot on Friday,” Scott whispers, almost conspiratorially.
“Imagine that,” Vic responds coolly as we breeze right past the Charter Crew and turn the corner.
“Fucking snake,” I hear Kali Rose-Kennedy hiss from behind me.
She has no idea.
“One of their officers is missing,” our disgraced principal continues, struggling to keep up with Vic’s long strides. Somehow, even though I’m quite a bit shorter than him, I manage to find a way to keep pace. “Neil Pence.” Scott looks right at me, brown eyes frightened, like he knows more than he’s letting on. “Your stepfather. His cruiser was found flipped over and burned, but he hasn’t been seen since he stopped by the school …”
“He’s been missing ten days?” Victor clarifies, even though he knows. He knows because we buried my stepfather alive with an oxygen tank and some food. Because we are monsters and that’s what monsters do: hunt other monsters.
“You haven’t talked to your mother since then?” Principal Vaughn asks, as if he thinks I have some sort of normal relationship with Pamela. I just laugh, but it’s not really funny at all, is it?
“My mom and I don’t get along.” I wiggle my fingers to show
off my ring and, because of my intended double entendre, Vaughn flinches and rubs at his sling. “I’m married now, legally emancipated. I owe her nothing and vice versa. I’m sorry to hear about Neil.” Callum chuckles at my words, and I grin.
“Constantine’s going to start pulling students in as soon as the first bell rings,” Vaughn warns as Vic pushes open the graffiti-covered doors to the cafeteria. We’re here early, to take advantage of the free breakfast. We never make it for breakfast, but today is special. We need to make sure the entire Prescott student body is aware that the boys they saw escorted out by an FBI-sanctioned task force are back.
The law is nothing in the face of Havoc’s wrath.
“Fuck the detective,” Vic says, cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he glances over his shoulder at the principal. “We don’t have anything to hide.”
This time, when Victor laughs, the entire cafeteria goes silent, and the sound rings out like a death knell.
Hope the Charter Crew is ready for us.
There’s one gang you don’t piss off at Prescott High, not unless you want them to destroy you.
Too late, Charter Crew. Too motherfucking late.
This time, when Detective Constantine calls me into the office, I don’t have Vice Principal Keating to protect me. Vaughn, as simpering and weak as he is, isn’t going to stand up for me, not even if he’s resigned to being Havoc’s pet. I’d have to essentially give him orders to get him to obey, and I can’t do that in front of the detective and his two uniformed lackeys.
“Ms. Blackbird,” the detective says when I walk in wearing my pink leather jacket, black leather pants, and high-heeled boots. I know what I look like, with dark liner smudged around my green eyes, my lips painted as red as the red, red motherfucking rose.
“Mr. Constantine,” I reply, because calling him detective every time I address him just seems passé. He isn’t smiling today. Gone is the good ol’ boy persona he put on before. This time, he is truly pissed.
“Have a seat,” he says with a deep sigh, indicating one of Ms. Keating’s two student chairs. I can’t help but look at the spot where she collapsed after Neil hit her, where he started pistol-whipping her, where she bled.
Mayhem at Prescott High Page 13
