Page 150 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
Using the hood of an employee’s car, I climb back up to the same broken window I used before. Only this time, when I start to haul myself up and into the classroom, I feel it.
The sharp sting of a garrote being wrapped around my fucking neck.Bernadette BlackbirdThe guns are exactly where we left them, taped to the underside of the dumpster. I’ve only got enough time to remove one of them before the first man skids around the corner. His gang tattoo—that bright red scrawl on his arm—seems to catch the light as I whirl around and lift the weapon at the same time.
Oddly enough, it’s the Thing’s voice that I hear echoing in my head, a distant flicker of memory of a shooting range, of thirteen-year-old me with a grudge and a chip on her shoulder.
“You see that, Bernadette? I pull the trigger without hesitation—and I always hit my target. Do you understand me, girl? When I shoot, I shoot to kill.”
I fire my weapon before my attacker can do the same, nailing him directly in the forehead. Blood spatters the wall of the alley in red as his body slumps to the dirty ground. I fucked Hael in this spot, I think, a slight smile working its way to my lips. And now I’m defending my school and my city in the same damn place.
Ducking back down, I feel around for the second gun and manage to tear the duct tape off just in time to see James Barrasso and the remaining five men in his party appear. With both weapons in hand, I make my way to the delivery entrance, the one that leads into the cafeteria. Every student here knows that after that Pepsi truck backed up into the metal doors, they’re bent just enough that they can be jimmied open.
I do exactly that, slipping into the darkness of the cafeteria kitchen.
It’s eerily silent in here. Seeing as the GMP caught us mid-morning, there are no students in the cafeteria itself. The cafeteria staff has likely locked themselves into the walk-in. It’s just me and shadows in here now.
“Find the little bitch and put a bullet in her. I’m done playing games,” James snarls as I crawl over to the door that leads from the kitchen to the cafeteria proper. There’s a dark zone in here, on the opposite side of the room near the windows. The camera that faces that direction has been broken for years. A severed cord dangles from the bottom of it, cut by some long-ago student ready for trouble. Trust me: it isn’t wireless, we can’t afford that sort of shit here in the southside.
But it’s a good thing.
For me, that is.
I stand up and shove my way through the door, listening to the shouting behind me, the thundering storm of boots. This is my school though, and I know everything there is to know about it. As soon as I’m out of view of the other cameras—the last thing I need is video evidence of me with a pair of illegal firearms—I crouch behind the giant wooden carving in the corner.
It’s a man, a logger presumably, with an axe in his hand. It’s one of those chainsaw carvings, made out of a solid piece of redwood. It’s covered in graffiti—tits and penises mostly—and band stickers from various local underground concerts. It serves as a hiding place while I get one gun tucked into the waistband of my shorts, and check to make sure the safety on the other is off.
I can hear the men enter the room, their footsteps slowing as they look around the dingy cafeteria with its three wood tables, and its sea of plastic ones, all of them tagged and marked by Havoc.
Every inch of this school is pissed on, claimed, owned.
Wait, Bernadette, I tell myself, wetting my lips with my tongue and tasting blood. Whose blood, and from where, I’m not sure. Probably residual spatter. Remember what Callum told you. Take your time; good things come to those who wait.
The men make a sweep of the cafeteria and even though it kills me to sit so still, to hide in shadows when I can hear gunshots and I know people are dying, I do it. I use the shadows as a blanket, and I wait for the right opportunity.
One of the men sticks his head around the statue to look for me. He doesn’t think I have a gun. What an idiot.
I lift the weapon up and fire once into his face.
It’s gruesome, and I end up wet with blood, but I don’t hesitate. I don’t think about it. I don’t let myself feel sorry for him. Instead, I get up and sprint for the doors that lead into the hall.
I’m not three steps outside the cafeteria doors when James crashes into my right side, surprising me and knocking the weapon from my hand. We end up in a tangled heap on the floor, his hands scrabbling for my throat. I get the briefest of looks at his face, at the stark violence carved into every feature. He thought he could use me to lure my boys out of the school earlier, but now he knows better.
