Page 62 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
I oblige him, shutting the water off and turning to see that he has a towel waiting for me. Biting my lower lip, I step into it and Victor wraps it around me, pulling me in close and resting his chin on top of my head.
“Stick with me, Bernie, and it’ll all be worth it; I promise.”
He releases me, stepping back to watch as I dry my body and then towel dry my hair. Slipping into black sweatpants and an old gym shirt from freshman year, I blow-dry my hair so we can both see how the red tips turned out.
They’re vibrant as fuck, fading as the color travels up until it lightens into my natural white blonde.
“What do you think?” I ask as Vic makes a sound in his throat that rumbles through me. It’s a growl, that’s what that is. “I take it you like it?”
“Fuck it,” he says, and then I’m gasping as he pushes me over and yanks my pants down. His huge cock pushes up against my opening, and then slips in effortlessly. I’m wet as fuck, so wet that it doesn’t matter that I just showered. As soon as I stepped out of the water, I felt myself grow slick for him.
My husband.
My Vic.
Mine.
At least, out of everything, I have this.
He screws me into the countertop in that rough, primal way of his, but I love it too much to tell him to stop, even though I’m sore as hell, even though I probably shouldn’t. Despite the brutal way Victor fucks, he’s careful with the wound on my side. I work my hips, rolling them into Vic, making him moan like a tortured man.
When he comes inside of me, I push him off, but he grabs my hand, curling his fingers around mine. Our eyes lock, and I try my best to pretend that I’m not enthralled.
“Stop punishing yourself,” he warns me, lifting me up onto the counter and putting his mouth between my legs. I curl my fingers into his hair and lean my head back against the mirror, groaning and writhing against him. I let him make me come, but I don’t know if I can do that, stop punishing myself.
“Because you know you’re not worth shit,” Kali whispers after we finish, and I’ve washed up in the shower again. I pretend not to see her. If she isn’t gone by the time school starts, then I’ll tell somebody. For now, I keep my craziness to myself.Two years earlier … People are not born hating themselves. It’s something that comes with time, with careful conditioning and spiteful words, with fingernails dug into your arm until you bleed. It’s a special sort of skill, to hurt someone so badly that they don’t love themselves anymore.
“You can’t let them get to you,” Penelope says to me, putting my hair in a fishtail braid as I sit on the edge of Prescott High’s front steps. I was missing for seven days and yet, Pamela and Neil barely noticed when I came back, sweaty and disheveled and twisted into a whole new shape.
The Havoc Boys did me a favor, locking me in the closet like that. The reason I say that is because I had seven days of darkness to contemplate my life. Seven days to get to know myself better. I realized then that I didn’t hate myself so much as I hated everyone else. Neil and Pam, Kali and Coraleigh, the Kushners and Principal Vaughn.
The only people who were worried about me were my sisters.
Penelope held me so tightly that day, I thought I might never breathe again.
“Victor came to me,” she whispered in my ear. “He told me that he had you, and that he’d give you back. I didn’t know what to do.”
But I don’t blame Pen for handling things the way she did. How could she call the cops when Neil is one of them? As twisted and dark as anything that ever came out of Prescott High. Who was going to help her find me?
Nobody.
Fucking nobody.
Just weeks before her death, she was able to smile at me, to braid my hair and talk about impossible things, like flying to Paris to visit the catacombs. Traveling to New Orleans to see gators. Road-tripping along Route 66. Somebody who’s thinking about suicide doesn’t dream the way she did, right?
Right?
“Let who get to me?” I ask belatedly. It’s a dumb question because we both know exactly who she’s talking about. Havoc. Havoc, Havoc, Havoc. It’s always about Havoc nowadays. They’re so damn good at what they do that I’ve stopped wondering when they’re going to come. I’ll never be able to predict it, so why bother?
“Bernadette, don’t pretend you don’t know,” Penelope chastises, clucking her tongue like an old lady. “Havoc.” She pauses as Kali comes down the steps, her high pony swinging, her lips plastered into a permanent smirk, one that I so desperately wish that I could slap off her face. But I can’t touch her, not with Havoc at her beck and call. “Stupid cow,” Pen hisses, and I just know that as sweet as my sister is, she’s got enough Prescott blood in her to beat a bitch.
