brown eyes flicking from Callum and his bloodied baseball bat to the boy moaning on her ruined sofa.
“Not happening,” Vic says, standing up and turning to face her. “Do what you can do here and give me an assessment of where he’s at.”
Nurse Yes-Scott swallows hard and then moves into a small bathroom off the main living area, grabbing some supplies, and coming to sit on the coffee table in front of Aaron. He’s shirtless now, so I can see his bruise, the wound in his arm, and the fresh, shiny blood that won’t stop coming.
“I can clean this up, but he really needs a blood transfusion.”
“Aaron’s O-positive,” Vic says, his voice like ice. “Where can we get some?”
“Get some?” Whitney asks, turning to look at him like he’s lost his mind. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, where can we fucking get some?” Victor repeats, and Nurse Whitney goes completely pale. She knows what she’s done, what we did to Scott Vaughn, and she better believe we’ll burn this place to the ground if she doesn’t cooperate. My hands curl into fists at my sides as I stare at her, wishing I’d added her to the list, too. We haven’t had much in the way of personal interaction, but she’s a big part of Vaughn’s operation, tricking the poor girls of Prescott High into making her money off their own backs. “Can we rob an ambulance or something?”
“A-ambulances don’t carry blood,” she whispers, biting her lower lip as she turns back to Aaron. “He needs a hospital—”
“The hospital then,” Victor says, not skipping a beat. “What all do we need?”
“You can’t be serious?” Whitney chokes as Vic passes over his phone, his expression a dark slice of hell.
“Make me a list. Now. I really hate repeating myself.”
Nurse Whitney grabs Vic’s phone and quickly types up a list of supplies before passing it back to him.
“Let’s hit Joseph General,” Victor says, glancing over at Hael. “Security is much lighter, and the place gets tons of trauma patients; it’s a madhouse over there, so they don’t notice shit. Let’s grab some cash before we go. Might be easier to bribe somebody than it would be to just pinch it.”
“Got it,” Hael says, nodding as I gape at the two of them.
“You can’t be serious?” I ask, looking between the boys. I'm torn between being worried and being pissed off. Glancing back at Aaron, I see his pallid expression and my heart seizes in my chest. He can't die on me, not when things are so … confusing between us. Putting my hands over my face, I drag them down and then give Victor a look that could kill.
He smiles at me, but it isn't a nice smile.
It's a smile nightmares are made of, and I hate how much I love that.
At this point, I'm fairly certain we're soul mates. We must be, with how fucked-up we are. Put us together, and the fucked-up factor amplifies by about a hundred times. I put a finger up, pointing directly at Vic. He's the leader: Aaron is his responsibility.
“Fine,” I start, poking him in the chest. “You let him die, and I'll cut your fucking balls off.” Nurse Whitney makes a small squeaking sound behind me, but I ignore her. She reaped the fruits of others’ suffering, of their labor, their sacrifice. She recruited girls for Principal Vaughn’s bullshit and reveled in that glory. I really should've added her to my list; Oscar was right.
Vic snorts and grabs my hand, bringing my finger to his lips and sucking it between them in the lewdest possible way. Hael shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips, clearly annoyed with Vic and me and our weird shit.
“If he dies, I'll sharpen the knife,” Victor says, dropping my hand, but I snatch his wrist before he can turn away, raising his dark brows my direction. “Yes, darling?”
“Don't pull that darling shit on me,” I growl, yanking him close. He comes to me, but not because I actually have the strength to move him, but because we're drawn together. Because we're beautiful poison together. Perfect toxicity. “You and Hael come back to me. If either of you gets arrested …”
“Yes, balls, knife, no Havoc babies.” Vic grabs me by the back of the hair with a punishing grip and crushes his lips to mine, taking down my walls with that lush mouth of his. “Don't worry: I'm not going to the hospital.” He lifts his head up