Page 23 of Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 1)
“Moral code?” Vic's father laughs, jerking away from his son's grip and scrambling backwards until he finds his feet. The other boys stand in a loose half-circle around him, watching, waiting, while Oscar cleans his gun with a handkerchief from his pocket, and tucks it into his shirt, carefully buttoning it up again. “I know what you and your buddies do. You steal and you fight, you smoke and you fuck. What makes you any different than me?”
“The fact that you don't know the answer to that question is part of the problem.” Victor stands back up and swipes some blood from his hands onto his jeans. None of it is his blood. He turns to the side to look at me and frowns, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Hael, Oscar, escort Bernadette home.”
My nostrils flare, and I try not to show my disappointment.
If Vic thinks sending me home is a boon, he's wrong.
It's a punishment.The Thing isn't currently at the house, which is a positive, but if it were, I wouldn't go inside. I'd sleep in the woods out back, in the small pink tent my grandmother gave me when I was six. And I'd sleep there with a knife.
“You don't look so happy to be here,” Oscar says, leaning forward between the two seats, his bland, neutral, business-like smile back in place. But tonight, I saw deeper, into what truly makes him a part of Havoc.
“I'm not.” I grab my backpack and sleeping bag as Hael gets out of the car and comes around to … open my door. What the fuck? I give him a skeptical sort of look as I climb out, like one might eye a used car salesman.
He wants something from me.
But, you know, in a way, he's much worse than a used car salesman because I know what a salesman wants. I have no idea what's going through Hael's mind.
“What?” he asks, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “We take care of our own, Blackbird. Relax. I was just trying to be a gentleman.”
“Well, don't,” I snap, scooting around him, and giving the big, tattooed car freak a wide berth. “I'm not used to it, and it doesn't suit you.”
He laughs at me. Shit, he's always laughing.
“Good point. Catch ya later, Bernie.”
Hael climbs back in the car and he and Oscar take off, leaving me alone in my own personal hell. Staring up at the dilapidated duplex in front of me, I sigh and head for the front door.
Hopefully, Pamela is asleep.
But then I walk in and find her sitting on the couch, waiting for me. It's always bad when she's paying attention to me. I prefer the months of severe neglect, hands down.
“Where the hell have you been?” she asks me, standing up and giving my frock a confused look. It's definitely not my usual daywear, that's for sure.
“What do you care?” I ask, and then the hair on the back of my neck stands on end at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. I'd recognize that car anywhere: it belongs to the Thing. My skin gets tight suddenly, like I'm trapped inside of it with nowhere to go.
Maybe Aaron was right, maybe you should've cut to Nantucket and run? Maybe none of this is worth it? How much more suffering will you have to endure to achieve your ends, Bernadette?
But I'm so damaged, and so broken. I don't even know what happiness looks like anymore. Heather, though, her smile is like a radiant beam of sunshine. She gets it, the meaning of life. I just have to stop the world from snatching it away.
The front door opens and there it is. I refuse to give it any sort of gendered pronoun, or a non-binary pronoun like they. It is an it, and it’s not even dignified enough for that.
The Thing. The Monster. The Creep. The Devil.
My throat gets tight, and I find it suddenly hard to breathe.
“The hell are you wearing?” he asks, his laughter this slime that coats my skin and poisons me. I want to gouge my ears out with a needle, just to make it stop. Just so I never have to hear that sound again. “You look like one of the old bitches at the bingo hall.”
Neil Pence aka the Thing aka my stepfather moves toward me and reaches down to cup my ass. My reflexes are sharp now, honed, not those of the little girl he abused for so many years.
I throw my elbow into his stomach, and he grunts, doubling over in pain as my mother gapes at us.
“Don't you hit your father!” she shouts, taking his side as she clutches at her pearls. Always taking his side.
She didn’t believe Pen when my sister asked for help. She’s part of the reason Penelope is dead. My eyes narrow to slits, and venom spews from between my lips.
