Havoc: Mayhem Series #4

by Jamie Shaw

  “I’ve never been to New York at all,” I confess. I’ve been to, like, three states. Indiana, where I’m from. Virginia, where I am now. Delaware, where my family vacationed sometimes when I was a kid. And if you want to count the drive-through states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, I guess you could call that six, even though they all looked the same to me—long highways and wooded rest stops.

  “You’re not missing much,” Mike says. “The state is okay, but . . .” He cups his hand over his mouth and whispers, “Minnesota has better pizza.”

  “Minnesota?” I laugh, and Mike sits up and begins messing with his phone.

  “Look,” he says, holding it out for me to see a picture of a slice of pizza. I take the phone from him, and he says, “This is the best pizza I’ve ever had in my entire life. This place has all sorts of toppings, like, you can even get potato chips, Hailey. On your pizza. But this prosciutto . . .” He closes his eyes. “This is why I won’t do U.S. tours unless we do a show near Minneapolis.”

  Laughing, I ask, “Are you serious?”

  His brown eyes pop back open, amused at my skepticism. “Dead serious. I’m pretty sure Shawn even put it in our contract with Mosh Records.”

  I hand his phone back and say, “I’d have to get the potato chips. I don’t eat prosciutto.”

  “You don’t eat prosciutto?” he gasps, like he’s offended on its behalf.

  “I don’t eat meat. I’m a vegetarian.”

  Mike’s brows slam together, his jaw hanging open and his eyes drilled into mine. “You . . .”

  “Don’t eat meat.”

  “You don’t . . .”

  “Eat meat.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not,” I assure him, trying not to laugh.

  “But you’re a farmer!”

  “My parents are farmers,” I correct, and Mike stares back out the doorway of the cabin, clearly disturbed.

  “I’ve been friends with all kinds of people, but . . .” He looks over at me with exaggerated disgust on his face. “A vegetarian?”

  I laugh, and he has the decency to pretend to be pushed when I bump my fist into his shoulder. “And here I thought we were BFFs.”

  “That was before I knew the truth about you, Hailey Harper.”

  “Whatever, Mike Madden. If I can deal with the way you constantly drum on everything, you can deal with my aversion to prosciutto.”

  His fingers stop drumming on the floorboards of the cabin. “I do not drum on everything.”

  “You’re drumming right now!” I argue, pointing to his other hand, and Mike starts laughing. He flexes his fingers.

  “It’s a drummer thing. I can’t help it.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, and by fine, I mean cute. But cute is forbidden, and fine is . . . fine.

  “Danica hates it,” Mike says, and I roll my eyes at the rain.

  “Danica hates everything.”

  Me, hiking, secondhand clothes, puppies, rainbows—

  “At least she likes prosciutto,” Mike jokes, and my spine stiffens.

  “Sounds like you’re perfect for each other.”

  “Hm,” Mike hums, and I can sense him staring at me, probably wondering why such a harsh tone possessed my voice all of a sudden, but I don’t dare look at him. I try not to question my sudden shift in mood, but I’m pretty sure I’ll find the answer if I turn my head, if I search his eyes, if I let myself really look.

  “The rain’s letting up,” I say, pushing to my feet and walking to the doorway. I step out onto the porch, listening to the last of the rain patter against the wooden roof and the dying leaves and the soaked-through earth. The scent of it wraps itself around me and nips all the way through three layers of wet clothes.

  “I could live with cheese pizza,” Mike’s voice says from back inside the cabin. I turn to look at him, but I don’t know what I expect to see. He finishes pulling his hoodie on, pushes his hat back onto my head as he walks past me, and leads me back to the pond.

  Back to Danica.

  Chapter 13

  The walk back to real life is quiet, and dark, and wet. Even after the clouds begin to clear, the shadow of them hangs over and inside and around me. Mike helps me traverse the parts of the forest designed to devour five-foot-tall country girls, but we don’t say much. We just walk, and walk, and walk. I had no idea we’d traveled this far, but by the time we get back to the clearing, the blister on my pinky toe is throbbing against my boot.

