Page 145 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
I decide to head for the bathroom to freshen up my lipstick when I see Stacey Langford heading for Vaughn’s office with a similar referral slip in her own hand. She doesn’t see me since she’s already halfway down the hall, and I open my mouth to call out to her.
That’s when it starts, the whole fucked-up bullshit that makes up a Tuesday at Prescott High.
A man walks in the front doors of the school like he owns the place and then glances over at Stacey.
“You Stacey Langford?” he asks, and she pauses, turning to look at him with a raised brow and an expression dripping with skepticism and disdain.
“Who the fuck wants to—” she starts, but she never does get to finish her sentence because the man pulls out a pistol and puts a bullet through her head so quickly that I barely have time to blink. Her body slumps to the floor as the shooter pulls a ski mask from his pocket and slips it on, heading straight for the door to Mr. Darkwood’s classroom. He moves with a single-minded purpose that tells me one especially important thing: he’s looking for me.
“What on earth is going on out here?” Mr. Darkwood snaps, opening the door and then paling when he sees what he’s faced with. He flicks the lock on the classroom door, steps into the hall, and slams it closed behind him before he lunges at the gunman.
The move surprises me, but it also buys me just enough time to duck into the girls’ first floor bathroom, the very same one where Billie and Kali once cornered me with some of their lackeys.
The sound of the gun going off a second time is muted but distinct. The man is clearly using a silencer and subsonic ammo to keep things quiet.
My breathing is so ragged that I can’t hear anything but the sound of it, echoing around the enclosed space of the bathroom. Being in here is not a good idea. If one of those GMP assholes comes in, I’m fucked. Where am I supposed to go, trapped in the fucking rank-ass Prescott High bathroom?
I take a few seconds to get ahold of myself. I didn’t expect this. Of all things, I just didn’t see this shit coming. I should have, though, shouldn’t I?
Calm yourself, Bernadette. This school, as shitty and underfunded and awful as it is, belongs to Havoc. It belongs to you. Act like the queen you so proudly proclaimed that you were.
Sliding my phone from my back pocket, I debate whether or not to call or text one of the boys. What if their phone isn’t on silent, and it makes a sound that gives them away to a second gunman? I decide that at the very least I have to text them.
I don’t even have to consider what I want to send; we have a safety word for a reason.
Mare’s nest.
I send that simple text to all of the boys, and then turn my phone on silent, sliding it into my back pocket. At least now they’ll know that something’s up. Likely, they’re already on their way to find me.
I slip out the door, forcing myself to breathe nice and slow. Quiet, that’s my aim here. I’m trying to be as quiet as the fucking mice that live in the wall behind the main building lockers.
There are bullet holes in those lockers now. It’s something that, despite the sordid history of the school and the rabble that attends it, has never been there before. I stand in the bathroom doorway, hidden in the small alcove, listening for the sound of footsteps. In a different part of the school, I hear more gunshots.
My heart lodges in my throat, even though I know that the boys can handle themselves even better than I can. See, that’s the thing with love: it’s irrational. It makes no sense. It’s the sort of thing that makes you stay up late, holding your palm over the yellow-orange flame of a candle, just to see if it’ll burn you. Of course it will. The candle will burn you, and so will love.
I’m scorched by it, plain and simple.
The alarm goes off, this awful blaring siren that reminds of the ones used in tornado zones. It’s accompanied by an automatic message that repeats one thing over and over again: active shooter on campus, active shooter on campus.
The coast is clear for now. All the classroom doors will be locked and barred from the inside, the shades drawn, students hidden under desks or in supply closets. The world feels like it’s gone silent.
Now or never, I think to myself, because I’m not getting a better chance than this, and I’m most definitely not getting stuck in the windowless bathroom with nowhere to go and no way to defend myself. Poor Stacey Langford.
