Page 132 of Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 1)
My eyes flick back to Hael’s brown ones, surrounded by black makeup. Does he know she’s watching us right now? I slide my fingers up the back of his neck, tickling his black-dyed red hair with my nails.
“Do you think Brittany likes my costume?” I inquire, nodding with my chin in her direction. Hael pauses, frowns, and glances over his shoulder, face tightening as he spots his ex on the fringes of the crowd. She’s dressed up like Ariana Grande with a high pony and a cat-eared headband.
“Fuck my life,” he grumbles as he turns back to me, keeping his hands firmly on the curves of my waist. “I don’t give a shit what she thinks.”
“You must’ve liked her at some point, to date her for so long,” I press, my lips near Hael’s chest. I wonder if he can even hear me above the wild thrum of the music. He keeps me close and finishes up the song, but when I try to pull away, he holds me there.
“You get it though, right?” he asks, looking at me with his head cocked slightly to one side. “Dating someone who’s not like you at all, just to see if there’s something you’re missing? I mean, you dated that douche Donald Asher.”
My lips purse, but I have no comeback for that.
When I look for Brittany again, I see that she’s disappeared into the party. Hael doesn’t follow after her like I thought he might. Instead, he parks himself on a crumbling high-backed chair, kicking one leg over the arm and snatching up an abandoned bottle of whiskey. He doesn’t seem concerned that he’s drinking out of some random’s bottle as he tilts it back.
I separate myself from the crowd, trying to have a good time but finding it impossible to shed that sharp-edged tension I’ve been nursing since moment one. Something bad is going to happen tonight, I think as I find a spot to rest next to Oscar.
He’s standing near the curved edge of the staircase, watching the action from afar.
“This house is practically a playground,” he says, glancing over at me. It’s eerie, seeing him with all that makeup and no glasses. “Drugs, drinking, smoking, dancing, fucking.” He emphasizes that last word, make no mistake about it.
“So?” I ask, my head buzzing with alcohol and the thick cloud of cigarette and marijuana smoke.
“So, why are you over here with me?” Oscar asks, his bat leaning against the wall next to him. “You know I can’t stand you; go bother somebody else.”
My eyes narrow on him, but now that he’s said that, I’m not fucking moving.
“What are you waiting for?” I ask, watching an Oak Valley Prep asshole with his hands all over Wendy’s ass. Pathetic. My lip curls. These filthy rich boys think all the chicks at Prescott are playthings they can toy with, use, and then throw away like trash. An image of Donald rolling down the roof flashes in my mind, and I bite my lower lip.
“Trouble,” Oscar says, pushing away from the wall and taking his bat with him. He leaves me there to blend into the shadows, my ears straining for gossip. Since the boys are all dressed in matching costumes, it isn’t hard to pick them out of the crowd. As I do, I notice that Vic is watching me from across the room. I’m not sure I’ve ever left his sight.
“You heard what they did to Don, right?” this Oak Valley asshole asks, pausing at the table on my right to score some of the spiked punch with the plastic bones floating in it. I can tell he’s from the prep school because he’s wearing enough goddamn cologne that I can smell it through all the sweat and smoke. That, and I recognize the shoes he’s wearing. My stepdad has a pair, and I know they cost mad money. Mom wouldn’t stop talking about how she got them for free from a friend’s husband because they didn’t fit, and the guy couldn’t be fucked returning them.
“I mean, he got the crap beat out of him, didn’t he? I thought it was just a B&E sort of thing?” the other guy—who probably thinks he’s clever, wearing a breathalyzer costume with a hole on the crotch that says Place Mouth Here—replies.
“That’s the story, but it was fucking Havoc, man. They carved the word Rapist into his forehead. The wound was, like, deep enough that it dug into his skull. Don’s gonna be in and out of laser treatments for years to get that shit removed.” There’s a long pause there where everything goes silent around me, my heart beating frantically in my chest. “They cut his balls off, too, man. They castrated him.”
My throat goes completely dry and my eyes get wide.
“You okay?” Aaron asks, appearing beside me. I glance his way, but there are no words. I’m not sure if the gossip I just heard is true or yet more Havoc rumor and speculation, but … Does the fact that I’m hoping it’s true make me a bad person?
