Page 138 of Chaos at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 2)
Fuck you, I think, feeling my eyes sting with angry tears. The next chance I get, I’m going to kill you, consequences be damned. Neil Pence’s expiration date has come and gone.
I hear him start to walk away and get ready to move again.
“Boo,” Neil growls, appearing from the opposite side of the mausoleum. Luckily, I have quick fucking reactionary commands. Turning, I lean back and then kick up as hard as I can with both feet, nailing Neil in the balls. He fires the gun into the air as he howls with pain and I struggle to my feet.
I barely make it three steps before he’s on me, grabbing me by the hair and shoving my head as hard as he can into the side of an obelisk. Stars fill my vision as my knees buckle and Neil follows me down to the grassy ground.
He’s struggling to control me with one hand and fire the gun with the other, so I take advantage of him being off-balance to turn over. Better to be on my back than my belly. I bend my knees, keeping my legs together so that when I use them to push at him, I have more power.
My boots hit the arm holding the gun, sending the pistol flying.
“Fucking cunt,” Neil snarls, grabbing my legs with one arm and swinging at my face with the other. He manages to crack me across the cheek, but I shove him off of me, scooting back to put space between us. He chooses to go for his gun as I get to my feet and start running.
Another gunshot explodes the grave on my right as I sprint with everything I have and disappear around the side of another mausoleum. As soon as I’m out of sight, I start looking for somewhere else to hide.
I have seconds, at best.
There’s a huge hole not far from me. It’s very clearly a grave awaiting a body.
The idea of crawling into it makes me sick, but I have nowhere else to go. I’m trapped between the mausoleum and the fence. The thing is, once I get down there, I won’t be able to get out. I discard the idea and decide to run for it.
“I see you,” Neil calls out, firing his gun at me again. I trip and fall then, struggling to catch myself with the cuffs on. I go down hard, certain that this is it, that I’m done for. But when I roll over and sit up, I see Neil replacing the magazine on his gun. That gives me just enough time to crawl behind another grave.
It’s not much help though because he saw me.
He knows where I am.
I’m panting like crazy as I sit up, glancing around the tombstone to see him coming straight for me.
This is it.
My last chance.
I wait for Neil to get close. I don’t expect him to shoot the gravestone I’m hiding behind, and I cry out as bits of cement hit me like projectiles. Oddly enough, the move works out for the best. I use the rush of adrenaline, the cloud of dust, and the echo of the gunshot to shove up to my feet and slip around the other side of the tombstone.
For the briefest of seconds, I’m behind Neil.
I throw my handcuffed arms around his neck as he curses at me, slamming his back against another statue and crushing me against it. The move knocks the breath right out of me.
He gags as I hang from him like a noose, using my bodyweight to put stress on his airway. Neil collapses to the grass and rolls to his back, sandwiching me between his body and the ground. He throws his elbow back over and over again, battering my ribs. After a moment, he stops, and then I realize that he’s fumbling with something at his belt.
The next thing I know, he’s shoving a key into the handcuffs and the right side comes undone.
Neil turns on me as I move to back up, the cuffs hanging from my left hand, the one with the HAVOC tattoo. He tackles me into the grass, getting me underneath him, putting gravity on his side. His forearm goes into my throat, cutting my air off.
“You like that, Bernadette?” he growls out, voice husky from being choked. Spittle flicks my cheeks as I writhe, desperate for air, my nails gouging his forearms bloody, even through the sleeve of his uniform. “Does that turn you on?” Neil leans down and kisses me, his stubble scraping my face as I kick and flail.
One of my knees manages to slip between his legs, and I nail him in the balls for a second time. As soon as I get some space to move, I launch myself forward, wrapping my hands around his neck like I did with Oscar.
