Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,27

like he’s surprised he’s still alive.

“Where the fuck have you been?!” I choke out, my own hands shaking at my sides. “We’ve been looking all over for you!”

“I passed out,” he says, pauses, thinks for a minute. “Yeah, I passed out. When I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I was.” He touches his hand to his throat and then cringes slightly, pulling his hand away and staring at it like he isn’t sure where all the extra blood is coming from. “The city is crawling with cops; I barely made it back.”

“I was losing my fucking mind,” I whisper, wondering how long it might take the other boys to realize there’s an ‘intruder’ in the house.

The sound of a hammer being pulled back precedes the lights flicking on. Guess that answers my question.

Victor is standing at the top of the stairs. He takes note of the fact that our mystery newcomer is Callum, and then lowers the gun without apology.

“Glad to see you’re still alive,” Vic says, and even if the words themselves are placid and neutral, there’s a warmth in his tone that tells me definitively that Victor Channing loves his boys as much as I do. He might not want to fuck them—come on, no way that guy is into dick; he’s too basic—but he loves them just the same. “Want to tell me about it?”

“I need you to go,” Callum says, and there’s something in his tone that’s stretched out and terrifying. My body responds to that ice with an inappropriate level of heat. It fills me from head to toe, makes my breath hitch, my thighs clench. I curl my hands into fists, my nails ragged and digging painfully into my palms.

Just like Pamela used to do, leave bloody crescents in her wake.

I blink her away as I look between the two men. Both are my soul mates. I’ve recognized this recently, that the soul in all of its eternal beauty couldn’t possibly be so limited as to having only one perfect match. I have five of them. Five letters, one word, one desperate family that I’d do anything to keep.

Even give my own life.

A shudder ripples through me, and I close my eyes.

In all of this, in all the jokes and the foreshadowing and the fear … the one who has always been most likely to die is … me.

After all, nobody gets this lucky this often. Aaron, alive. Callum, alive. Somebody has to fucking pay for that good karma.

I open my eyes and step forward, putting my hand on Callum’s chest. His hoodie is wet with blood, almost soggy. I don’t like that, the way it feels cold when I touch it. When I look back, Victor is watching us with an inscrutable expression. Every time we meet, and every time we part, the universe shifts a little. I know, because I can feel it. We are all the centers of our own realities except … maybe Havoc is the center of mine.

Vic tucks the gun in his waistband and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Beautifully predictable. It takes nicotine to curtail his possessive urges toward me. I like that, knowing there’s nothing in the world but tobacco and my unyielding stare that can get him to turn away.

“You’re not going to hurt her?” he asks, which is an interesting question. It’s because Victor’s seen this side of Callum before that he even thinks to wonder that, and I’m not entirely certain that I have. When I glance back, Cal’s looking down at his hands again and a gasp is tearing from my lips.

It looks like somebody attempted to slit his throat.

“Do you really need to ask me that?” Cal asks, looking up from his bloodied hands and then cocking his head to one side. Like a dog. Like a wolf. His blue eyes are empty and endless, terrifying when they drop to me and I see every ounce of focus that he possesses plunged into me like a knife.

To get rid of Callum, I’d have to kill him. He’d sit still and let me do it, open his throat with a blade. But that would be the only way, to put him in an early grave.

“No,” Cal says finally, body sagging. He puts a hand out and catches himself against the wall as I cling to him and do my best to provide support. “I would never hurt Bernadette. You know that.”

Victor lights up his smoke, his eyes finding mine. And