  Rowan takes off running the moment she sees us, her wavy blonde hair even frizzier than mine. “I thought you were dead!” she shouts as she closes the distance between us, catching Mike in a hug, pulling away to inspect him, and then squeezing me to death. “How are you not dead?!”

  “We found a cabin,” Mike says, and Rowan pulls away to look at me. Her blue eyes flit up to Mike’s cap on my head, and then they dart back down.

  “A cabin?” She turns her chin to question Mike, and he nods.

  “What about you?” Mike asks. “How are you so dry?”

  “Oh, that blanket I brought is waterproof on the inside. You just fold it inside out and—”

  When Mike starts laughing, I can’t help smiling.

  “I told you she brought a tent!” Mike says, and I hold in a laugh at Rowan’s confused expression.

  “But the real question is, did she bring a space heater?”

  “The waterproof side of the blanket is thermal . . .” Rowan says, and Mike chuckles and wraps his arm around her shoulder, leading us back to the platform on the water. It probably isn’t the smartest idea to be standing on a steel structure right after a storm, but the sun is fighting to push the clouds away, and who am I to tell a bunch of rock stars what to do?

  Before we get to the pond, I take Mike’s hat off and wordlessly hand it back to him, and he removes his arm from Rowan’s shoulder to take it. His brow furrows, and I look away from it.

  Yes, I understand that he is the type of guy to lend his hats to his female friends and wrap his arm around their shoulders, but his girlfriend is my cousin, and while I’ve worn the hats of other male friends, wearing Mike’s hat doesn’t feel as harmless as all that.

  Maybe it’s the look Danica would give me if she saw me in it . . .

  Then again, maybe it’s something else.

  Turns out, it doesn’t even matter. Three sets of boots clang onto the dock and then out onto the platform, but Danica is too busy talking on her phone to even notice.

  “Did you two have fun in the woods?” Dee suggests, and I school my expression.

  “Maybe if your idea of fun is running for your life through mud and lightning.”

  “I had fun,” Mike says from behind me. His hat gets pushed down onto my head a third time, and I squint at him over my shoulder. “Did you know Hailey is a vegetarian?”

  “You don’t eat meat?” Joel asks, zipping up his fly after he finishes pissing off the end of the dock. He joins our conversation, and I’m wading through the usual shock and awe over me being a vegetarian, when Danica suddenly bounds up and wraps her arms around Mike. She nearly drags him to his knees.

  “Did they tell you the news?!”

  “What news?”

  “She’s going to be in the music video,” Dee says with a suspicious amount of approval, and Danica beams.

  “Shawn likes my idea! I’m going to be the star!”

  “The star ghost,” Dee corrects, and Danica smiles wide.

  “Right. Right. The star ghost. It’s going to be amazing! I—” Her phone starts ringing, and she checks the screen. Without excusing herself, she answers it. “Katie, you whore! I’ve been trying to call you all day! Guess who’s going to be in the music video. Yes!” My cousin wanders to the edge of the platform, and Mike sighs.

  “We ought to get going,” Rowan suggests, and as if on cue, warning thunder growls in the distance. “It’s supposed to rain again.” She calls to Adam and Shawn, who are sitting at the other side of the platfor
m, and asks them to start packing up.

  “Did they finish everything they wanted to get done today?” I ask, remembering that Adam and Shawn spent a lot of time scouting the woods before Danica asked me to take that walk with her earlier this afternoon. I’m not sure if they accomplished everything they came up here to do today, but I hope so, because the video is shooting in just two weeks.

  Rowan answers me as I help her roll up the picnic blanket. “Yeah, they found places for good shots, and they got a rough idea of how many extras and lights they’ll need. I think everything is good to go.” She glances up at Danica and sighs. “Can you get her? I don’t think she heard me.”

  Sure enough, Danica is walking all along the edge of the dock as she chatters on her phone, her hands animating her words and proving just how oblivious she is to everything going on around her. I reluctantly walk over and invade her blast zone.

