Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,201

to make me a dress made up of a thousand pieces of paper. Victor shoving a kid down the slide for pulling my pigtails.

I cough one more time and then sweet, beautiful light sweeps in around me.

I’m not afraid anymore.

I’m queen of Havoc.

My being dead doesn’t change that.

And ending things like this? It’s how it’s always supposed to have been.

Without me to protect, there doesn’t need to be a Havoc.

The last thought that I have before I die is this: I set you free, boys. I set you fucking free.

Aaron Fadler

There have been times where I’ve regretted the things I’ve done. Was I too harsh? Did I cross too many lines? Never did I regret Bernadette Blackbird.

I’m sitting on the floor of the hospital with an arm banded around my knees, eyes closed, mouth pressed into the bloody leg of my jeans. I feel so ridiculously seventeen in that moment, like my birthday will never come, like I’ll be trapped forever in the unending halls of Prescott High, searching for dark zones and quelling rebellions.

“She was dead,” Callum whispers, his voice the most ragged I’ve ever heard it. It cracks and shatters with each word, like broken glass digging into my eardrums. It takes an extreme physical effort to keep my hands away from my ears. In fact, I want to dig my fingers into them until my eardrums are too damaged to hear whatever words the doctor might utter.

Time of death …

Death.

Bernadette, dead? When we were supposed to protect her? How? Why? I don’t understand any of it.

“She isn’t dead yet,” Oscar snaps, looking over at his friend like he might very well kill him. I can hardly look at them. Instead, I’m struggling to tear my attention away from Vic. I’ve never seen him look the way he does now, twirling his ring around his finger. With Bernadette gone, he’ll go home and put a bullet in his head.

I hate him for that because I know I don’t have that luxury. Heather needs someone to take care of her. Kara and Ashley need me. I close my eyes until I feel a warm hand on my shoulder. Lifting my head up, I find Hael with a Styrofoam cup in his other hand. He offers it to me.

“Coffee,” he says. He tries to smile, but it’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever seen. I think, if Bernie dies here tonight, that he’ll go on. But he’ll never be the same. Maybe, one day, ten years from now, he’ll marry a nice woman, but she’ll always catch him staring off into the sunset thinking about a girl who isn’t her. Then, one day, she’ll wake up and he’ll just be gone.

That’s Hael Harbin for ya.

“No thank you,” I manage to get out, forcing myself to stand up. I’m unsteady on my feet, but even with the wobbling and disorientation, I can’t miss the image of Police Girl making her way down the hall toward us. She looks appropriately sad for the situation. Maybe not all cops are bad after all?

“I’m so sorry to hear about Bernadette,” she says, and I see Oscar scowl so violently that Sara’s hand strays near the butt of the gun on her hip. She looks at him, but he just turns away to stare at the wall. Imagining Oscar without Bernadette is like imagining a grenade without a pin. He won’t last very long until he does something he regrets so deeply that he breaks. Cal … I can’t really look at Cal. He’ll either explode or implode, not sure which.

I bite my lip and rake my fingers through my hair.

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask, because Vic doesn’t function without Bernadette. I function because I have no other choice. Being a parent means you push on when all you want to do is curl up and die. And now I’m a parent to three girls. I’d always assumed Havoc would raise them with me, but … I don’t know anything anymore.

“Maxwell Barrasso is dead,” Sara tells me, and I nod. We know that, obviously. She glances briefly over at Hael, but he may as well be carved of stone. There’s a faint smile lingering on his lips, but it’s tainted with melancholy and colored with confusion. He isn’t sure what he should be doing right now. Because if we’re not protecting Bernadette, and we failed to protect Bernadette, then who the actual fuck are we? What the fuck is Havoc? “Anyway,”