Havoc at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #1) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,55
what’s going to happen to me.
“Bernadette,” Victor says again, and this time, I can’t decide if he’s using my name as a blessing or a curse. “Grab her.”
The other boys—Oscar, Hael, and Callum—come at me so fast I don’t have a chance to run, snatching me by the arms at the same moment Vic steps forward and slaps a piece of duct tape over my mouth. The fear is very real as they drag me backwards and out the front doors.
I make the stupid, stupid assumption that the on-duty security officer will save me, but he doesn’t. Instead, I’m pulled down the steps, feet kicking at the ground as I struggle.
The last thing I see before I’m thrown in a van is Aaron, bursting from the front doors of the school and staring down at with me with an expression that’s equal parts horror and helplessness.
I pray for him to help me. To what god, I’m not sure. None of them have ever taken much pity on me before.
But he doesn’t.
He doesn’t move.
He just looks at me as the boys yank me into the car, and then, when our eyes meet, he jerks his gaze away like he can’t bear to watch.
The van door closes, the engine starts up, and I start to live the first day of my new nightmare.
Prescott High is housed in an old building near the train tracks, with a wide brick front porch and two huge columns lined with cracks. One day, the damn thing is going to pitch forward in a pile of rubble and asbestos, poisoning the earth and everything around it. But I won’t care. Even if I’m crushed beneath the debris.
Good riddance.
As usual, I spend a good fifteen minutes passing through security, and take off down the hall before Aaron is cleared to follow after me. As I do, I can sense a strange sort of tension in the students. They’re all still looking at me—a byproduct of my deal with Havoc—but they’re less … fearful, and more curious.
Curious to see what happens, maybe, when I stop in the girls’ bathroom and find Billie and Kali waiting for me.
“Hey, bitch,” Billie says, appearing from behind the door and putting her back to it, effectively pinning me between her and Kali. The latter is standing across from me, green-streaked black hair piled on the top of her head, her pretty face twisted into a scowl.
“What’d you give Havoc to turn them into your dogs?” she sneers, moving toward me in her too-high heels. Idiot. She should know not to bring heels to a boot fight. Shifting, I push an arm against one of the stall doors to make sure there aren’t any other girls in there waiting to jump me.
Well, fuck my mom and call yourself Neil Pence, there are. Two girls step out from the stall, taking up a position on either side of me as the remaining three doors open and seven more bitches appear to take up the mantle of Kali’s cause.
The only people at Prescott High stupid enough to pick a fight with me are the ones who don’t know how to pick a winning side.
I put my back to the first stall, keeping all the girls in my field of vision.
“Guess that’s my business and nobody else’s, huh?” I quip, raising a brow and waiting to see what Kali’s planning on doing here. I’m loath to actually hit her just yet because she has a tendency to be the bully but play the victim. Getting expelled from Prescott High would be bad for me on so many levels. For one, I’d like to get my goddamn diploma, so I can start at the community college. And two, Mom will find out, and then she’ll kick me out of the house and Heather might end up alone with the Thing …
“Do you want to know what they asked from me?” Kali continues, brushing a freshly manicured hand over the pink rose tattoo on her arm. The line work is total shit. If my artist had mangled me as badly as hers did, I would’ve kicked his ass.
“Don’t give a shit,” I say, even though I’m burning with curiosity. Then again, what if I find out her price was something small, something insignificant. I’d have to face up to the fact that the Havoc Boys destroyed my life for trinkets.
“They wanted me,” Kali says, pausing in front of the mirror and leaning in to fix her lipstick. It’s bubblegum