Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys, #5)

by C.M. Stunich

If my being alive is what makes her happy, being alive is how I’ll remain.

You’d be surprised what a little personal growth can do for you. Like I said, educated monster. Knowledge is truly motherfucking power.

His hold on me is endless and eternal; it isn’t unbreakable because the possibility of being broken was never even an option. It just is. A fact. As sure as the moon rises.

“I just wanted to let you know that we got your blood results back. Bernadette, you’re pregnant.” The doctor pauses a moment before continuing, saying something about the injuries I received today, how a hard blow to the belly can cause miscarriage in early pregnancy.

“Keep ahold of my leash, your majesty. Because the next time I see somebody with that hideous fucking clown tattoo, I’m going to go daddy Aaron on their asses.” He grabs the side of my neck, kisses me hard enough to bruise, and then lets go, staring down at me with steam and dew collecting on his wavy hair. “Fuck, you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met,” he breathes, finally turning and leaving the bathroom in such a whirlwind that the steam swirls around like clouds in a summer breeze.

It’s fucked-up. And yet, when Cal holds out his glass for a refill of juice, my heart just melts for him and I know that even if he is a creepy psycho stalker, he’s my creepy psycho stalker.

“I love you,” Callum tells me, just as I start to pour the juice. I end up sloshing an inordinate amount on the bed, but I guess it doesn’t matter since it smells like wet pennies and mud from the bottom of Cal’s boots. “You know that, don’t you? I’m sorry if I haven’t said it in so many words.” He reaches up and ruffles his angelic blond hair with his slashed and splinter-filled fingers. I’m going to need a pair of tweezers to get most of them out.

“I love you, Callum Park,” I say easily, because I’m not at all ashamed of it. I love Havoc. All five of them. And if I ever tried to deny it in the past, it was only because I didn’t trust myself. Because I wasn’t being honest with myself. I won’t do that anymore because more than anything, I want to make sure I’m worthy of that fucking crown. “Now, don’t you dare fucking die on me.”

“I’d rather feel the warmth of your body pressed against me,” Cal murmurs, nuzzling the side of my face like an animal seeking out the comfort of his mate. “You ground me, Bernadette. Mason was right: I am still human. But only because of you.”

“Sometimes pain is pretty, to the people who have too much of it,”

“Are you fucking kidding me, wife?” Vic asks as he hands the cup back to me. “That’s all that we do—get overprotective and weird.” He laughs, but the sound is hideous. Somebody—probably a lot of somebodies—are going to die for this. “It’s what Havoc was literally made for. So, you might be queen, but this is not an order I’m going to take.”

“The GMP beat our baby out of my wife,” Victor says, and his voice is strange and dark and detached. He exchanges a look with Callum, and I swear to god, I can smell it in the air: the promise of vengeance.

Because I’m a woman and everyone knows that women are magical goddesses with the pain tolerance of titans. Pluck a man’s eyebrow hair and he screams in agony. Women deliver people through their vaginas. Get on our level, bitches.

“Ma mère les a fait pour toi,” Hael tells me, and I raise an eyebrow. He smiles, reaching out his HAVOC tatted hand to cup the side of my face. His skin is warm, and I swear that I can smell the sweet scent of coconuts. “Those are pralines, Blackbird,” he continues with a laugh, standing up and putting his hands on his hips. “My mom made them for you. I … maybe told her about the miscarriage.”

“And those eyes, the break of day,” she murmurs, the peach soap floating in the tub and bumping up against my hand as it stays banded across her belly. “Lights that do mislead the morn.”

“Do you think broken people fit together just right sometimes?”

“Like, their jagged edges fit together so they don’t feel so broken anymore?” I pause, listening to her swirl her finger in the water. “At least when I’m with you, I don’t crave death the way I do when I’m alone.”

After a moment, I pull back and simultaneously release her so roughly that she cries out. I stand up out of the bath and step onto the mat, dripping water everywhere. You’re being too subtle, Oscar. She can’t read your mind, remember? Be a fucking man and spell it out so that she’ll know, so that she’ll always understand the truth behind everything you do. “All I mean to say, Bernadette,” I begin, and I know that if I hesitate too long in here, I won’t be able to control myself. The GMP beat the baby out of my mate. My jaw clenches and my hands curl into fists, nails digging bloody crescents into my palm. “Is that I’m in love with you.” I pause, finding that I’ve abruptly stopped breathing. It takes me a moment to remember how, and I let out a long, deep exhale. “Desperately so.” I step into the hallway and slam the bathroom door behind me.

“I’m in love with you. Desperately so.”

“Don’t do what?” he asks, sliding an arm around my waist and bringing my body close. “Apologize? Why? Are you allergic to feelings, Mrs. Channing? If I fuck up, I say sorry. Anybody who lacks the ability to do that should get their head checked. Being wrong isn’t the end of the world; we all make mistakes.” “And this apology is for what, exactly?” I ask as his eyes soften in just such a way that I feel my heart breaking all over again. He has no right to show me his vulnerable side and make me love him even more. No right. “For handling the Trinity thing the way I did. In the end, all I did was hurt you and it didn’t matter a goddamn bit. You were right: I should’ve let my obsession for you guide the way. I always have.”

He releases me and then, much to my surprise, gets down on his fucking knees.

“And then they took my baby …” he growls, and I close my eyes, my body breaking out in goose bumps. “They took my fucking baby from me.” A gasp slips from me as he wraps his arms around me and drags me into him. Somehow, I’m already anticipating the move, throwing my own arms around his neck and squeezing him like the fate of the universe depends on it. Since he just so happens to be the center of mine, I guess it really fucking does.

