Page 30 of Anarchy at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 4)
“You have no idea the shit you put me through, do you?” he asks, like he’s too afraid to show me affection or he might break. Or maybe that’s just a fantasy because a man like Victor Channing never breaks.
“What time is it?” I ask, trying to get my bearings but then shutting my eyes against the bright white walls of the room.
“About a quarter after four,” Victor answers with a sigh, his big body relaxing at the sound of my voice; the mattress shifts with his considerable weight. Even now, in a state of half-delirium with my eyes squeezed shut and a massive migraine knocking at the back of my skull, I can’t escape his scent. He smells like bergamot and tobacco, amber and the heavy weightiness of a musky male with his eye on the prize.
I crack a lid to look at him. I’m in a hospital bed. In a hospital.
“Where am I?” I blurt suddenly, because I need answers and I need them quick. Do we have a story to tell? We must, if we’re here.
“At Joseph General,” Victor tells me, grinding his teeth and glancing away for a moment. He looks obscene in here, his tattooed, muscular form a blight against the sterility of the hospital room. “But not for long. They said you could go home as soon as you woke up.” Vic looks me over, like he’s sizing me up. If he is, he might find me wanting. Some Havoc Queen I am, holding back and letting Kali get the upper hand.
I will never hesitate again, not for as long as I live.
“Sure, bitch, sure.” I hear Kali’s voice in my head, and when I glance toward the open window, I swear I can see her ghost standing there, wearing a green party dress and bleeding from half a dozen bullet holes.
Jesus, they must’ve given me the good drugs last night.
“And yes, Aaron, too,” Vic says before I get the chance to ask, licking the edge of his mouth in a way that’s either thoughtful or planning awful, future things to do to me. He glances back and steals my breath away, choking me with a single stare. I remember his hand on Logan’s throat and try to decide if that’s still an okay metaphor to use. I’ll put it in one of my awful, fucking poems. “He’s fine. Strange, isn’t it? How these teen parties go south real quick?” Vic puts his palm flat on the white linens of the bed and leans in toward me. If I were someone else, I would say he was menacing. Because I’m, well, me, I say he’s perfectly fucking lovely.
I’m obsessed with the man, always have been. Now he’s mine and I’m never letting go. Again, not for as long as I live.
“You fell on a piece of rusty playground equipment,” Vic whispers, tasting the very corner of my mouth and making my fingers curl in the blankets. My heart monitor beeps as my pulse races, and I exhale sharply as he pulls away.
We play nice for the doctor; they unhook my machines and send me home with narcotics. The stitches in my side are killing me; the spot where they gave me a tetanus shot hurts worse.
We stop by briefly to visit Aaron, but he’s asleep and I don’t want to wake him. I do, however, brush his wavy hair from his forehead and plant a gentle kiss on his quiet mouth. Butterflies take flight in my belly, and I let them soar. I’m so happy to see Aaron’s face in the sunlight, alive and breathing, that I almost break down and start weeping.
But then, that’s not really my style, now is it?
“Go home and get some sleep, Blackbird,” Hael tells me when I turn away from Aaron’s bed and toward him. He puts his hands on either side of my face and smiles in a sharp, sad way that says he’s both pissed off at me and terribly happy that I’m still alive. I used him, I know that. I fucked-up. When he told me to get back in the car, I should’ve listened. “I’ll watch over your childhood sweetheart for you.”
“You are all my childhood sweethearts,” I whisper, my voice cracked and strange. Kali’s ghost laughs at me from the corner, but I ignore her, looking up and into Hael’s classically handsome face. He was made for billboards and glossy online ads, for social media and Instagram posts with no filters. “My Havoc boys.”
Hael laughs at me, but the sound is a bit hollow. When he rubs his thumb over my lip and leans in to kiss me, he tastes like the sweet agony of first love, the raw carnal heat of a one-night stand, and the bliss of a forever romance, all at once.
