Havoc: Mayhem Series #4

by Jamie Shaw

  “Goodbye,” I say, and Danica gives me an icy smile. It’s chilling, how cold she looks as she steps in front of me. The pretense isn’t there anymore—the façade is gone, and so are her thousand pretty masks. There is no compassion or vulnerability or kindness in her eyes—only cold hatred, and I realize that even if I did run right now, she’d chase me down. This ends here, on a quiet sidewalk in front of her neighbor’s house.

  “No hug?” she taunts in a sap-sweet voice, and I sicken of her games.

  “What do you want?”

  “What, I can’t want a hug from my cousin?”

  Years on a farm have taught me never to turn my back on a dangerous animal, but in this moment, it’s all I can do. I turn away from her, and I tug Luke with me. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m going to make your life a living hell, you know,” Danica promises, but I keep walking.

  “You’ve already tried.”

  “I haven’t even started,” she threatens as she stalks my every step, refusing to let me escape from her.

  I glance at Luke, at the impressionable look he’s giving me, and I stop in my tracks. I’m running. I’m literally speed-walking down the sidewalk instead of teaching my little brother to stand up for himself. His school is full of Danicas, full of Graysons, and Luke needs to learn not to run.

  I steel myself, and I turn around. “Okay, Danica, enlighten me. What are you going to do? Cry to your daddy some more?”

  Her eyes flash with anger, but I know this battle has just begun.

  “You think you’re something special, don’t you?” she snarls, and my response comes quick.

  “No, I think I’m average. But Mike thinks I’m special, and that’s all that matters to me.”

  Danica’s laugh is a humorless white cloud of air between us, her expression glacial as she says, “Do you think of me when you’re being his little slut?”

  “I don’t think of you at all,” I lie.

  “Not even when he fucks you?” Danica asks, not caring at all that there is a twelve-year-old standing beside us. I don’t answer, and she smiles. “I guess you must be used to it, getting all of my old trash. My toys, my dresses, and now my boyfriend. You can have him, Hailey. He’ll never make love to you in a way that he hasn’t made love to me first.”

  “At least he can look me in the face while he’s doing it,” I snap, remembering what Mike told me about having to do her from behind the one time they did it on the tour bus.

  Danica’s whole face burns red as she hisses, “What did you just say?”

  Her fists clench at her sides, and I know it’s time to get the hell out of here. I grab Luke by his elbow and spin us around, and Danica’s breath is hot on my neck when she screams in my ear, “What the fuck did you just say to me, you bitch!”

  When I turn back around, she’s right in my face. “Say what you want, Danica! Say it so I can fucking leave! You want to tell me how poor I am? How ugly I am? Do it, because once I leave here, this is done.”

  “You think you’re just going to live happily ever after?” she sneers. “Hailey, I’m going to make your life on campus so miserable, you’re never going to finish school.”

  “How?” I ask just to get it over with. “What, are you going to sleep with my professors and get them to give me bad grades?”

  “I have friends,” she threatens with a smile.

  “So, what? You’re going to start rumors about me? About how I’m a whore? How I have STDs? What, Danica? Tell me.”

  Her jaw ticks as I guess her evil plan, and I roll my eyes.

  “I used to go to high school smelling like manure with holes in my clothes. My snow boots freshman year were tennis shoes with bread bags tied over them. If you think I give even the tiniest shit what a bunch of frat boys and sorority girls think of me, you’re wrong.”

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Danica mocks with an exaggerated pout. It twists into a smile, and she taunts, “What did Mike think of my dress, Hailey? The one with the blue flowers you loved so much.”

  My blood boils under my skin, but I force a smile back. “That stupid video you sent him? He didn’t even watch it. And even if he had, I’m sure he wouldn’t have liked it as much as the red dress I wore when I starred in the band’s music video.”

  White rage flares across Danica’s face, and she hisses, “You’re lying.”

  “I’m a terrible liar,” I remind her, echoing something she’s told me a thousand times. “Look at my face. Does it look like I’m lying?”

