Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,198

done, Maxwell Barrasso, is what led you here today.”

Maxwell spits in Callum’s face, but it doesn’t faze him. Callum just swipes a hand over his cheek to wipe it off.

“Prescott trash,” Maxwell bites out, scowling and panting. He must know he’s going to die, but he doesn’t show fear or pain. Just hate and rage and frustration. Something about his expression, his demeanor, reminds me of Neil Pence. What was it that Cal said then? They always break, eventually. “If you kill me, my people will never stop hunting you. There won’t be a moment of peace in your lives. Not a single second of it.”

“Mm, I find that hard to believe,” Cal retorts, and then he stands up as Oscar steps out of the trees with a bit of rope in hand. He slips it around Maxwell’s neck, puts a foot between his shoulder blades, and then pulls.

The man scrambles to claw the rope from his neck, thrashing and fighting beneath the easy strength of Oscar’s grip.

“Ah, there it is again,” Cal remarks, just like he did when Neil finally began to scream inside the pretty coffin we picked out for him. “He just broke, too.”

I lean my back against the tree, panting and hurting, but relatively unharmed.

Oscar finishes his work and then lets Maxwell go, watching as the man slumps face-first into the leaves.

And that’s when our phones vibrate in unison and Oscar whips his out faster than Cal or I do. He answers the call with a sharp “what?” and then goes completely still.

That’s when we hear the howling, that’s when Callum starts to run and Oscar moves over to help me so that I can run, too.

“What was it?” I ask, glancing down and seeing that the call on his phone is still connected: it’s Hael.

“Mare’s nest,” Oscar breathes as panic surges through me, and I find myself facing the almost unthinkable reality of losing one of my girls for the second time that day.

Bernadette Blackbird

Ten minutes earlier … again.

Callum and Aaron hop over the front of the Camaro and take off, chasing the men that are now racing up the hill toward Oscar and the Eldorado. Likely, they’re going for the road in an attempt to escape. Either they don’t have a lot of ammo left or the distant sound of sirens has sparked their movements.

Regardless, Cal attacks one of the men from behind while Aaron peels off and heads into the woods after Maxwell. I’m about to go after him when Hael’s hand snaps out and grabs me by the wrist.

“No,” he says, giving me a sharp look. “Vic’s orders. You stay here.” He releases me and then takes aim up the hill, firing off several more shots and then cursing when he realizes the remaining GMP members are now out of range. Hael drops his gun to his side and steps back, unwilling to leave me here alone.

But, like, there’s no way I’m just going to sit around when my boys are in trouble. I’m backing up and considering the possibility of escaping Hael to go after Aaron when movement in the trees on the opposite side of the road draws my attention.

Time seems to slow down in such a way that I notice every little detail, like the striations in Hael’s beautiful eyes as he starts to turn toward the rustling sound. I see what’s happening first, as Martin Harbin stumbles out of the woods, his brown eyes bloodshot and his hair mussed. He is a man unhinged and broken in unfixable ways.

His wife, Marie, is clutched against his side, bleeding and bruised, with her husband’s hand clamped prohibitively over her mouth. Her eyes—such a sweet and gentle reminder of Hael’s—are wide with fear and terror.

I see the tattoo on Martin’s right arm, the red one that looks like the silhouetted face of a clown. It occurs to me then, in that split-second of time, that he’s been in prison for years. That, sometimes, when people go to prison, they join gangs.

Martin Harbin is white and awful; the Grand Murder Party is a white supremacist gang made up of awful, awful people.

It’s a match.

And we took his wife from him. We humiliated him. We walked away and left him all alone because it was the safest thing to do, the smartest thing to do.

He’s lifting up a weapon and pointing it at Hael like his son is the only thing left in the known universe, and then his finger is tensing on