inhale, just to bring it all in, but I keep it quiet. No need to let Hael know that I enjoy his personal scent so damn much.
“It's not like it is in the comics, you know?” he says, his breath feathering against my hair. Hael reaches around me to grab one of the volumes from the shelf. He flips through it as I stay where I am, acutely aware of his proximity to my back, acutely aware of the distance between our bodies. “Life isn't fair. It doesn't have story arcs with satisfying conclusions. Shit, it doesn't make narrative sense at all, does it?”
“Have you ever noticed that the good guys in these books are too concerned with their own morality to make hard choices?” I ask, staring at the conclusion of the story in my hand. The hero has locked the bad guy up, but on the very last page, he escapes, leaving room for a sequel. The thing is, how many people are going to die before the villain is caught again? How many have to suffer? It would be better if he were dead.
But people who kill other people are murderers, right? Villains. Only a villain can truly stop another villain. There is no room in this world for heroes; they only get in the way.
“A lot of shit has happened in my life,” Hael says, moving away from me and pausing to look at a poster of a girl in a bikini, straddling the hood of a Ferrari. He smirks at it and shakes his head, turning away from the wall to look at me. “I always wanted to be the good guy, you know. But, uh …” Hael pauses to laugh, the sound as dark as the black paint on my nails. “If you want justice, you have to seek vengeance.” He shrugs his big shoulders, looking me dead in the face. “You understand that, right? That's why you're here.”
“I'm not afraid to sully myself to make things right,” I admit, flashes of that awful video playing in the back of my skull. I can never unsee it. I can never shake those horrible images. Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it back. The Thing will get what's coming to him. No matter Havoc's other faults, that I don't doubt. “But I have to ask …” Hael reaches down and tucks a strand of white-blonde hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering at the pink-tipped ends. “Is it true that Vic is the only one who wanted me in Havoc?”
Hael hesitates, like he's debating the merits of answering me, when the door opens. Of course it's Vic, and he doesn't bother to knock. He looks around the room like he's familiar with it but hasn't been here in a long time. Memories flash across his face, a flicker of nostalgia that makes me hate him just a little bit less than I love him.
Ugh.
Fuck.
Of course I love Victor Channing. I always have. From that first moment on the playground, he took my heart in his hands when he shoved that brat down the slide for me. Victor Channing punched me in the face between first and second period for saying Bernadette Blackbird was hot. I can't forget that even when they were kicking the shit out of me during sophomore year, they were still on my side.
Which means that whatever price Kali paid must've been good.
“We should go,” Vic says, his voice a thread of ice and steel. He gives Hael a look. “He just pulled into the driveway.”
“He?” I ask as Hael grits his teeth, exhaling and nodding sharply.
“My dad,” he says, giving me a look that communicates volumes without a single word. “We don't exactly get along.”
“Is it true that he cut you up with a hunting knife?” I ask, pointing at the scar on Hael's arm, the one that goes from fingertip to shoulder. That's the rumor at Prescott High, that his father did that to him. But then, rumors at Prescott High are a lesson in the game of telephone; they grow leaps and bounds with each fantastical retelling.
Hael licks his lips and gives a curt nod.
“Yeah, something like that …” he starts as an unfamiliar male voice sounds from down the hall. Oscar's smooth, cool reply comes in response, and a shiver traces down my spine. “Tell ya more later, Blackbird, I promise.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze as he moves past, and Vic and I exchange