Page 193 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
“Do you know how relieved I am that you’re bisexual?” I ask, because when I found out Heather was going to her senior prom with a girl, I was elated. Nobody knows how tricky boys can be better than I do. I have five of them, after all.
“You’ve mentioned it, and it’s weird, so please stop, okay?” she asks, pushing me back and sliding her hands down the front of her dress. “Do you really think a boy would try anything with me anyway?” She gives me a look that isn’t hard to interpret.
Nah, there are three kids you don’t mess with at Fuller High.
Not unless you want them to destroy you.
Some weird, stupid part of me almost wanted Heather to go to Prescott—especially with Ms. Keating as the principal. Things are different there now. Shit, all of Prescott is different. All of Springfield is different.
There will always be an underground; there will always be blood to shed; Havoc will always run it.
Turns out though: there’s something called a happy middle ground for most things. For us, it was Fuller High.
Oak Valley is too elite; the wealthy are grotesque and obscene.
Prescott High is too sad; the building and the learning tools might be new, but the students are still the same old rachet southside folks they’ve always been.
Fuller High seems okay, though. And, as Heather stares back at me from matching green eyes, I find myself smiling. Sometimes, when I walk into a room and the sunlight is just right and the air is perfumed with that lemony body spray that Heather loves because Penelope loved it, too … I see my older sister in my younger one. My breath catches and I’m so fucking certain that Pen’s come back to life that tears spring to my eyes, and my chest tightens, and my heart thunders.
It’s never a disappointment though when I realize that Heather is Heather and Penelope is gone, because I’m proud of who my little sister is becoming. I’m proud of myself, too, for raising her and loving her and giving her the life that she deserves.
“Do you think it’s possible that I could just, like sneak out of here and not tell the boys I’m leaving?” Heather’s gaze darts toward the staircase behind me like she’s worried Callum might be crouching there and watching. He’s done worse things to her dates. This one time, when she tried to date some douchebag from Oak Valley, the guy climbed out of his car to find Cal already perched on the roof.
Suffice it to say he never made it up to the front door to knock. Heather was pissed at first but later she admitted to me that if a guy isn’t strong enough to face off against Havoc for her then they aren’t worthy of her love and affection.
Goddamn it, but I love this kid.
“Do you think it’s possible that pigs can fucking fly?” Aaron asks, appearing in the direction of the parlor. It’s beautiful now, papered with textured wallpaper that I picked out and applied myself because even with Ruby’s money now safely in Victor’s hands where it was always meant to be, I don’t like paying people to do things for me. And even if putting the wallpaper up was a pain in the ass, it was worth it because every time I look at it, my chest swells with pride and I remember that with a little gumption and a whole lot of determination, you can do anything you put your mind to.
You can raise three little girls even when you’re just barely past the little girl stage yourself. You can fall in love with five beautifully broken boys. You can wreak havoc and make chaos, chase mayhem and incite anarchy, and in the end, you can find your own sort of victory. Whether that means putting up wallpaper or running an underground that functions in the dark without being consumed by it.
There are still drugs in Springfield; there are still prostitutes; there are still murders.
But Havoc is always there, always watching. The hammer of justice is in our hands, and we’re not afraid to use it. There are no children being sold and no girls disappearing down the I-5 corridor. There are no cops whose hands are not tied to justice or Havoc or both.
Prescott High has been renovated, and it’s full of laptops and iPads and teachers with degrees who don’t beckon girls into selling their bodies on webcams. There’s a dance studio where Callum teaches little kids who can’t afford to pay for expensive classes in any of the Oak neighborhoods but whose hearts are so full and so ready to learn that they find themselves with scholarships to places far and wide.
“Bernadette?” Heather says, waving a hand in front of my face. Both she and Aaron are staring at me, waiting for me to come out of my reverie and remember that my little sister, the one I worked so hard to save, is graduating high school next week. Going to prom this week. She’s going to college in New York and I’m both sad and excited all at the same time. “You’re not writing poems in your head again, are you?” she asks, but I just give her a wry smile.
