Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,22

dark circles under his eyes, and he looks fucking exhausted.

My heart flutters in that fairy-tale way it does when I see my childhood sweetheart safe and sound. He encapsulates my dreams of something better in the way he smiles at me; he holds the very last shred of my innocence in the warmth of his arms around me.

“You’re back,” I whisper, sauntering forward and acting like I don’t have blood all down my thighs. I’ve stopped in four bathrooms to empty my cup and put new pads in. Still, I bleed.

“Just got here,” he says, setting the pizza aside and then holding his arms out for me. Without hesitation, I step into them, letting his sandalwood and rose scent wash away some of the agonizing frustration I feel. I haven’t even really had time to process that we survived a school shooting. Or that I killed the son of a notorious gangster. All I’ve been able to do is focus on Callum, the way I did on Aaron when he was missing. “One of the boys told me about Cal.”

Aaron pauses there and waits, but when nobody says anything, a deep frown appears on his face.

“What took so fucking long?” Vic asks, moving up behind me and stealing Aaron’s pizza slice. We’re all starving; we have to take a break to eat. Really, I could use a shower and a nap, too, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to relax enough to do any of those things.

“When they wouldn’t tell me if Bernadette was safe, I spit in Constantine’s coffee.” Aaron strokes his fingers through my hair and smiles down at me. “He left me in the interrogation room for six hours by myself.”

I almost laugh, but the sound hurts too much trying to come out, so I don’t bother. Instead, I curl my arms around Aaron’s neck and lean up on my tiptoes, watching his long lashes flutter as our lips brush and then ignite with that usual sense of desperation and need. We were separated for too long; we can’t get enough. Even as we kiss, and I dig my fingers into his wavy chestnut hair, I know that I could fall forever into him and I would never hit the ground. It would be an endless sensation of floating, of falling, of dizzying heights rushing past at the speed of light.

The home phone rings, and I startle so bad that I end up nicking Aaron’s lip with my teeth.

“Cal …” I breathe, glancing back.

“Go,” Aaron says, pressing an aggressively affectionate kiss to my forehead and giving me a small push with his hand. I notice that his cast is missing which annoys me since it’s about two weeks early for it to come off. But I’ll chastise him later.

This could be Callum, calling to let us know he’s okay.

It has to be Callum, right?

Because as much as he jokes around about being the first of us to die, I won’t allow it. I won’t allow any of them to sacrifice themselves or be snuffed out in a stupid fucking gang war. Prescott—and the city of Springfield—belong to us. We deserve to rule first; we deserve to be happy first.

“I feel like I’m in a fucking nineties movie,” I grumble, because dark humor is Cal’s thing, and it makes me feel closer to him when I use it. “Hello?”

I swear to fuck, if this is someone asking me if I like scary movies, I’m going to kill them and bury their body under an endangered plant so that nobody can legally dig it up.

“Bernadette, it’s Sara,” the detective begins, and I sigh. It’s a sound so heavy and ominous that it causes police girl to hesitate. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t want to hear from Sara motherfucking Young.

That is … unless she has news about Callum.

I close my eyes.

“Where did you get this number from?” I ask, but then I realize that I already know the answer: off my fucking phone. “Never mind, don’t answer that. It’ll just piss me off.”

“Honey, I need to talk to you for a moment. Are you alone?”

That gives me pause, but I just shrug my shoulders, remember that she can’t see me, and sigh again. “Close enough. What’s up?”

“Well, the hospital just called your cell.”

I stare at the wall above the phone where an old painting sits. It’s a wolf, painted by Aaron’s mom back in high school. I’d wonder why it was still hanging here if I didn’t understand