Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,186

heard someone trying to come in the room, Heather told me to hide,” Kara explains, and I feel my knees get so weak that I’m afraid I might collapse. Hael pulls me to him, my back to his front, and keeps me standing by banding his arms around my waist. Why are you always trying to be the goddamn white knight, Heather? I think desperately, but I only love my sister all the more for trying to be a hero. That’s just who she is, like Hael or Aaron. Desperate to be a good guy in a world populated by villains. “And then this lady came in and she talked to her and called her Heather instead of Hannah.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Kara pauses and looks away, like she’s afraid to tell the rest of the story. Aaron very gently encourages her to turn back to us with his fingers on her chin.

“Heather told her she didn’t want to leave, so the lady hit her and grabbed her arm and she made her …” Kara trails off as I feel my eyes sting with angry tears. There’s only one woman on this campus who would think to take my little sister.

Just one.

“What did she look like?” Aaron presses, stroking Kara’s hair as he waits for an answer. “The woman who took Heather?”

Kara pauses for a moment and then points directly at Victor.

“Like Vic, except in a red dress.”

And then we’re all moving again. Oscar is on his phone, trying to pull up the security footage and cursing at how tightly guarded Oak Valley keeps its secrets. He and Cal start with a search of the immediate area while Aaron and Hael peel away from us to take Kara to Ms. Keating.

Vic and I head directly for the Student Parking Area where all the guest vehicles for today’s event have been left—including Maxwell and Ophelia’s. If she’s trying to get off campus, she’ll have to go there first.

On our way, we spot Trinity Jade striding down the path toward the girls’ dorm and disappearing inside. Vic and I exchange a look. We don’t need to communicate with words to know what the other is thinking.

I follow Trinity into the elevator just before it closes, Victor slipping in behind me.

She whips around and plasters herself against the mirrors as I slam my palms on the wall on either side of her head. I’m seething; I’m shaking; I cannot fucking breathe. If I lose another sister, I’ll die. There won’t be anything left of me for the Havoc Boys to save. It’ll be over for me then. Over for us. Heather cannot die. She cannot be taken from me.

“What did you say to Ophelia?” I snarl, because if she thinks I didn’t see them slip into the bathroom together, then she sorely underestimated the depths of my Havoc-induced magic. “What?!” When Trinity doesn’t answer right away, I slam my palms against the wall again.

Victor casually presses the emergency stop button. While the VGTF sneaks up on the school, executing their carefully planned raid, nobody is likely to check on us in here. We have at least a few minutes. And this elevator, it’s a motherfucking dark zone.

“I didn’t say anything to her,” Trinity purrs back at me, her genteel voice rife with smug superiority. Whatever she did, whatever she said, she thinks she’s gained some sort of advantage over us.

I backhand her then, careful not to leave a mark. Blood smears my knuckles anyway as I draw back and ask again.

“What. Did. You. Say?”

This is the last time that I’m going to ask.

Trinity smirks at me, but says nothing, testing the very limits of my temper. But with Heather on the line, there is no holding back. There are no doubts. There are no worries about getting caught.

I haul back and hit Trinity as hard as I can in the stomach with a closed fist, making her wheeze and gasp as she doubles over. Shaking my hand out, I ready myself to do it again. It won’t leave a mark, but it sure hurts like fucking hell.

When Trinity finally straightens up, panting heavily but still carrying that superior gleam in her eye, I punch her a second time and then grab the back of her neck while Vic watches, allowing me to carry out the interrogation. I can feel his godlike control wash over me as I wet my lips.

“You’ve made a huge mistake,” I breathe, standing back up and pulling out the cluster