  One minute, she’s studying me—my eyes, my mouth, my serious expression. The next, blood is exploding against my teeth, the force of her fist knocking me backward. I fall from the unexpected blow, and my brother drops to his knees to help me. My rattled brain is still trying to register what just happened, when he starts to rise to his feet, anger rolling off him.

  I latch on to Luke’s elbow to keep him from getting involved, and when I’m confident he’s not going to throw everything my dad ever taught him about not hitting girls out the window, I force my legs to lift me back to my feet.

  Adrenaline is pulsing through me so rapidly, my whole body is shaking. I’m so angry, I want to cry. I want to scream so loud it hurts, and then I want to fall apart on the sidewalk. Instead, I meet Danica’s furious glare, and I make sure she hears me. “You’re the ugly stepsister, Danica. You try so hard to be the princess, but you’re hideous inside. Your daddy is the only man who’s ever going to love you.”

  Angry tears glisten in her eyes as she clenches her fists at her sides. I wait for her to punch me again, but when it doesn’t happen, I wipe my sleeve against my bloody lip and turn away from her. “She’s not worth it,” I tell Luke when he holds his aggressive stance, and he eventually lets me pull him away.

  I hope the blood in my mouth is enough. I pray my swollen lip was what she needed. If she needed to knock me down, fine, she knocked me down—

  “This isn’t over,” she calls after me as I walk away, and I close my eyes, knowing that words will never be enough to stop her from wreaking havoc on my life. It will never matter to her how many times she knocks me down, because I will always get back up.

  When I turn around and walk back to her, her eyes have dried, and her face is vicious. The little girl I knew in Indiana is gone, possessed by a coldhearted bitch who’s spent the past few months manipulating me like a puppet.

  “You have something you want to say to me?” she barks, and I look her straight in the eye.

  “Yeah,” I say, channeling years of lifting hay bales and mucking stalls and wrangling horses. I spit a mouthful of blood on the sidewalk, and I fist my hand like my daddy taught me. “You punch like a little bitch.”

  When I pull back my fist, I pull it back far. And when I punch Danica in her startled face, I punch her as hard as I can.

  Chapter 52

  If my life was a fairy tale, I suppose I would have knocked Danica out on that Thanksgiving afternoon four months ago. She would have fallen on her ass, the hit would have been clean, and I would have stood over her victorious, noting a look of surrender in her eyes.

  Instead, there was blood everywhere.

  Danica’s nose crunched against my fist, and the scene that followed was like something straight out of a horror movie.

  “Oh my God!” I gasped as I dropped to my knees beside her on the sidewalk. She was bawling her eyes out, holding her nose as blood streamed over her fingers. “I’m so sorry!”

  “I think you broke her nose,” my shocked brother said as Danica cried hysterically, and my hands shook as I panicked, not knowing how to help her.

  “Get Mom and Dad!”

  My brother ran back to the house, and I stripped off my favorite hoodie—the Ivy Tech one that Mike rescued for me the first night we met—and used it to try to stop the bleeding. I pushed her hair back from her face, I rubbed her back, I told her over and over again how sorry I was and how it was going to be okay.

  We haven’t talked in the months t
hat have passed since that day. Danica dropped out of school even before the semester ended, and I heard she’s dating a doctor now—the one who fixed her broken nose. My mom told me he’s a few years older than her, with a big house and a fancy Porsche, and I guess he was enough to make her forget about rock stars, because Mike hasn’t heard from her either.

  I’m watching him beat the drums now, a slow, easy rhythm as the guys do a lazy afternoon sound check. Mayhem is empty save for the band, a few staff members, and me, Rowan, and Dee, but outside, a line is already stretched around the building. It’s The Last Ones to Know’s first big show since their music video for “Ghost” released and the single went platinum, and tonight, one of the few bands bigger than they are is opening for them as part of the celebration, so the show sold out within minutes.

  While I spent the night in Mike’s arms, fans slept on the concrete sidewalk outside this building waiting to see him play, and a chill dances up my spine as I watch him. He yawns and plays the drums with one hand, and I smile, remembering that I didn’t exactly let him get much sleep when I came over last night.

