Page 29 of Chaos at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 2)
“I do,” Aaron chokes out, closing his eyes. He lets go of me, but I don't leave. I can't imagine being anywhere but here right now. This is where I'm meant to stand. “I know that, but I worry about you.”
“Really?” I ask, cocking a brow in a way that makes me think of Vic. I scowl, but Aaron's eyes are still closed, so at least he can't see me. “Could've fooled me. How do you show that worry, Aaron? By watching as your friends drag me off, by letting them lock me in a closet?”
“Bernadette,” he starts, dropping his chin to his chest. He drags both tattooed hands over his face. “There was no winning for me, you know that, right?” He drops his hands to his lap and looks back up at me, anger darkening his face. “I had two choices: lose my sisters and be a piece of shit not worthy of you … or I had to give you up so you could have a better life.”
A sick sad feeling shoots through me, taking over my body, infecting my bloodstream. I don't want to feel this way right now, drowning in empathy. I'm pissed. I have a right to be pissed.
“That's what I thought I was doing,” Aaron continues, leaning back and putting his left arm on the edge of the couch. The way he tilts his head and frowns at me, he's got the cocky asshole thing down pat. From here, it looks an awful lot like a defense mechanism. “I thought I was setting you free, Bernie. You don't need to be stuck in Springfield with a bunch of kids and a whole lot of baggage.”
“It's a little late for that now, isn't it?” I snap back, turning fully around to face him. “So maybe you stop with the bullshit and man up. I'm not going anywhere now; my fate is sealed in blood.”
“It doesn't have to be,” Aaron says, breathing hard, like maybe this is too much exertion for him. My eyes slide down his chest and stomach, admiring the deep grooves of his muscles. He's bulked up a lot. When we were in freshman year, he was just a skinny little thing. Skinny little thing with a big cock, but still. I frown. “We can talk to Vic; we can talk to Oscar. After graduation, you can walk away from all of this.”
I just stare at him.
“You castrated a boy because I asked you to. Callum killed a boy because he had to. All of that blood, it's on my hands, Aaron. There's nowhere else for me, so stop looking for a distant locale to drop me in, some fairy-tale of a life you wished I lived. Vic is right: I'm a nightmare. I exist in the night; my only light is the moon and the stars.”
“Stop that shit,” he snaps at me, acting like he's going to get up again. I move forward and push him back with a hand on his chest, shoving him back into the cushions. And then, for some reason entirely unknown to me, I straddle him, pinning his body to the couch with my own.
He looks at me like I've just gut punched him.
“You don't have to take what Vic says at face value,” Aaron pleads. Unlike Vic and Oscar, he's not above it. Underneath the pleading though, his hatred for Vic is just barely concealed. “You're not like this, Bernadette. You're not one of us.”
“Stop acting like I'm the girl you gave up years ago,” I growl back, curling my hands over his shoulders. I dig my nails into his skin, refusing to stop, even when he cringes. Underneath the heel of my left hand, there's a healing wound, but I don't care. My own shoulder twinges in pain. The bandage hidden beneath my borrowed tee is likely wet with blood, but I don't feel like leaving to change it right about now. “You're not the same boy either, and I will never, ever be the sweet little thing you abandoned when I needed you most.”
“Don't talk like that,” Aaron snarls back at me, hissing in pain when I grind the heel of my hand against his shoulder. “I believe in you, Bernadette, even if you don't believe in yourself.”
I throw my head back with a laugh, wondering if I really am a perfect slice of sin, Vic's wicked other half. We could do horrible things together. Fuck, we could topple cities. We could rule the world. Or the underworld, at the very least. Despite his tough, new exterior, Aaron is still trying to be the good guy. It's a tired shtick.
I drop my head back down, so I can look at him. And then I roll my hips.
Aaron groans as the baggy t-shirt rides up and my panties slide against the bulge in his sweats. He's hard for me, despite our arguments, despite his pain. I push against the bullet wound in his shoulder even harder, staining the bandage red with blood, and he sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth.
