Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #5) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,6

fought for our city. We are not the ones who should be in handcuffs.

Vic’s eyes lock on mine, two obsidian pools that seem to hold the secrets of the universe. The crown is still perched on my bloody head, placed there by his inked hands, a symbol of the unbreakable bond we have. Victor and I, we are impossibly connected, an infinity sign with no beginning and no end.

The doors to his ambulance are slammed shut, and a gasp escapes me at the lack of eye contact. I feel like I’ve been backhanded. My stomach cramps, and I lick my lips to hold back a groan of pain. I won’t show it, not in front of fucking pigs, not in front of Sara Young or Detective Constantine.

Where are my other boys? I need to find my boys.

The adrenaline wears off like a shock of ice water to the face, and I begin to struggle.

“Get these fucking cuffs off of me!” I shout, twisting my body against the force of the metal. “Where are the rest of my boys?” I whip my head around to find Sara Young watching me. Constantine is beside her, but he just curses and scowls when I look their way. “I’m not under arrest here. I didn’t do anything wrong. Let me go.” I pause and wet my lips. I’m feeling saucy today. Actually, when I woke up this morning, I put on a shade of lipstick that reminds me of the brain matter I saw when I shot that GMP motherfucker in the head in the cafeteria.

It’s called Unhappy Goodbyes. Who names a lipstick color that? It’s psychotic.

“What happened, Bernadette?” Sara asks, touching the shoulder of the female officer in the ambulance with me. The woman leaves and lets Sara take her place. All I can do is look into her eyes and smile.

“They came for us,” I say as the crown shifts forward on my head. There’s blood all the fuck over me, but most of it isn’t mine. I adjust myself and the cuffs on my wrists clink. Just over Sara’s shoulder, I can see the front of Prescott High.

At times, it’s felt like a prison. During others, a sanctuary.

Maybe, like me, if the school were to have wings, one would be an angel wing, the other the leathery black of a demon. Duality. Life exists in duality.

People are swarming out the front door in droves now, like a flock of songbirds, chased from their home by a hawk. I see Ms. Keating halfway down the block with a gaggle of students. She’s bleeding from her already injured arm, but her chin is up. What do you want to bet that this bitch did something heroic today?

That’s just who she is, I guess, Ms. Breonna Keating.

“Where are my boys?” I repeat to Sara, my eyes briefly meeting the Vice Principal’s inky brown ones. The ambulance doors are slammed shut, and I let out a small snarl of frustration. Police Girl is staring at me like a riddle she’s determined to fucking decipher.

“Who are you?” she asks me after a moment, like she either doesn’t understand the depths of my rage or just doesn’t care. I turn to look at her, my body shaking as the pain really starts to set in. It’s everywhere. I had my ass handed to me today, didn’t I?

“The Queen of Havoc,” I tell her, and then I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. Where are you, boys? I wonder as the ambulance jostles down the road. Where the fuck are you?

If one of them is gone, so help this universe.

I will rend the fabric of reality to taste vengeance.

I hope Maxwell Barrasso likes his son delivered with a concave head and no eyes.

Because I am just getting motherfucking started.

“Tell me that they’re alive,” I repeat for what’s likely the hundredth fucking time, lifting a hand up and rubbing it across my mouth. I’m used to seeing the bright waxy smear of lipstick on my pale skin. Instead, I’m almost too clean. Scrubbed raw and smelling of powdery soap.

But I had to clean up, didn’t I? After all that blood …

Sara Young stares at me from across the surface of her countertop. After the cops took pictures of me dressed in copper-scented crimson, and collected my clothes for evidence, I was allowed to come back here to shower.

“You owe me that much, at least,” I say, my tongue scraping across the inside of my mouth like