Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,199

the trigger, and even though I know Victor would tell me to stand down, I don’t.

I’m already moving before I can even consider the consequences. Because there is no consequence greater than losing one of my boys, of seeing them hurt and bleeding and dying. That’s something that my soul can’t bear. So, regardless of what my actions mean, I take them because there’s no alternative for me.

I’m sprinting forward now, running so fast that the air seems to stream past me like water, flowing across my cheeks and tangling in my hair. If there was more time, I could probably shoot Martin while still being careful not to hit Marie, attached to his side and wrapped in his arm as she is. But that’s not how life works.

You can plan and estimate and figure and calculate all you want, but sometimes random events occur that can change the trajectory of the entire world. This is one of those things.

Martin is Hael’s father, so he was able to get a pass to come on campus today. Also, he’s in the GMP, so he knows about Havoc and all the things we do and the vendetta with his boss. He’s angry and he’s desperate and he’s violent, and so when he pulls the trigger to shoot his son, I’m right there in the path of that bullet like I was born to stand in that one place, to fall into line even as Hael lets out a roar of rage, even as he tries with valiant effort to fire his own gun at his father in a preemptive strike.

The thing is, it’s too late.

The sound of Martin’s gun going off is like a car backfiring, but the pain … the pain is indescribable. It’s like being impaled by a hot iron, one that sears and cooks the flesh as it goes in. I’m still standing, adrenaline flooding me and keeping me on my feet for a moment as Hael’s muscled body explodes into violent action.

There’s another gunshot and another and another. It feels like those shots, this pain, are occurring over hours, like time is passing slow and sticky like molasses. In reality, I’m pretty sure Martin’s shots are continuous and near instantaneous, so quick that Hael unloads his own gun into his father before charging the man’s sagging form and managing to tackle him before he even hits the ground.

In a fit of dark rage and tumultuous despair, Hael whips out the hunting knife from his ankle sheath—similar to the one Maxwell Barrasso is wearing, though I don’t know that at the time. All I know is that everything comes full circle, everything recycles, everything repeats and patterns and mimics. And even though I can’t see it, I think of that scar on Hael’s arm, the one that stretches from shoulder to fingertip.

The one that his father gave him.

So it seems appropriate that Hael would take that knife and that he would plunge it straight down into his father’s chest. There’s so much blood; it looks like Hael is being bathed in it. He stabs his dad again. Again. Again. As many times as Martin shot me, that’s how many times Hael stabs him.

Oh, he finally got him, I think, and that’s when I realize that something is really and truly wrong. That’s when I look down and I see all the blood, and I think briefly about that blood running down my thighs. I think of it running when I was on my period and Oscar fucked me. I think about it running when I had the miscarriage and the boys crowded around me in the bathroom. I think about the blood at the high school and the crown on my head and the time when Kali stabbed me. Every significant moment in my life is slathered in blood. Drenched. Soaked. Consumed by it.

I’m supposed to be running now, but I’m not. I’ve stopped moving even though I’m still telling my body to run, and it’s frustrating as fuck because I can’t get close to Hael to throw my arms around him, to bring him close and hold him tight.

There’s a lot of blood when I fall, when my knees hit the floor and it’s so red and everything is wet … My breath comes in strange, gasping chokes as I fall forward, palms hitting the ground. But my elbows won’t hold me up, and I end up collapsing, face-first. I have just enough energy to turn my face