Page 26 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
“You’re not going to hurt her?” he asks, which is an interesting question. It’s because Victor’s seen this side of Callum before that he even thinks to wonder that, and I’m not entirely certain that I have. When I glance back, Cal’s looking down at his hands again and a gasp is tearing from my lips.
It looks like somebody attempted to slit his throat.
“Do you really need to ask me that?” Cal asks, looking up from his bloodied hands and then cocking his head to one side. Like a dog. Like a wolf. His blue eyes are empty and endless, terrifying when they drop to me and I see every ounce of focus that he possesses plunged into me like a knife.
To get rid of Callum, I’d have to kill him. He’d sit still and let me do it, open his throat with a blade. But that would be the only way, to put him in an early grave.
“No,” Cal says finally, body sagging. He puts a hand out and catches himself against the wall as I cling to him and do my best to provide support. “I would never hurt Bernadette. You know that.”
Victor lights up his smoke, his eyes finding mine. And how is my body reacting to all of this stress? In the most inappropriate and ridiculous way possible. I exhale sharply and turn back to Callum, listening as Vic’s heavy footsteps carry him back down the stairs again.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” I say, but Callum is already shaking his head.
“No doctors. I won’t be separated from you right now.” He takes my hands in his, trembling so hard that I wonder if he isn’t going to pass out on me right here in the hallway. His blue eyes blaze with a desperate need to stay awake. “Go get Oscar’s medical kit, some orange juice, and the leftover saline bags from when Aaron was shot.”
Cal looks me so deeply in the face that I swear I can feel his soul brush up against me, like a cat marking its masters ankles. My fingers curl around his hands and I lift up on my tiptoes, pressing our foreheads together briefly before I turn and flee down the stairs as fast I can.
“Callum needs a doctor,” I say to the boys as soon as I hit the bottom floor and find Hael pacing, Vic smoking a joint, and Aaron watching me with a tenderness that my parched soul needs so badly that it seems to hurt. “Or Nurse Yes-Scott.”
“Nurse Yes-Scott is dead,” Oscar says, his voice a Lucullan feast for the ears. Whitney was shot? I wonder, thinking of the blood strewn linoleum and the metal lockers decorated with crimson. Where was she when the GMP stormed the building? Did she suffer? I shake my head to clear it. “How bad is he?”
“Blood, everywhere,” I say with a harsh laugh, thinking of the scene back in the basement. How much of your blood can you lose and still live? It’s like, forty percent or something right? Four pints, a half-gallon … “It seems like someone tried to slit his throat. He says he doesn’t want a doctor though; he wants me to get Oscar’s medical kit.” I nod in his direction and he stands right away, sweeping past me with the smell of cinnamon to retrieve it from the cabinet. There’s something in the way he hands it over to me that makes me shiver. “And the extra saline from Aaron’s GSW.”
Oscar moves over to a different cabinet while I grab the plastic jug of orange juice along with a clean glass. Hael has already moved over and is leaning his elbows against the countertop, frowning and pissed all the way off. But not at me or Cal or whatever, for us.
“You think we need to knock his ass out and take him to the hospital anyway?”
I give Hael a look, but I don’t have to answer that question. If Callum dragged himself all the way back here, then this is where he wants to be. That, and I trust him enough to know the extent of his own injuries. If he thinks he can get through this on his own, then I believe him.
“Leave Bernadette alone to deal with him,” Victor commands, his voice smooth and easy, betraying none of the stress that he’s holding in his shoulders. Aaron glances briefly his way and then flicks his attention to me. Our shared knowledge of the miscarriage makes me twitchy, but I say nothing. “He needs to be left alone for now.”
“Understood,” Oscar purrs, leaning over and putting his elbows on the counter to match Hael’s pose. He stretches out like a cat and then reaches up with two fingers of his left hand, pushing his white glasses up his nose as he slides two silver eyes over to me. “Better hurry. When Callum gets in these moods, he’s unpredictable.”