  I’m living in the dorms now, just like my uncle promised, but I still spend most of my time at Mike’s place with him and Phoenix. We make the nights count, and during the days—when I’m not volunteering at the shelter, volunteering at the college learning center, or frantically scribbling down notes in class—I’m usually hanging out with my new roommate, Macy, who is super nice, if not a little awkward. She’s the total opposite of Danica—quiet and reserved but a great study partner—and I’m extremely thankful I was roomed with someone who complements me so well. Rowan and Dee freaked out when they discovered she’s my roommate, since she was apparently Dee’s roommate freshman year, and I couldn’t help laughing at the thought of poor Macy trying to hold her own with Deandra Dawson. We had even more in common than I thought, and when I found out that she had even met Mike before, she told me how lucky I was to have such a nice boyfriend, and I couldn’t help agreeing.

  After walking over and wrapping my arms around my very nice, very tired boyfriend’s neck, I press my chest against his back and tease in his ear, “Tired? Do you need me to take over?”

  Mike chuckles before spinning around and catching me by the waist. He tugs me into his lap and spins us back around, slipping his drumsticks into my hands. “Yeah, considering it’s your fault I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

  I barely have time to think of a witty reply before Dee and Rowan start cheering from where they’re sitting at the other side of the club, at the bar. Rowan has a mountain of homework spread on the bartop, and Dee is helping herself to a shot of something she probably shouldn’t be drinking considering it’s only two in the afternoon, but she texted me this morning to let me know that the red dress she made me for the music video is going to be the star feature in her school’s fashion show in New York, so the girl has a damn good reason to celebrate.

  “Woo!” Rowan shouts, lifting her hands in the air. “Go Hailey!”

  “Let’s see what you’ve got!” Dee encourages, toasting me with the shot glass in her hand.

  I cast a nervous glance at Mike, but his smile is electric. “Don’t hold back now, Animal.”

  My next glance is at Kit, and she smiles at me. “Pick a song.”

  “Uh . . .” Over the past few months, Mike has given me a few drumming lessons, and I try to think of an easy one. “How about ‘Rooftops’?” I ask, thinking of the slow song Shawn wrote for Kit. It’s ridiculously complicated on the guitars, but easy on the drums, so Mike has used it as a good practice song, and Kit’s face lights up when I request it.

  She smiles at Shawn at the other side of the stage, and he smiles back before nodding at me.

  “Are you ready?” Adam shouts at Rowan and Dee, and Rowan finally puts her pencil down, spinning around to give her boyfriend and his band her full attention. Dee screams her enthusiasm, and Joel laughs as he adjusts his guitar strap on his neck. Adam smiles over his shoulder at me, his gray-green eyes up for anything. “Ready when you are, Hailey.”

  I swallow hard, and Mike’s pep talk comes in the form of a shoulder rub that helps calm my nerves. I take a deep breath, he drops his hands, and I play the drums with The Last Ones to Know. Kit plays rhythm guitar, Joel plays bass, Shawn plays lead guitar, and Adam steps up to the mic to start singing one of the band’s most haunting, beautiful songs.

  I slip the sticks into Mike’s hands for the more complicated parts of the song, and even when my beat is slightly off during the easier parts, the band pretends not to notice. Mike’s chest against my back, his lap beneath my legs—it makes me feel like I can do this, like I can do anything, and when I finish, Rowan and Dee give me a standing ovation.

  “WE LOVE YOU, HAILEY!” they shout in unison, and I laugh as Dee puts her fingers in her mouth, her loud whistle filling the whole room.

  Mike hugs me tight and plants a kiss against my cheek, and the smile that splits my face makes me think of how far we’ve come since I first watched him play in this exact spot six months ago.

  For Christmas, he surprised me with plane tickets home to Indiana, and it was the best Christmas I’ve ever had. We flew out the day before Luke’s school went on winter break—along with Rowan, Dee, and the rest of Mike’s band—and they played a killer show in Luke’s junior high gym that the kids are still talking about. The day after the show, I brought them all home and introduced them to Teacup, who promptly tried to devour Dee’s sparkly purple pumps.

