Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,23

how screwed up mommy issues could be. My mother allowed her husband to rape my sister. How could I ever forget that? Why don’t I just want her dead and fucking gone?

“Okay,” I say, because I have no idea where this is going. “And?”

“They’d like you to call them back. It sounds urgent. Do you want to write their number down?” I just narrow my eyes slightly. I don’t like the direction of this conversation. Immediately I’m thinking internal bleeding or some shit. I let them draw my blood when I was there, do some tests. Maybe a result came back that isn’t good? At least if I call them back now, maybe I’ll understand why I feel like such shit at the moment.

“I have Google, but thanks for letting me know. I’ll call them.” I hang up and turn back to the table, grabbing Aaron’s laptop off the edge of the couch arm on the way.

“What’s up?” Vic asks, but I just shake my head.

“I need to call the hospital real quick,” I say, and he gives me a dark look. “I have no idea what for. That was Sara Young; she said they called my phone, so I’m calling them. Chill out.”

My stomach clenches again, and I let out a long, low breath, putting my hand across my belly. Period cramps plus body aches from being beaten on the front lawn of my school. Fucking ouch.

I sit down at the table with the cordless phone receiver, flip open the laptop, and search for Joseph General.

“The hospital,” Aaron says, taking the seat across from mine. He moves gingerly, like maybe he got the crap beat out of him, too? He’s still wearing the medical boot which makes his survival during the shooting even more miraculous. If I’d had a broken fibula and a medical boot, I might not’ve been able to make it out alive. “What could they possibly be calling about?”

I shrug my shoulders, trying to play it off as nothing.

“Probably after me to pay the bill since I don’t have insurance.” I smile tightly because jokes about our fucked-up for-profit healthcare system aren’t really all that funny (it’s actually entirely probable that that’s why the hospital called) and then dial the number.

Hael sits beside me, Oscar across from him, while Vic takes the head of the table. They eat pizza and share the two-liters of soda around, not bothering to get a glass. Well, Oscar gets a glass. Nobody else does. And, shocker of all shocks, he actually eats.

I just stare at him as the phone rings and rings, offering me one useless menu after another.

“What?” he asks finally, setting the crust down on his plate—also the only boy to use a plate by the way. “See something you like?”

“You,” I say succinctly, and that shuts him the fuck up. I avert my gaze back to the pizza boxes and try not to let that itchy feeling beneath my skin take over. Callum was alive as of six hours ago. Alive enough to get up and leave that basement. Alive enough to consider not leaving a trail.

That’s something, right? Because … “Hope is the thing with feathers,” I breathe aloud, not meaning to quote Emily Dickinson but doing it anyway. Because, deep down, in my heart of hearts, I am a poet and not a killer.

“That perches in the soul,” Oscar continues for me, picking up his pizza crust and finishing it as I try to fight back a weary smile.

“Fuck, you two are weird sometimes,” Hael murmurs, but not like he dislikes our weirdness. No, quite the contrary. As much as he and Oscar squabble, I know they love each other in that strange, obsessive sort of way that the rest of us do. Havoc’s way. Poison and possession, delivered down the throat in a dose as smooth as cognac.

Finally, after a half-dozen department transfers, I get someone at the hospital. She looks my name up, transfers me, and then I’m finally on the phone with the doctor.

“Hello Bernadette, how are you?” she asks, but I’m officially done with peopling today, so I barely grunt in acknowledgement.

“Fine. What’s going on?” I ask, listening as the woman shuffles around on the other end of the line.

“I just wanted to let you know that we got your blood results back. Bernadette, you’re pregnant.” The doctor pauses a moment before continuing, saying something about the injuries I received today, how a hard blow to the belly can cause miscarriage