“Havoc.”
The word slips past my lips before I can stop it, before I can question the decision I just spent a whole summer making. It's the first thing I utter when I get past the security guards, drug dogs, and metal detectors that guard the entrance of Prescott High.
The whole hallway goes silent. Everyone in it turns to face me, the girl foolish enough to bring them down on me, those dirty, rotten H.A.V.O.C. Boys.
Hael, Aaron, Victor, Oscar, and Callum.
Each of them is terrifying in their own right, but together? They own this school and everyone in it.
Their leader, Victor, turns around, leaving his open locker behind him, and crosses his inked arms over his equally inked-up chest. He's a fucking monster, this boy, six foot five with eyes like flint, and a mouth that's a hot slash of menace across the bottom of his handsome face. Like everyone else at Prescott High, he's got a history that's as dark as his violet-tinged black hair.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, exhaling laughter along with cigarette smoke. Pretty ballsy to smoke right here in the hallway, but believe it or not, the administration has more important things to worry about. Well, that, and also: everybody knows you don't mess with Havoc unless you're willing to fight dirty and spill blood. “You're one ballsy bitch.”
“Don't call me a bitch,” I say, my voice cold but firm. I'm not afraid of the Havoc Boys, not anymore, not especially after they tore my life apart sophomore year. I'm over their shit. “And meet me after school in the library.”
“The library?” Victor asks, scoffing as he glances over at his right-hand man, the very cocky and (unfortunately) very attractive Hael Harbin. “Are you for real?” I return his dark stare with one of my own. Over the years, my don't-mess-with-this-chick look has been honed into an iron point. “Right, okay, whatever, it’s your fucking funeral.”
Victor takes off, but Hael lingers behind just long enough to look me over. He’s maybe an inch shorter than Victor, with a red fauxhawk that should be douche-y, but somehow isn’t, and a scar that runs the entire length of his right arm, shoulder to fingertip. Rumor has it that his dad sliced him up with a hunting knife, but nobody knows for sure.
“Request recorded, Blackbird,” he says, his voice an easy, overconfident purr, his lips twisted into a shit-eating smirk. When he turns around and heads down the overcrowded halls, I shiver and wrap my arms tightly around myself, leather jacket creaking.
“I hope you know what you're doing,” Stacey Langford says, pausing next to me with her posse in tow. She's the closest thing we have to a queen bee here at Prescott, but even she's afraid of the Havoc Boys. Like I said, everyone is. If you're not, you're either new here or not all that smart to begin with. But hey, natural selection eventually kicks in. There's a reason Raven Ashland dropped out and moved away to live with her aunt in Kansas.
“Don't worry about me,” I say, watching as people clear out of Victor and Hael’s way, moving to either side of the hallway to leave a path. The last thing anyone wants to do is draw those assholes and their attention.
Back in freshman year, the boys made a deal with the rest of the school: call out the word Havoc, that dark acronym of their first names, and they’ll do anything for you. But only if you’re willing to pay their price. And I’ve just done it. I’ve taken their word for it and called their gang. Now, I have to see what it is they’ll want from me in order to do my bidding.
Most students at Prescott would rather jump off a bridge than risk calling Havoc.
And it's the way I start my first day of senior year.
Stacey is right: I really do hope I know what I'm doing here.
But the phrase is fight fire with fire, right?
And I, I need an inferno.
My first day back at Prescott High is tense as hell. I'm witness to three separate fights, and a sophomore getting busted for bringing meth to school. Like, literal methamphetamine. Other schools freak out if a student is caught with a joint. Here, you're just lucky if you don't get hot-boxed while you're taking a piss in the girls' bathroom.
“Bernadette, right?” Callum Park says, taking the seat across from me in the cafeteria. The food here is crap, but at least it's free. It's better than not eating at all, so I choke it down. Callum has a tray, too, but the only thing that's on it is a can of Pepsi, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter.
“Wow, you remember my name?” I ask, feigning joy as I put my fingers to my chest. “After kicking the shit out of me for nearly an entire year? Good for you.” I don’t bother mentioning that we’ve been going to school together since second grade, too. He knows that. All the Havoc Boys know that.
