Page 22 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
“Bernie, don’t make me pick you up and carry you back to the car,” Hael warns me, but then his gaze sharpens and lifts up to look over my shoulder. When he grabs me and yanks me against his chest, turning and slamming his back into the trunk of a tree, I don’t resist. Clearly, he sees something I don’t.
The dirt in front of us explodes, like a shot’s been fired, but the sound is muffled and strange. A silencer, with subsonic ammo. That’s what makes it real quiet, according to the guys. I’m learning all sorts of fun things, being a part of Havoc.
“Motherfucker,” Hael grumbles, scooting me to the side so he can bend down and retrieve his own gun from his ankle holster. “Bernie, Vic is going to turn your ass red for this.”
Hael stands up and waits, counting breaths before turning around the side of the tree trunk and taking a single shot. It’s loud, like a car backfiring, but I don’t bother plugging my ears. Instead, I join Hael, putting my shoulder up against his as he takes another shot. There’s a man on the ground about three yards away. It’s hard to make out much detail in the dark, but one of his boots is caught in the headlights of the Aston Martin.
Pulling out his phone, Hael turns the flashlight on and walks over to the man, kicking at him with his own boot.
The guy doesn’t move.
“Jesus Christ,” he grumbles as my phone vibrates, and I realize I’ve forgotten to call Vic.
Yep, most definitely getting my ass beat for this later.
“Do you have an allergy to following orders?” he snaps at me when I answer, but then I hear a rustling in the darkness that has my heart thumping like crazy. “Where are you?” I hand the phone to Hael and he takes it with a grim expression on his face.
“We’re in the woods,” he says, and that’s when I see my chance. The Havoc Boys are so fucking good at what they do, it can be annoying sometimes. I take off into the trees with the pistol in my hands as Hael shouts at me, cursing as he follows along behind me. He’s fast too, probably faster than I am, but then I’m ducking low and scrambling under a hole in the chain-link fence, the one that denotes the logging company’s property line. “Bernadette!” Hael snarls at me, starting to climb the fence.
The flashlight of his phone bobs around, illuminating the darkness, but I don’t need it.
Instead, I find myself in a dark playground filled with old, wooden play equipment. It looks nothing at all like a modern playground. In fact, if I didn’t know that was what it was supposed to be, I may have never even guessed.
I might be barking up the wrong tree here. Maybe Kali isn’t in the woods at all, and the gold flash I saw had something to do with the guy Hael just killed. Or even if I did see her, maybe she’s on the other side of the fence still. Regardless, I keep going, creeping underneath a massive slide held up by four rustic posts. Well, really, they’re pretty much just tree trunks, cut and stuck here for long-ago children to play on.
“Kali,” I call out as I hear Hael cursing behind me. If he catches me, I’m in trouble. He’ll throw me over his shoulder as promised, and I’ll end up in the passenger seat of the borrowed Aston Martin. “I know you’re out here.”
I creep forward, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. There’s a sound not too far off, and I decide to follow it, jogging lightly across the packed dirt area toward a short fence made of river rocks and mortar. There’s a break in the solid stone structure, likely where a gate once stood, that I use to slip past. On the other side is a pioneer cemetery. Pretty fucking creepy, to put a playground right next to a graveyard.
Just seeing the old headstones triggers me a bit, and my pulse begins to race against my will, remembering the Thing, chasing me while I stumbled around Penelope’s final resting place in handcuffs.
Still, it would be poetic justice if I got Kali here, wouldn’t it?
“Bernadette!” Hael shouts, using his phone’s flashlight to illuminate the darkness. It only lasts a second and then it’s gone. My heart races, knowing that he won’t leave me out here. Not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.
Almost immediately, an arm wraps around my neck and Hael’s hot hand flattens across my lips, keeping my gasp of surprise from escaping.
“Not a word,” he growls, dragging me backward and underneath the rickety platform that holds the metal slide. It’s much higher than a modern-day slide; just the sight of it would give most parents the chills nowadays. “We’re being hunted,” he huffs, and then, after a moment, “and you’re an asshole.”
