Page 17 of Chaos at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 2)
I take my sweet time, refusing to be intimidated by Oscar Montauk.
Once I get inside, I find him sitting at the café near the front door, sipping a coffee and fucking around on his iPad.
What a drama queen, I think, setting my jaw as I pause beside the table. Oscar gestures at the empty seat across from him with an elegant hand, wrapped entirely in ink. Out of all the boys, he's the most covered in tattoos. He must've really worked his ass off to get so many at such a young age. Not for the first time, I wonder about Oscar's family—or if he even has any. Sometimes, it's a blessing to be alone.
“Take a seat.”
There's a second coffee sitting there, waiting for me. I slump down into the plastic chair, listening to the incessant beeping of products being scanned at the registers. People wheel carts past as I sit there in a sea of normalcy, more aware than ever before that I will not be living a life like any of them. My biggest worry will never be about what's going to happen for dinner. Instead, I'll always wonder if calling out Havoc was the biggest mistake I ever made.
My fingernails tap against the surface of the table before I finally reach for the coffee. Oscar ignores me like he always does, zoned in on the screen of his tablet. He's basically glued to that thing. I figure it holds all of Havoc's secrets. One of these days, I'm going to get a hold of that thing and unearth every dark story it holds.
After a moment, I pull my phone out and turn it on, nausea taking over my belly as I wait to see the impact of last night's charades on the Prescott High gossip circle. There are photos of the Halloween party on every student's social media accounts, hundreds of them, videos, too. But … nothing about clowns and boys with skeleton makeup on their faces.
Nothing about murder.
I do, however, have several texts from Kali Rose-Kennedy herself.
Hah.
Kali Rose.
Liar. Thief. Coward.
And the Havoc Boys and I … we were going to kill her. I just didn’t know that yet.
Where the hell is Danny, you psycho?
That text is followed by a dozen others, accusing me and the boys of kidnapping Danny, threats to call the cops. No matter how well the boys buried Danny, this problem isn't going away. No, it's only going to get worse.
I exhale sharply, a fear taking over me that I've never felt before.
For some stupid, silly reason I was certain that I had nothing to lose, that I'd fallen as hard and as far and as fast as was possible, that I was truly at rock-bottom. But I was wrong. We always have more to lose than we think we do, don't we?
“Kali's been texting me,” I say, pushing my phone across the table to Oscar. He looks up briefly, his gray eyes catching mine. He doesn't want me here; he doesn't want me to be a part of Havoc. And every time something happens between me and Victor, I get the sense that I'm making him like me less and less. Why, I have no idea. The way he looked that day he caught me with the paperwork I'd stolen from Vice Principal Keating's office, it was as if he were desperate for me to fail. Like he'd take any reason he was given to get me kicked out of Havoc. “My inclination is to tell her to fuck off, then block her.”
Oscar reads the messages carefully, looking for meaning beneath the lines. And then he passes the phone back to me.
“Do what you'd normally do,” he tells me, sipping his coffee, and then spinning his iPad around so I can see the screen. There's an entire thread on Mitch's Facebook page about Danny; nobody's seen him since last night. Nobody knows.
At least, not yet they don't.
“Have you guys ever …” I pause, looking up from the screen to see Oscar's stoic face. He's beyond handsome, like some billionaire born in the wrong part of town, so cultured and elegant, so beautiful with those high cheekbones and that full lower lip. The tattoos on his neck and his hands almost add to the illusion, providing a sort of contrast to his unearthly beauty. “Well, ever done anything like that before.” Has Havoc ever murdered someone before, that's my question and he damn well knows it.
Oscar just smirks at me, his devil-may-care attitude pissing me the hell off.
“Unlike Vic, you don't have a stranglehold on my heart, Bernadette. I'm not about to give you all my naughty, little secrets.” He stands up, taking his coffee and his iPad with him. “Let's shop. Our budget is three hundred dollars; we need food for the week as well, not just today.” He opens a list on his iPad, and I see that it's like, some sort of master list of basic shopping needs.
