Page 179 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
Because if somebody does, Bernadette will never be the same again. She will never recover. I know that because I lost her once, and even though it was a temporary state, something that could be rectified later on, I was devastated, broken, bitter. No, if one of us dies we might as well take her with us.
Maxwell’s brown eyes are dark with violence as he moves toward me like a man who’s used to wielding knives, used to drawing blood and hurting people.
See, if he’d had his whole army behind him, we would’ve lost.
If it were just me and him in these woods, then I might die. It’s becoming quite clear that as good as I am, Maxwell Barrasso is better. Plus, we killed his son. He has a very personal vendetta against us that demands bloodshed to be satisfied.
But, as we explained to Mason Miller, wolves have packs.
A gunshot goes off and Maxwell lets out a violent shout of pain, collapsing to his knees in the leaves as blood blooms on his thigh, staining his navy slacks an even darker color and turning the faint pinstripes red.
“What do we have here?” Cal muses, coming out of the woods with the pistol held up by his shoulder. He even itches the bright yellow blond of his hair with the grip, as if everything about this moment is calculated and casual and planned. Really, this is just Havoc in a nutshell. This is what we do.
Panting, I use the trunk of a tree to catch my breath while Cal gets close enough to Maxwell that the man actually tries to swing that knife of his. Callum just shoots him in the hand and the man screams. It’s fitting, a mimicry of what we did to his second-in-command. Only, I was the bait this time instead of Bernadette.
“You okay, Aaron?” Cal asks, and I nod, watching as Callum crouches down beside Maxwell. “You could’ve left things well-enough alone. You could’ve left our territory. You could’ve resisted the temptation to rape and pillage our school. And now, today, here, you could’ve resisted the urge to plunder that child. Everything you have done, Maxwell Barrasso, is what led you here today.”
Maxwell spits in Callum’s face, but it doesn’t faze him. Callum just swipes a hand over his cheek to wipe it off.
“Prescott trash,” Maxwell bites out, scowling and panting. He must know he’s going to die, but he doesn’t show fear or pain. Just hate and rage and frustration. Something about his expression, his demeanor, reminds me of Neil Pence. What was it that Cal said then? They always break, eventually. “If you kill me, my people will never stop hunting you. There won’t be a moment of peace in your lives. Not a single second of it.”
“Mm, I find that hard to believe,” Cal retorts, and then he stands up as Oscar steps out of the trees with a bit of rope in hand. He slips it around Maxwell’s neck, puts a foot between his shoulder blades, and then pulls.
The man scrambles to claw the rope from his neck, thrashing and fighting beneath the easy strength of Oscar’s grip.
“Ah, there it is again,” Cal remarks, just like he did when Neil finally began to scream inside the pretty coffin we picked out for him. “He just broke, too.”
I lean my back against the tree, panting and hurting, but relatively unharmed.
Oscar finishes his work and then lets Maxwell go, watching as the man slumps face-first into the leaves.
And that’s when our phones vibrate in unison and Oscar whips his out faster than Cal or I do. He answers the call with a sharp “what?” and then goes completely still.
That’s when we hear the howling, that’s when Callum starts to run and Oscar moves over to help me so that I can run, too.
“What was it?” I ask, glancing down and seeing that the call on his phone is still connected: it’s Hael.
“Mare’s nest,” Oscar breathes as panic surges through me, and I find myself facing the almost unthinkable reality of losing one of my girls for the second time that day.Bernadette BlackbirdTen minutes earlier … again.Callum and Aaron hop over the front of the Camaro and take off, chasing the men that are now racing up the hill toward Oscar and the Eldorado. Likely, they’re going for the road in an attempt to escape. Either they don’t have a lot of ammo left or the distant sound of sirens has sparked their movements.
Regardless, Cal attacks one of the men from behind while Aaron peels off and heads into the woods after Maxwell. I’m about to go after him when Hael’s hand snaps out and grabs me by the wrist.
“No,” he says, giving me a sharp look. “Vic’s orders. You stay here.” He releases me and then takes aim up the hill, firing off several more shots and then cursing when he realizes the remaining GMP members are now out of range. Hael drops his gun to his side and steps back, unwilling to leave me here alone.
