Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #1) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,12

my backpack and my bike before heading down the street. I can feel Vic's eyes on me all the way to the corner.

Prescott High is such a dump, this crumbling old stucco-sided building that my grandparents went to school in. It'd be charming and all that if, one: I didn't hate that side of my family, and two: there'd been any maintenance done on the building at all in the last fifty freaking years.

I smoke a whole cigarette in view of the front entrance, knowing the security guards on staff have worse to deal with than some defiant bitch smoking a shorty on school property.

“Good morning, darling,” Oscar says, appearing behind me like a specter. I turn slowly, finding his tall form dressed in a white button-down, jacket, and slacks. It all looks very fancy, despite the tattoos on his hands and knuckles. He lives in one of the most dangerous parts of town, too: South Prescott. I'm guessing he bought the suit with blood money. That, or stole it. He wears them a lot. “I hear you're one of us now.” The smile that steals across his lips is pure malicious intent. He pauses a moment to glance up at one of the security cameras near the front gate. “Welcome to Havoc.”

A huge explosion sounds from across the street, and Mr. Vaughn's car—this brand-new, pretentious as fuck Range Rover in a custom shade of pearl—goes up in a fireball. I'm all the way across the street, and I can feel the heat on my face.

“Holy shit!” My hands clamp over my mouth as the SUV is engulfed, students screaming, one of the campus cops racing across the road. Mr. Vaughn bolts down the steps in his off-white suit, his jaw slack, eyes reflecting the orange and red of the flames.

The first thing he does is dart his eyes my direction. Our gazes meet, and I smile.

“Don't look at me, although we both know you deserve it.” My mouth feels like it's smiling, but all I feel inside is sick, sad satisfaction. The principal rushes forward to grab a fire extinguisher from a passing staff member, and goes to town on the car with it while sirens sound in the distance.

“You can thank me later,” Hael says, sliding up on my left side, a cigarette clenched between his teeth. He gives me a hard wink, and then flicks the butt into the nearest trash can. “Set the radiator up with some small explosives on a timer. It'll look like the whole engine just went. Happens you know, on these foreign cars.” Hael takes off and clomps his way up the three steps that lead into the front entrance of the school, setting off every metal detector in there, the way he always does.

“How far, exactly, you want this to go …” Oscar runs his finger down the back of my neck, making my muscles tense up. “That's up to you.” He moves past me, and I shiver.

We're just getting started here.

Just getting started.

Everything is different today. You’d think that kiss I shared with Victor shattered the world. When I walk on campus, people scurry out of my way, stare at me with wide, wide eyes. They avoid me like the plague while simultaneously letting me know with their body language that if I demand it, they’ll succumb to my every whim.

It’s surreal as hell.

Victor comes to find me at lunch, waiting just outside the door to the locker room, his big body curled over, hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor. When he lifts them to my face, I feel this strange, tingling sensation take over me, like I did that one time I tried to donate blood. Like I’m fading, like my life force is being drained by his stare.

“Come with me,” he says, and I do.

Because with that kiss, I promised I’d do whatever he asked.

Victor leads me back to the area next to the dumpsters where the others are waiting, watching. They’re all smoking. Because that’s what bad kids like us do, right? “That stuff’ll kill you, you know,” Ms. Keating likes to say. Once, I heard Hael smirk and shoot back, “we’re counting on it.”

He’s right.

Every step closer to the grave is one step further away from this hell we call life.

“Boys,” Vic greets, pausing in front of them and then gesturing toward me with his chin. “Glad to see we’re out the door and running.” He gives Hael a very special sort of look,