Chaos at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys, #2)

by C.M. Stunich

Does she know I used to press my palms against the outside of that door, put my ear to the wood and close my eyes, just to hear the sound of her? When she cried, I broke. When she screamed, I shattered.

“We did our best, but you know what they say: if you love something, let it go, and if it comes back, it’s yours forever.”

On the outside, I do nothing. I’m still standing there, trying to help Aaron keep his feet, blood smearing across my hands. On the inside, I’m shattering into a mosaic of hurt and pain and rage. It’s leaded glass, that mosaic, and my anger is the iron that holds all the pretty pieces together. One day, I’m going to pick up one of those pieces and I’m going to stab Neil Pence through the empty cavity where his heart should be.

“Just to be clear: I’m not upset that Danny Ensbrook is dead. I’m upset that I did it with too many witnesses, and that I put us all at risk. I’d kill the world to save you, Bernadette.”

I’ve grown up in the dark, so I appreciate the shadows. His darkness is beautiful to me, like a night sky bereft of stars. The sun is just too bright, and it burns. I belong here, in eternal midnight.

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.

but we both know that emotional wounds can be dealt with later. Physical ones have an expiration date.

Emotion catches in my throat, surprising me. With Vic on one side, and Aaron on the other … the numbness inside of me feels like it's been shattered, like I'm being cut apart with every thought, every feeling. I'm bleeding profusely, and I don't know how to stop it. Unlike with Aaron's wound, there are no transfusions for the emotionally repressed, no IV doses of happiness or clarity or mental wellness.

“Sometimes pain is pretty, to the people who have too much of it.” Callum Park has already accepted that his life will never be what he wanted, that he will never achieve his dreams. He's come to the realization that some of us just exist in nightmares.

Some men sleep and dream. Some men have nightmares. You’re a nightmare, Bernadette, a beautiful nightmare.” Vic grabs my arm and leans in even closer, sending my pulse racing. “We’re both nightmares; we belong together.”

Victor opens the door and then pauses again, like he's just thought of something. “Better, maybe, but not like me. Nobody will love you the way I do, Bernadette Blackbird.”

Do it first or do it best, but when somebody does it first and best, well, you're fucked.

“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?”

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.

I don't internalize my pain, not anymore. No, the reason I hired Havoc was to externalize it. I don't want to punish myself over the bad things that've happened in my life. Instead, I want to punish the world.

I once read a book, some time loop story called Devils’ Day Party, where the main character said, “Lying to other people is insane; lying to yourself is suicidal.”

The last few months have given me a lot to take in. I act so badass on the outside, but buried deep down, there's a broken little girl crying her shattered heart out. That doesn't make me weak, though. No, instead it makes me stronger. I have to remember that. If you're just steel through and through, you'll sink.

“We might live in the dark, but that doesn't mean we're not allowed to enjoy the moonlight.”

“You have to find happiness wherever you can, whenever you can, because you never know when you might be sailing into a storm.”

I’ve taken three of the Havoc Boys to bed. I knew that I’d end up sleeping with them when I called out that word. Idiot that I am, I tried to lie to myself and pretend that it was all out of duty and obligation. In reality, it was obsession. Do the boys owe me retribution for their wrongs? Sure. But nothing is as sweet as salvation.

If Vic is my poison, Aaron is my antidote. One burns so good that you can’t help injecting yourself, even if you know it’s wrong. The other is violent relief, a desperate soothing balm that feels like old memories and hope. I’m stuck right in the middle.

The thing is, if you want to consume someone, you have to make room in yourself to hold all of that energy. You have to make space. And what happens to that bit of you that you give away? Sometimes it’s eaten by somebody else. I can feel Victor inside of me—metaphorically speaking, at this moment anyway—and I know him much better than he thinks I do.

Sometimes, when you meet someone, you just know they’re going to change your fate. For better or worse.

It’s never too late. We can always fix what’s broken.” I almost laugh at that, but the sound would be so caustic, it’d burn Sara’s pretty face off. Is she kidding me? When glass shatters, it cannot be fixed. You can collect the pieces, but your hands will bleed after. There is no putting those little shards back together. They will forever remain dangerous fragments of a thing that used to be.

“It used to be something, but now it’s nothing. It’s a good reminder that life can turn in an instant.”