Page 38 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
I’d love to know how all the Havoc Boys use their pillows.
“Anything but gutless or weak,” Aaron argues finally, shedding his own shirt, slowly and carefully and with much wincing. I smile as it falls to the floor in a heap. He puts his left hand on the bed for support and drops his lips to my belly, kissing my heated flesh with reverence as I let my head fall back into Vic’s mountain of pillows. “A warrior.”
I snort.
“If I am, then I’m a failed one,” I whisper, looking up at the ceiling and finding Kali there, clinging to it like a demon in a horror movie. She stares down at me and smiles an awful, ugly sort of smile. Her face is covered in dirt, and her skin is already turning purple. You’re imagining this, Bernie, I tell myself, wondering if I’ve finally done it, snapped and gone completely mad.
I sit up suddenly, startling Aaron back. He looks at me with a question in his eyes.
“We need some weed,” I blurt, sliding out from under him and off the bed. When I open the door, I find Oscar standing there. “Peeping in on us, huh, perv?”
He just stares right back at me and then presses his forearms to either side of the doorjamb.
“You and I must exist in different realities,” Oscar says mildly, his new white glasses parked on his face as he stares down at me. “Where on earth would you get an idea as stupid as that? No, I’m actually here to let you know that your little sister was having a nightmare. She woke up screaming.” Oscar steps back before I get a chance to shove him out of the way, grabbing my arm in a hard grip at the last second and yanking me into him. “A shirt might be nice,” he purrs, and then he’s shoving one over my head and pushing me in the center of my back so that I stumble.
As soon as I have the shirt pulled on, I look back at him and find that his gaze is liquid, like molten silver. My nostrils flare and I find myself exhaling sharply. There might be demons in this house, but they aren’t Kali Rose-Kennedy.
“Go. I’ll watch over sweet, little Aaron for you while you’re gone.” Oscar stares at me until I turn and leave, pounding up the stairs to find Hael in the girls’ room. He’s stroking Heather’s hair back as she lies there with a cool compress on her forehead. She’s so enraptured by whatever it is that he’s saying that she barely notices when I come in.
“Bernie,” she finally says as I step up next to the bed and Hael lifts his head to look at me. As soon as he sees me, the genuine smile on his lips turns into something dark and wicked. “Hael was telling me about his mom’s favorite recipe. It’s got crawdads in it.”
“That’s fantastic,” I say, adjusting the sagging waistband of my borrowed boxers. I feel obscene, standing before my sister like this. Doesn’t matter. I crouch down beside her bed, pulling in a deep breath and trying my best to postpone the rush of hormones in my system. “I hear you had a nightmare?”
Hael and I look at each other, but he doesn’t say anything, leaving it to Heather to fill in the blanks.
“I miss Mom and Dad a little,” she says, but with utmost hesitancy. She’s afraid I’m going to be mad at her for that. But I’m not. I can’t be. Even when you’re supposed to hate someone, sometimes the few good memories you have get in the way. It’s not easy to despise someone you once loved. Or feel like you’re supposed to love, even. The only name left on my list is Pamela, and that terrifies me.
Of the seven people I sicced Havoc on … four of them are dead. Two of them are maimed. Only one is left standing, as whole as she was when this started. I bite my lip.
“I know you said Dad isn’t safe, but … he’s fun to be around.” He was. Sometimes. Pedophiles can be charming; it’s part of their ruse. I give her nothing but a sympathetic smile in return. “And Mom has her good days.” She sounds so much older than eight. That’s a failure on my part. I should’ve done a better job protecting her.
“Mom and … Neil,” I start, because he isn’t my dad. Never was. I can only thank the stars that Penelope and I didn’t share DNA with that monster. Glancing from Heather to Hael, I see that he has no more idea how to handle this than I do. He’s an only child, that motherfucker. Then again, despite the heartache and the worry, I wouldn’t trade having a sister for anything. There’s something special about that bond, something you can’t possibly understand unless you have a sister of your own. “We’re not going to see them for a little while. Was that what the dream was about?”
