Page 156 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
“Good riddance,” I say, saluting the house with two fingers before I turn back to the Camaro, open the door, and climb inside.
“It’s done?” Hael asks, maintaining his stare out the windshield. I nod my head, leaning over so that I can press a purple-tinted kiss to his cheek. Today’s lip color is called Big Fat Mistake. Sorry, Britt, but you done fucked-up.
“It’s done,” I say, feeling this strange sense of coming full circle from the day Hael and I sat outside a coffee shop and worried about DNA results together. He exhales sharply and then reaches over to curl his fingers through mine. We exchange a look, and his face softens to something caught between shame and affection.
“I’m sorry I’m such a screw-up,” he says, looking me over like he doesn’t deserve me. But he does. They all do, these awful Havoc Boys. We’re just made for each other in a way that’s impossible to explain, a craving that hurts even as it nourishes, that makes me bleed even as I purr with pleasure. Nothing worth having is easy or painless, that much I know for sure. “Seems like I’m always the one bringing the drama.”
“Brittany came in handy,” I tell him honestly. Without her, we wouldn’t know about the graduation day raid. That alone is worth the trouble, although if I could go back in time and keep that bitch from ever touching my lover, I’d do it.
“I suppose she did,” Hael admits, but he still looks troubled, like he thinks he might not be worth all this bullshit. He is. But the only way I can convince him of that is with my actions. Leaning over, I flick my tongue against the corner of his mouth, and he shivers. “Fuck, Blackbird. That mouth of yours … you could sell sand to the desert.”
I smirk at him and press another kiss to his lips before falling back into my seat.
I once read this quote from Scarlett Force in one of her infamous Emma Jean articles, and it’s stuck with me for years. “Loving one person sucks. Like, it’s hard as fuck. You’re always trying to balance the people in your life and wondering if you’re good enough. How could all this love be directed my way? It seems surreal sometimes, but whenever that happens, I just close my eyes and count my fucking blessings. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“What’s on the agenda for today?” I ask as Hael carefully drives out of Brittany’s posh neighborhood, waving briefly at Forrest Burr as he heads past us in his Hummer. I wonder what, if anything, Brittany will tell him? Doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have anything she can use against us but hearsay. Wonder how it’ll go over in the same conversation that Brittany admits to having another possible baby daddy? Thus far, her father hasn’t heard anything but that Hael is the dad.
That should be fun.
“Stopping by to visit Vaughn,” Hael reminds me, and I groan. Just after the shooting, we had our crew drop in to question him about Stacey’s referral slip. As I’d imagined, he’d gotten a call from someone claiming to be Stacey’s father, asking for her to be brought into the office.
Vaughn is too much of a pussy—sorry, weak ball sack—to be of any use to anyone. That fingerless pervert is as neutered as Donald Asher. Regardless, we stop by his place on the way back to Oak Valley, just to see if he has anything interesting to tell us. If Sara Young wonders why we stopped by his place, eh. I’m sure we can find an easy way to explain it away.
The principal of Prescott High—yes, still the principal, even during this period of online schooling—stares at the six of us in his living room like we’ve just walked in infected with the plague. His eyes dart from Aaron to Victor to me, and then drop to the floor where they remain for most of our conversation.
“Anything else interesting you want to tell us?” Vic queries politely, relaxing on Vaughn’s couch and studying him in just such a way that he’s to be reminded to whom he belongs. Already, he’s told us all about the broken online system they’re using for the Prescott student body, how flawed it is, how much Ms. Keating despises it.
That information infuriates me to no end. Like, how is it fair that a school shooting is costing these kids even a meager chance at an education? It isn’t fucking fair and as soon as Vic has his money, we’re going to do something about it. Mark my words.
Vaughn whimpers, his injured hand clutched tightly against his chest. There are clean nubs where his fingers used to be. No way in hell this man had anything to do with setting Stacey up—he has even less backbone than he does fingers.