  “Hey, Dani—Danica.”

  With the phone to her ear, she flashes me her irritated face, the one I’ve grown exceedingly familiar with, and goes back to ignoring me.

  “We’re leaving soon. Rowan wanted—”

  “What do you want?” she snaps at me. “I’m trying to talk to Katie about the video.” Her voice lowers to a whisper, and she covers the mouthpiece of the phone. “The concept you were supposed to help me sell, but never did.”

  “I—”

  “You better not think I still owe you a favor.”

  Danica sneers at me and puts the phone back to her ear, and I stand there dazed as she backs away from me. “Are you still there?” she asks Katie. “Yeah, I just—”

  Her voice fades out as I watch the disaster about to happen. The clump of wet leaves clinging to the steel dock, Danica’s useless fashion-forward boot about to back into them. I reach out to grab her at the same time her foot slips out from under her. She stops falling backward, backward, and I get pulled forward, forward.

  “DANI!” I shriek as she yanks on my arm to save herself. And then I’m catapulting—

  Off the dock—

  Through the air—

  Down into the pitch-black water.

  Chapter 14

  I never knew that sparks could be quiet—like a silent firework that no one even knows is exploding until they gaze up at the moon and see the whole night sky consumed by burning color. A person can just be drowning in a pond, minding their own business, when the whole world catches fire.

  Forests ignite. Houses burn down. One minute, you’re breathing fresh air. And the next, you can’t breathe at all.

  Sometimes, you burn alive.

  I don’t know the moment I sparked, but I do know the moment I realized I couldn’t breathe. And it wasn’t when Danica yanked me into that pond. It wasn’t when my calf got ripped open on the side of the dock. It wasn’t when Mike reached down and pulled me out of the water. And it wasn’t when he insisted I let him carry me on his back all the way back to the cars so I wouldn’t make a bad injury worse.

  I think it happened sometime during that long trek back through the woods, with my hands braced on his shoulders and his fingers curled tight beneath my thighs. I was wearing his mostly dry hoodie and a pair of extra leggings that Rowan had brought along, and all around me was his scent and his touch and his feel. The rough calluses on his palms. The strong muscles in his back. The lifts and dips of his stride.

  I knew if I relaxed, if I lowered my chin to his shoulder and allowed my cheek to brush against his, I’d feel the scruff on his jaw. I’d feel his hair against my temple. I’d feel the soft curve of his neck.

  But then he’d also be able to feel the frantic drumming of my heart. The way it pounded furiously inside my chest at the thought of that scruff, his hair, his neck, those eyes, his voice, his laugh, that smile . . .

  That was the moment I stopped breathing. Something had sparked inside me, and that spark stole all of the oxygen in the world. Something about being with him today . . . about seeing his smile and hearing his laugh and feeling him carrying me through the woods . . . it did something to me. My realization happened near a tree that looked like another tree that looked like another tree—with Danica walking right beside me.

  You have a crush on Miiiike, came Dee’s text, and I glanced over my shoulder to see her wink at me. The whole group was walking with us, navigating the dripping forest to get to the cars before the next storm rolled in, and I hoped the flames flickering inside me weren’t as obvious to everyone as they were to my very annoying, very nosy, very stubborn friend.

  But she was right.

  I had a crush on Mike.

  I have a crush on Mike.

  I tucked my phone into the sleeve of his hoodie and tried to remember how to breathe evenly. But all I could focus on was his hands on my legs, his hands on my legs.

  Danica hadn’t objected to him carrying me, which was surprising. And she had also apologized half a dozen times for knocking me into the water, which was even more surprising. She said it was an accident, and I believed her.

  Which was why I felt like the biggest bitch on the planet for crushing on her boyfriend. While my arms and legs were wrapped around him.

  He was being a gentleman. Danica was being nice. And I was being the lowest kind of low. I wasn’t the kind of girl who deserved piggyback rides or apologies or favors. I was the kind of girl who developed incinerating crushes on her own cousin’s boyfriend. I was the kind of girl who couldn’t be just his friend. Who texted him at night. Who kept it a secret. Who ran with him through the woods when he should have been with his girlfriend.