  The band flew home a couple days later, but Mike stayed with me over the holiday. He played gin rummy with my dad, braided pie crust with my mom, and built a snowman with Luke. We opened presents together Christmas morning, and that night, Mike and I sat up in the hayloft together, cocooned inside a mountain of blankets, watching the sun set over the snowy fields.

  “I can’t believe you bought Luke a drum kit,” I said for the hundredth time, and Mike hugged me tighter. I was sitting between his legs with my head resting against his chest, admiring the orange ribbons weaving patterns above the snow.

  “The kid wants to be a drummer,” Mike stated proudly, and I smiled out the open hatch.

  “He wants to be like you,” I corrected while he played with the tips of my fingers beneath the heavy flannel blankets.

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, for one,” I said as he flirted with the butterflies in my stomach, “you’re annoyingly handsome.”

  Mike’s chest shook against my back as he laughed. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. And you’re maddeningly talented.”

  “Oh no.”

  “And irritatingly romantic. I mean, really, Mike. Making me watch the sunset in your arms? You’re the worst.”

  He laughed and nuzzled his chin into the crook of my shoulder. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “I’m not sure I can,” I teased, and Mike’s fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt, caressing my stomach as they snuck higher.

  “Are you sure?”

  I turned my head into him just as his fingers found the delicate lace cups of my bra, and when he captured my mouth with his, I forgot what I needed to forgive him for. He made love to me under those blankets, up in that hayloft, and it was so much different than when I’d lost my virginity in that same barn. It was beautiful and romantic and full of fireworks, and when I fell asleep in his arms that night, I was sure that there was nowhere I’d rather be than on that farm, in that hayloft, with the man who was showing me one day at a time that happily-ever-afters really do exist, even for hand-me-down farm girls like me.

  We flew home after the holiday, and Mike took me to meet his mom. My stomach was in knots for nothing, because she immediately gave me a bone-crushing hug and told me how much she already adored me. She had Mike’s warm brown eyes, and I took to her instantly, knowing she had raised the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. She told me all sorts of stories about Mike as a kid, and the more his cheeks flus
hed as she told them, the more I fell in love with him, which I couldn’t have imagined was even possible. His mom made me promise to come back to try her secret fudge cookie recipe soon—with or without her son—and I promised I’d return the very next weekend, and I did.

  I’m still sitting on Mike’s lap at his drums, with Dee and Rowan clapping wildly at the bar, when a voice across the room loudly asks, “What are we cheering for?”

  A guy probably only a few years older than me grins widely as he strolls confidently toward the stage, and his presence alone tells me that he must be the lead singer of the opening band tonight: the infamous Van Erickson of Cutting the Line. He has jet-black hair, dyed a sparkling silver at the tips, and the cocky smile on his face screams “rock star.”

  “Hey!” Adam shouts back, launching off the stage to pin Van in a hug. Shawn climbs down a little more sensibly, followed by Joel and Kit—and Mike, who wraps his hands around my waist to help lower me to the floor

  Van’s bandmates and a pretty pair of girls enter behind him, and after everyone is finished getting reacquainted, Mike introduces me. “This is my girlfriend, Hailey.”

  “Oh,” Van says smoothly, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk, “the girl in the red dress needs no introduction. We’ve seen the video. We’re all big fans.”

  My cheeks burn as red as my dress in the music video was, and Mike’s arm grows snugger around my shoulder. Van shoots a smile at him and reaches out to shake my hand.

  “I’m Van.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, and when I shake Van’s hand, he chuckles.

  “No wet willies—I like her already!”

  Kit snorts and punches him in the arm, and Van laughs as everyone starts gravitating toward the bar.

  “Mike’s waited a long time for you, Hailey,” Van says in parting as he leads the way, and Mike smiles down at me as we fall behind.

  “Can I show you something?” he asks in a hushed voice, and when I nod, he steals me away.