Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,195

never forgive yourself,” she says, watching as I reach toward her, for her. To end this. To finally fucking goddamn end this.

“If I don’t do this, I’ll never forgive myself,” I correct. “Because I’m a monster, and the only way I know how to deal with other monsters is to dance in shadows.”

And then it happens, and it’s over, and I’m back in the woods, scooping Heather into my arms.

That’s when the phone call from Hael comes in; that’s when I hear the howling.

Aaron Fadler

Ten minutes earlier …

There are seven men, including Maxwell Barrasso, on the other side of this standoff. This shouldn’t be so goddamn hard.

I end up on the upper part of the road, closer to the crossroads, with Oscar beside me. Callum slips back around the trunk of the car, shaking with adrenaline and panting hard. He stopped Maxwell from hurting Heather, but now we’re in the middle of a shoot-out and our fucking leader has just disappeared into the woods.

“We either have time or we have ammo,” Oscar remarks, reloading his weapon and taking aim at the men sheltering between the two black Maybach sedans.

“And that means, what, exactly?” Cal asks, shoving up to his feet and taking a position beside Oscar. I steady my hands, considering if I’m actually going to take the shot or not. We’ve already blown out the tires on the cars—and our enemies have retaliated in kind.

“Either we run out of ammunition or else the VGTF shows up,” Oscar muses, and I can tell that even if waiting for the feds would be the easiest option for us, it’s not the one he wants. He wants to make someone bleed.

“You mean … either they run out of ammunition,” Cal corrects, and I can taste it in his words, too. He also craves the violence. Not me. I’d so much rather just take the girls home and bundle them in blankets, hold them close, and only kill if needed to keep them safe.

Standing where I’m standing, with Hael and Bernadette all the way on the other side of the Camaro, I feel like killing is exactly what I have to do. When one of Maxwell’s men leans out, aiming in the opposite direction and likely—and falsely—assuming that he’s protected by the second car, I aim for the wide breadth of his back.

Deep breath.

Tense on the trigger.

A shot rips through the man’s body and he slumps forward and then sideways, bleeding out into the grass. This is going to be an interesting scene to explain to the feds, but it is what it is at this point. They gave us no choice; they took our child.

Not just once either.

They stole Heather … they beat the baby out of my Bernadette.

I scoot out from behind the car, even as Oscar makes a sound of protest, and the movement draws another one of Maxwell’s men out to take down what he assumes is an easy target. Oscar is able to shoot him through the forehead before anything happens to me, and I duck back behind the Eldorado’s tire.

“A little warning next time, Fadler,” he murmurs, but there’s a dark smile on his lips that wasn’t there before.

“Watch my back?” Cal asks, and then before either of us can answer, he takes off across the green. Gunshots ring out in his wake, but he’s able to disappear into the woods without being hit. That’s the thing, right? Fighting Havoc means fighting shadows. We’re not usually about big-ass firefights.

“That fucker.” Oscar’s grumbling under his breath, waiting for his next opportunity to take a shot. From the opposite end of the road, Hael and Bernie are doing the same. I both hate and love that, seeing her in the trenches with us. It’s where she was always meant to be, but also … I’d rather she were safe. Nantucket, Nantucket, Nantucket.

What is Nantucket anyway? Some snooty seaside town with good scallops? A bunch of cute buildings and rich assholes and whaling and fishing and lighthouses? That would never have suited Bernadette. This does. I put away my overprotective streak so that I can concentrate.

Callum reemerges from the trees, once again drawing fire from Maxwell’s men, and ending up on Bernie and Hael’s side instead of ours. Smart.

“Go,” Oscar tells me, his silver eyes sliding my way. “Join them.”

I wet my lips briefly, and then I take off in the opposite direction. While the men are more focused on Callum, I clear most of the ground between me and