Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,194

pulling away, she stops me by throwing her arms around my neck and giving me a squeeze.

“Thank you for saving me,” she whispers, and I give her a small kiss on the top of her head in return.

“You owe me no thanks for that,” I reply honestly, standing up and turning to go.

“Vic?” Heather calls out, and I pause, glancing over my shoulder with a brow quirked. I’m sure I look insane, dressed in a jacket and tie and covered in blood, but Heather doesn’t bat an eye at any of it. “I guess … I ship you and Bernie now.”

I have to blink a few times to truly process that.

“Or, well, I ship her and you and Aaron and … everybody, I guess.”

Well, fuck me, I did not see that one coming.

“You’ll always be safe with me,” I tell her, and I mean it. “I’ll be back soon.”

She nods and nestles into the ferns as I take off running, finding the stone wall and then moving along it until I reach the gate.

Ophelia thought she was being clever, sticking to the shadows, slipping off her shoes, trying for a quiet, desperate sulk to reach this very destination.

But when she gets there, I’m waiting for her.

“Hello Mother,” I say as she makes a run for the gate from the edge of the woods. The gate is still open, and even if I can hear sirens in the distance, it doesn’t matter. They’re not going to arrive in time to offer her help of any sort.

“Victor,” Ophelia breathes, turning and then immediately lifting her weapon to shoot at me.

But it’s what I suspected.

I move back into the woods as she fires, using the trunks for cover as I make my way closer and closer, weaving in and out of the trees until my mother is pulling the trigger and no more shots are coming out. She drops the gun and turns on her heel, running for the gate, fleeing in that red satin dress that’s a blight against the green and brown of the natural landscape.

It only takes me a second to catch up to her.

Kicking out with my right leg, I knock Ophelia to her knees in the gravel road just outside the school. It leads back up toward the paved road that passes by the front entrance and then curves back into town, straight into Oak Park.

But here, right now, it’s just me and my mother.

She struggles to find her feet, the red satin gown twisting around her ankles as she gets up and keeps running. I just kick her again and watch dispassionately as she falls over, her hands bruised and bleeding now, flecked with tiny bits of gravel.

Eventually, Ophelia gets the idea and turns over so that she can look up and see me lording over her. There’s no pleasure in this for me, towering over the woman who gave birth to me. But with the flood of my anger came the pain of those old memories, her inappropriate touches and kisses, her gifting of me to my ‘uncles’ at her fancy parties.

“All you had to do was care about me,” I tell her as she crab-walks backward, her dark hair falling out of her careful chignon and tangling around her face. I keep walking, just walking. Not running. Not menacing. Not threatening. My prey tries to drag itself away, and I just follow. I just talk. “The only thing you had to do to prevent this moment from happening was love your son more than yourself.”

“Vic, please,” Ophelia pleads, her voice so strained and different from the aristocratic drawl she’s always had, this lazy insouciance, this wicked entitlement. She’s said before that she knew I would kill her if given the chance. Well, chance meet circumstance. She really fucking crossed a line by touching Heather. “I’ve always loved you. You know that, right? I tried to show you—”

“No.” I gnash my teeth at her, and then I crouch down in front of her, meeting her stare dead-on. There’s fear in those eyes, a desperate sort of terror that she deserves but that I can’t bear to look at any longer than necessary. “You did not love me. You did not show me. You used me. You treated me like an accessory and a toy. I was for your pleasure, and the pleasure of your friends. Mother, you kidnapped Aaron. You tried to kill Bernadette. You won’t stop taking and taking and taking.”

“If you do this, you’ll