Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,192

nearly a dozen men clomp and thrash their way through the woods, moving as if the earth owes them something rather than the other way around.

That just … pisses me off even more. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s the wolf inside of me? That wild, primal nature that demands to be obeyed.

The next thing I do is climb that tree, shimmying up with powerful thighs and strong arms, just the way has Cal shown me on numerous occasions. “There’s always a way up, hidden footholds or handholds. You just have to be patient and search them out.”

I manage to make it up into the boughs of the tree just as two of my attackers come around the trunk. They’re surprised to see me missing, but it isn’t really in human nature to look up. I come down on them both, knocking one to his back while the other stumbles away and opens his mouth to shout for help.

My hand wraps his throat as I slam him into the tree trunk. I must look ridiculous, dressed in my prep school uniform, my graduation gown abandoned in a trash can on campus. The feral grin that takes over my face is wildly inappropriate, but I can’t seem to help myself.

The second man is already climbing to his feet, but I use my free hand to steal the first man’s pistol and then shoot his buddy in the throat. Slipping the gun into my pocket, I use the strength of my grip to finish off my attacker. There’s no joy in it for me. I don’t love being a wicked monster who does wicked things, but this is the world I live in, the one I was forced into.

I play by Prescott rules.

The body slumps to the ground, and I whip around the trunk of the tree, slamming my fist into the stomach of another man. The pistol in my pocket becomes my best friend as I shoot and duck, twist around trees and reemerge. Everything is seamless; everything flows.

When I run out of ammo, I drop my weapon and steal another. Because theft is an integral part of the ecosystem in south Prescott, and there is no surviving without it.

These men are nothing to me, just a haze that I have to wade through in order to accomplish my ultimate goals.

Rescue Heather.

Kill Ophelia.

Get back to Bernadette.

The forest floor runs red with blood by the time I start working my way back through the woods in the direction of the south gate. That’s where Ophelia will be headed, that’s where she’ll go. Because she wants to get out of here, regardless of the cost—even if the cost is Maxwell and his merry band of assholes.

Checking the magazine on my latest stolen weapon, I see that I’ve only got three rounds left.

Fuck.

I’ll have to be careful, creative even. But I’m used to working with scraps, so I don’t let that get to me.

Since my mother is a much better scion, a much better blueblood, a much better apostle of greed, than she is a huntress, it isn’t hard to follow her tracks. As soon as I see her, I drop down to my belly and slither like a fucking snake. The serpent that my mother trained me to be.

Ophelia doesn’t see me coming, yanking Heather along behind her. When the girl protests and struggles too much for her liking, she turns and backhands her so hard that Heather falls on her ass. If I weren’t already crawling forward to handle the situation, I might just break.

I can’t stand seeing that. I just can’t fucking stand it. And not only because I love Bernadette, but because I’ve grown to love Ashley and Kara and Heather, too. I like kids because kids don’t fuck around the way adults do; they don’t hurt people the way adults do. Maybe, too, I like kids because I never really got to be one.

Not me or any of my other beautifully tortured Havoc Boys—or my blood-drenched bride.

I’m going to give them all what they should’ve had all along: stability, security, trust, honesty, love. All of those things and more. More, more, more. Mine, mine, mine.

My mother holds the gun on Heather and orders her to stand up.

“If you upset me again—even one more time—I will shoot you in the leg. Do you understand what a gunshot feels like, Heather?” Heather is shaking her head and sobbing now, her bravery stripped away somewhere between my leaving to fight off the