Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,43

It’s a state of fucking mind. It’s about caring for someone more than you care for yourself. Aaron is a better mother to his sister and cousin than Pamela ever was to me.

She gets on top of me, and I won’t lie: it hurts. She straddles me, one hand gripping my hair and yanking so hard that white fire explodes behind my eyelids. I guess I learned how to fight from watching her. I suppose we are similar in some ways, me and Pamela.

As I’m lying there underneath her, aching and hurting and bleeding, I realize that she was probably a victim of the system, too. My father was nearly fifteen years her senior. He was married. He got her pregnant at sixteen. As fond as my memories of him are, wasn’t he in the wrong?

The thing is: once you cross that line from victim to perpetrator, there is no absolution. You should know how much the atrocities you suffered hurt. How dare you perpetuate that cycle. How dare you.

But I let Pam beat my ass while my boys wait, gnashing teeth and foaming at the mouth.

From the corner of my eye, I can see them. Shit, I can feel them. Seeing me on the ground like this, beneath number seven on my list, must just kill them. If I were one of the boys right now, I’d probably defy my queen’s order and come out swinging.

Victor is standing there like a statue, stone-still, his control absolute. It’s what I see in his eyes that terrifies me, all the awful, awful things he’d do to Pam if given the chance. Aaron has his left hand balled into a fist, leaning against the doorjamb like he can’t bear to stand up. Hael is pacing, raking his fingers through his bloodred hair, while Callum crouches on the walk just in front of Aaron.

It’s Oscar, stoic, immovable Oscar, who looks like he might actually come for my mother. The only thing that stops him as he starts forward is a swift look from Victor, one that demands perfect obedience.

“Pamela Pence!” a voice calls out, and then my mother is being hauled off of me. She’s screaming at me, but I can’t hear a word she’s saying. I think I’ve learned over the years how to filter out her toxicity. I roll over in the grass and push myself up to my knees.

That’s how I’m going to win this war.

Cramping from a miscarriage and shaking from old hurts and raw anger.

I glance back to see Sara Young, Detective Constantine, and the uniformed officers from the squad car across the street.

Bingo, bitch.

“Are you okay?” Sara asks as Oscar moves over to stand beside her, his face so pinched you’d think he just swallowed a fucking lemon. Police Girl is crouched down next to me, one hand on my shoulder, but her eyes are on the blood between my legs. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“The GMP did this to me,” I whisper back at her, and I don’t have to fake the way my voice quavers. I’m furious. At Pamela. At Ophelia. At this gang war. At the entire world. Justice is never meted out the way it should. I don’t believe in karma or otherworldly punishments. Only I can carve out my pound of flesh. “They took the choice away from me.”

Because that’s what I believe in: choice. My body, my choice. And they fucking took that from me. I shove up to my feet and stumble into Oscar. He catches me easily, and then holds me much closer and much tighter than I expected.

“It’s just a bad period, she’ll be fine,” Oscar says smoothly as I close my eyes and lean into him. “What are you going to do with Pamela?”

“Well, first off, I’m going to add assault and battery to her list of charges.” Sara pauses, and I glance over to find her expression bewildered. I’ve managed to confuse her. Again. She has no idea what to think of me.

See, look, my boys didn’t react to that violence. They are stable. They don’t hurt people just for hurting me.

“She killed Neil, didn’t she?” I ask, my voice grim as I try to stand up. Oscar won’t let me go, however. Instead, he keeps me clutched in his inked arms like I’ll drown if he doesn’t keep me afloat.

“I can’t speak on an open case,” Sara says, but there’s a strange lilt to her voice that tells me all that I