Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,14

to, whispering horrible things in his ear that cause him to shudder and grip me like he’s falling. This time, it’s my turn to catch him. And I do. And I’m okay with that.

I do not see Kali’s ghost.

I don’t think I ever will again.

No, I know that I won’t.

Because I’m done letting other people get in my head. I’m done consenting to the act of feeling inferior.

Fuck all of that.

I am queen of Havoc, and we are just getting started.

“Do you think the GMP took Cal with them when they left?” I ask Victor, sitting at a stool in the kitchen in the dark and waiting for the other boys to come back. It’s just after six in the evening, and they’re still not here.

Our crew—what’s left of it anyway—is crawling the city, sticking to shadows but keeping an eye on the comings and goings of the cops and the GMP.

Vic puts his palms on the counter and looks at me across the surface of it. Every once in a while, there’s a knock at one of the doors and a crew member waiting. Victor speaks to them in low, hushed tones, and then returns back to the counter.

So far, no further activity from the GMP.

They’d have to be stupid to come here right now, with all of those fucking cops outside. Not that a gang like the GMP cares about the police, but with the VGTF involved, that means FBI. That means media coverage.

In a day and age where corruption runs so rampant that it taints every aspect of daily life, attention is the true nightmare of the underground. Shine a light on something and see the people rise.

I take a bite of a burnt pancake, frowning at the taste of ash on my tongue. Victor is not nearly as good in the kitchen as Hael or Aaron. Shit, he’s almost as bad as I am.

“Tastes like shit, huh?” he asks, sighing as he flicks the stack of black pancakes with an inked finger. Clearly, he’s avoiding answering my question. Vic grabs the pack of cigarettes from the counter and lights one up, holding it between his lips as he watches me with a guarded look in his dark eyes. It’s like, as open as we were with each other upstairs, we’ve both buttoned-down and closed ourselves off.

This, this is a waiting game.

We need to see if the other boys come back from the station, and then we need to find Callum—before the feds do. Or the GMP. That is, if they don’t have him already.

“If the GMP took Callum,” I begin, watching as Vic pulls his borrowed phone close (this one’s from a member of our crew) and taps an app for a food delivery service. It reminds me of the night we spent together after he gave me a much-needed pep talk in that infamous closet of his. We’re so similar, me and Vic. I kept pretending like I don’t understand him and his motivations, but in reality, it’s just because I was too stubborn—or too afraid—to understand myself. “Then we’d know, right? I mean, they’d try to contact us somehow to hold that over our heads?”

Vic gives me a long, steady look that scares the shit out of me. And the reason it does that is because if I were to give somebody else that look, I’d be saying one thing and one thing only: I’m sorry.

I grit my teeth.

“It’s what you suggested before, when Aaron—”

“It’s what I thought happened to Aaron when Ophelia was just a conniving bitch with the Charter Crew as her pets. But the GMP …” Victor trails off and closes his eyes for a moment, swiping his hand over his face.

I just sit there and stare at him, and then I grab a cigarette from the same pack and gesture at him for a light. He flicks the flame on the lighter as he stares back at me, the orange glow highlighting the masculine lines of his face. Everything about Victor Channing screams primal, male, terrifying.

I keep my eyes on his until the cherry of my cigarette crackles with heat.

“I ordered pizza,” Vic tells me, and I can feel his eyes on me even when I look away.

We both pause at the sound of a key in a lock and exchange looks. If someone is here, and none of our crew bothered to inform us that someone was on the way …

That can mean only one thing: Havoc.

But which letter?