  His girlfriend. His girlfriend.

  Danica.

  My cousin.

  I vowed then and there to keep my distance from Mike Madden. No more gaming. No more texting. No more late-night phone calls. No more phone calls ever.

  “Come on,” Luke whines over the phone four days after the pond, and I brush my teeth in front of my bathroom sink as I listen to him.

  “I can’t,” I tell him with a mouth full of toothpaste, and he whines some more.

  “Come ooon.”

  “I’m not playing games tonight,” I argue after spitting into the sink. I feel guilty about disappointing my little brother, but he’s obsessed with Deadzone Five, and I’m obsessed with avoiding Mike.

  I can do it. I can get over him. I have to.

  Even if it hurts more than I thought it would—more than it should. It hurts more than losing a friend, and that’s exactly why I need to stay away from Deadzone. At least until this aching in my chest goes away. At least until I can sleep at night.

  “And you should be in bed,” I lecture my twelve-year-old brother. “It’s a school night.”

  “I’m skipping,” Luke announces, and I wipe my thumb over the pasty corners of my mouth.

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I hate it.”

  I wash my face with a cleanser wipe with one hand while holding my phone with the other. “Is this because of that punk Grayson?”

  Luke’s silence is answer enough, and I sigh as I toss the wipe in the trash.

  “You need to stand up for yourself, Luke.”

  “How? I’m the skinniest kid in my grade.”

  “I don’t know . . . Can’t you make friends with some bigger kids?”

  Luke scoffs. “He’s the king of the big kids. They all do what he says.”

  “Well . . . then can’t you get Mom to talk to the principal or something?”

  With a very adult sigh, my brother says, “Hailey, are you seriously that old that you don’t remember what seventh grade is like? I can’t just tell my mom.”

  “You also can’t skip school.”

  “I should just drop out and be a farmer.”

  “A very dumb farmer,” I counter, and when that isn’t enough to make Luke change his mind, I say, “Look, Luke, you can’t just run away from your problems. If you don’t stand up for yourself, this kid’s never goi
ng to stop.”

  “You let Danica bully you,” Luke points out, and I frown as I enter my room.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  Well, for one, I deserve it. I developed a crush on her boyfriend, which means I deserve the very worst she can give me. And for two—“We’re family,” I say, and my brother scoffs.

  “That’s crap, and you know it.”

  “Yeah well . . .” With lack of a better argument, I simply order, “You’re still going to school tomorrow.”

  “Can’t you just play for a little while with me?” Luke pleads, and I stare at my computer. I can’t play Deadzone with him because if Mike logs on, I know he’ll play with us. Which will involve talking. Which will resurrect those damn butterflies in my stomach.

  I rub the ache in my chest and say, “What about that dragon game we played before?”

  “I want to play Deadzone.”

  “Why? I feel like being a princess tonight.”

  “Because I miss playing with you and Mike, but he’s not on yet.”

  My throat dries, and I croak, “You’re logged on right now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But Mike isn’t on?”

  “Not yet.”

  I sit down at my desk, worrying my lip. Mike texted me to ask me to play Sunday night, but I ignored him. He sent me a couple more messages as I sat at my desk frowning at my black computer screen, and then just one: Sweet dreams, Hailey.

  It was the same Monday night. But last night, he didn’t bother asking. I was lying in bed, wondering what he was doing, when my phone dinged. He wished me sweet dreams. Nothing else—just sweet dreams.

  I didn’t respond.

  He’s an addiction that I need to stop fueling, for my sake and his. He told me I’m one of his best friends, and I’m trying to be a good one by not letting these feelings grow. He has a girlfriend, and even if he didn’t, my feelings for him would only end in hurt feelings. For me: because I’m not Mike’s type—I’m no Danica—and I’d eventually have to hear that from his own mouth. And for him: because he lost a friend he thought he could trust to not fall for him like every other girl who’s ever seen him bang on the drums.