Page 21 of Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 1)
“Screw you, peeping tom piece of shit.” I spit on him and swipe my arm across my red-painted lips, smearing color that looks like blood on the ugly frock. Good. Now I can’t wear it to the luncheon. “You got what you deserved.” I step back and look up to find Callum and Hael watching me.
“Let’s get this dress and get out of here. This place is depressing as fuck,” Hael says, and then he laughs as I turn and start back the way I came, pausing when Vic grabs my wrist. His grip is firm, but not bruising. I lift my eyes to his.
“Clever little Bernadette,” he murmurs before releasing me.
I roll my eyes as we head back to the house and crawl in the window. Billie is banging on the door and shouting something, but the guys ignore her.
“Well, this won’t do, will it?” Oscar asks, lifting my dirtied sleeve and giving it a look. He gives me a knowing smile and holds up another garment bag with a single inked finger. “This should do it. No need to try it on: I know your size, remember?”
“Get fucked,” I grumble as Aaron gathers up my discarded clothing and tosses me my leather jacket.
“Let’s go. We’re done here,” Vic announces, and Hael moves over to open the door, leaving Billie to stumble in and fall to her knees. “We’ll be taking three dresses. Consider your debt paid.” He steps past her and continues on. She, apparently, doesn’t have a lot going on upstairs because she follows after us.
“Those three dresses are worth double what we owed you,” she whines, and Callum pauses, turning and blocking her in the hallway with an arm on either side of the doorjamb.
“You’re lucky this is the only interest you’re paying on that loan. Tell your brothers we said hi.” His voice is like a dark dream, this growling, hollow sound that gives me chills. If I had Callum Park leaning over me in his hoodie like that, I’d either make certain I had a knife on me or else I’d back the hell off.
Billie finally seems to realize who she’s dealing with and retreats … a little, anyway.
“Oh,” Vic says, pausing just before we head out the door. He turns to glance over his shoulder, purple-black hair falling onto his forehead. “We left your boyfriend bleeding out in the woods. You should probably check on him.” He starts to turn back and then stops, like he’s thought of something else. “And next time he tries to scope out our girl, we’ll kill him.”
Vic strides across the deck in his boots and clomps down the stairs as I follow after. Without question, I get back on the bike with him.
I pretend not to enjoy it.
But I do.
I seriously fucking do.When we get back to the house, Victor’s dad is there.
And he’s not supposed to be.
Vic grits his teeth as he climbs off the bike and turns back to give me a look.
“Stay here for a minute.”
He takes off for the front door as Hael pulls his hot rod in beside me.
“Fuck, the old man is here?” he asks as he climbs out and uses his red tank top to wipe the sweat from his face. As he does that, I get a nice, long healthy look at his abs. Damn, he’s ripped. Hael notices me looking and cocks this smirking grin that I meet with dead eyes. I don’t care if he sees me checking him out. It’s part of the reason I’m here, isn’t it? To get the guys that should’ve always been mine back.
There’s some shouting from inside, definitely the result of more than two people.
“Shit.” Hael takes off for the front door with Callum and Aaron behind him, leaving me alone with Oscar in the front yard.
“What’s going on?” I ask as he takes a step toward me, his eyes focused above and behind me. When I glance back, I see something I really don’t like. That is, a group of men I don’t recognize making their way toward us.
My instincts flare, and that fight or flight fever kicks in. Like I said, mine’s messed up because it’s more like a fight or fight harder instinct, but it works for me.
“Trouble.” Oscar sets his iPad on the trunk of Hael’s car, and then carefully unbuttons his jacket, tossing it aside. His beautiful tattooed fingers flick open a few buttons, and he reaches inside his shirt, pulling out a gun, a revolver by the looks of it.
Without even blinking, he lifts it up and levels it on the newcomers.
“You should've taken off when you had the chance, gone to live with that grandmother of yours.”
Aaron’s words make me shiver, and I exhale to calm myself.
This is what buying into Havoc has earned me: violence and turmoil. They are a gang, after all, no matter how beautiful or dark or alluring they might be. No matter what they used to mean to me as a kid.
