vMayhem At Prescott High - C.M. Stunich Page 0,103

It takes me a minute for my eyes to adjust, but Oscar seems to know exactly what he’s doing, crouching down and pulling a clear bin out from under his bed.

“Why are we here?” I ask, slightly confused. This is the Peters’ place? This is where Alyssa’s been staying? How did Oscar come to live here? I know his parents passed away, and that there was some scandal to it, but a lot of the information about the case was never made public. I remember the time it happened though, the way his face changed and never went back. I want to say we were around thirteen at the time.

“I have a meeting with Coraleigh today,” he says, pulling the top off the bin and tossing it onto the surface of his immaculately kept desk. “Ophelia is putting pressure on her to deflect to her side; she says she can protect her. I want to make sure she understands that isn’t the case.”

Oscar withdraws a long length of pale pink rope from the bin and then twists it around his hands, testing out its strength. He smiles. He said he was a master of knots; I can only wonder what his plans are for that. Will he hang Leigh up like we did Donald? Or something worse?

“Why even bother coming to school at all?” I ask, since neither of us even made it to first period.

“To see you, obviously,” he says, completely deadpan. It could be a joke, sure, but almost … not? I can’t decide either way. I lean my back against Oscar’s door, biting my lower lip as I try to puzzle him out, when he turns over his shoulder to look at me, the rope still wound around his long, inked fingers.

“Come here, Bernadette,” he commands. Oscar turns toward me and my heart jumps in my chest. I can't decide if I should be turned on or if I should run.

“What?” I ask, looking at the rope in his hands. I'm so shocked by the seemingly sudden turn of events that it takes me a hell of a lot longer to figure out that the pink rope in his hands is for me and not for Leigh. I take a small step away from him, putting my back against his bedroom door. “I thought you said you had a meeting with Leigh?”

“It's a flexible meeting,” Oscar continues, turning around and snapping the silky looking rope in his tattooed hands. “And you seem hell-bent on chasing me to the ends of the earth, so here we are. Are you afraid of me?”

Those words of his … they are very clearly a challenge.

I look back at him, holding that rope in his hands, knowing what he did to Donald, knowing what he did to the Kushners. There wasn't even a hint of regret in his eyes when he pulled the trigger on his revolver. Oscar Montauk does not operate under the same moral rules as the rest of society. Then again, neither do I.

Trust, Bernie, I tell myself, pressing my fingertips into the door for leverage. You said you'd trust the Havoc Boys. What's so different about this? If I want Oscar, then I have to accept him with every broken piece of his soul, the way he has to do for me.

“I'm not afraid of you,” I tell him, and he narrows his gray eyes on me. It's obvious that he didn't expect such an answer. “Should I be?” I cock my head to one side, remembering the feel of his fingers on my throat. There was violence in his touch, sure, but it was restrained and well-leashed, and clearly not directed at me. Despite his reaction toward me, I could tell that the only person he was angry with was himself. Instead, it was passion I felt in his fingers when he touched me. Passion that he's obviously terrified to embrace. “I am not human,” he said.

Fucker.

He has no idea how human his face was on the night we spent together. No goddamn clue. I wet my lips, tasting the waxy texture of my lipstick.

“We should message Vic to let him know we aren't coming back to school,” I say, and Oscar clenches his teeth.

“Already done,” he says, but not like he truly expected me to stay. “Shall I tell him we're about to fuck, too?”

I swallow the tight lump in my throat.

“We don't owe Victor an explanation anymore,” I say, feeling this flicker inside my chest.