I take Oscar’s hand in mine, the way Callum has no problem doing with me. “It makes me feel human.” He was so damn right about that. There’s like nothing like a coffin-fuck followed by some chaste handholding to put the human experience into perspective. “Hey,” I start as I lead Oscar to the exterior door. The way he looks at me, it’s a pinch of wariness mixed with overwhelming confusion—and tainted by love. He really does love me, doesn’t he? This knave known as Oscar motherfucking Montauk. “Do you think you could show me a little of your knot mastery?” The look he throws me is full of innuendo, but that’s not the only thing I have in mind. Murder is right up there alongside it.

“You want to hit me again?” I ask, standing up straight as blood drips to the front of my white wifebeater. Ironic, considering I’d rather grind up my father into hamburger meat than beat my wife. Well … Victor’s wife. For now. At some point, I’m marrying that girl—whether it’s legal or not. Shit, if this country ever gets its head out of its Puritan-rooted ass and puts polyamory on the ballot, I’ll vote that shit in and take Mrs. Harbin down the aisle. Because there won’t ever be a different Mrs. Harbin.

“On en a après moi,”

“Est-ce que tu peux enlever tes bottes dans l'entrée s'il te plait?”

“Ne le provoque pas,”

It’s my greatest weakness. Bernadette says it’s a strength, too. Guess something can be both. Life exists in dualities and contradictions, doesn’t it?

“Those nights at the homeless shelter with you were some of the best days in my entire childhood.”

“Jesus, Hael,” Bernie murmurs and I chuckle, sitting up and grabbing my discarded shirt again to clean my hand off. I’ve thoroughly fucked my boxers and honestly, I’m real glad I went with leather for the seats. Have you ever tried to get cum off a fabric seat? Fucking sucks.

“Do we have to tell you everything?” he queries, and I sense the tension between the two of them right away. We need to hash out our shit now. There isn’t any time left to play games. “Are you and Bernadette the ‘primaries’ in this polyamorous relationship?” “The fuck is a primary?” Victor shoots back, taking a flask out of his pocket and spiking his soda. “A primary is like … the main person in your relationship, even if you’re with other people,” I explain, and Vic grins. I cut him off before he can stick his giant ass foot in his stupid ass mouth. “But no, you are not my primary. I don’t have a primary.” I look over at Aaron for a moment before switching my gaze to Oscar. “You’re all equal to me.”

“Virginity is an abstract patriarchal social construct that has zero validity and exists for the sole purpose of commoditizing young women but go on, I’ll wait.”

Tu peux parler avec notre femme. Au passage, va te faire foutre.” Hael

“Well, I seriously fucking love you all of the time,” he tells me, and I groan, letting my lids fall closed because I just know that I’m not getting out of this room without saying it back. “I love you, too, you fucking asshole,” I grumble, and he chuckles, planting one last kiss on my overheated mouth before sending me off to face an entire school full of spoiled rotten prep school brats. Because I’m just that much of a south Prescott ho, I decide to slip a tampon in instead of showering down, so I can carry a little piece of Victor Channing around with me all goddamn day long.

“So, I understand how you feel. Because I’ll never have all the answers. My grandmother is … she’s too far gone in her illness to give them to me. Even if she did, I doubt she’d ever give me the full truth. So I just tuck it away, behind more important things, and then it doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore.” “More important things like what?” I whisper, and Cal licks his lower lip. “Like my love for you,” he breathes, and then he’s kissing me with the full power of that fairy-tale mouth. I swear, for the entirety of that kiss, I forget that he’s actually the villain in the story. For the entirety of that kiss, I’m convinced that I’m the princess he’s just rescued from the tower, the one that he’s going to spirit away into an eternity of bliss.

“I love you, Bernie,” Cal says, surprising me. He nips my ear, and I nearly collapse, my body so boneless and full of emotion and pleasure both that I’m basically sitting on his hand. “Maybe I don’t say it enough, but it’s true. It’s the only truth I adhere to. It guides me in all things.”

Love. Art. Compassion. Empathy. I’m not sure why people act like that’s such a difficult question. The meaning of life is obvious. It’s to fucking live it.

“Sometimes, when you finish something so important, it feels both good and bad. You wish you were still working on it, but you’re relieved that it’s behind you.”

Je vais le quitter car je vois à quel point tu l'aimes. Quand je vous regarde tous les deux, je n'arrive plus à faire semblant.

Heather. Because she’s the light in Bernadette’s eyes, and I’d kill the world just to see a flicker of it. A shimmer. A glint. Heather is basically Bernie’s daughter and as such, she’s also mine.

“If I don’t do this, I’ll never forgive myself,” I correct. “Because I’m a monster, and the only way I know how to deal with other monsters is to dance in shadows.”

“C’mere, Blackbird, c’mere,” Hael is murmuring as he takes me from his mother, his voice breaking as he digs his phone from his pocket with hands dressed in blood. He presses dial and then lifts the phone up to his face. “Come on, come on, answer, damn it …” Hael trails off with a curse, his voice breaking on a rough sob as he murmurs, “mare’s nest” into the phone and then tosses it aside.

I’m vaguely aware of him cupping his hands around his mouth and letting out a piercing howl that slices right through the woods and cuts into the rest of the boys like a knife.

Warm and soft. I let my heavy lids close as memories sweep over me. Aaron’s shy smile as he gave me a fresh pack of crayons, one where all the tips were sharp and unused, when all his other crayons were broken and dull.

Callum when he invited me to dance and made me forget that I was supposed to be crying over my dead dad.

Hael as he let me try out his bike, holding it up and pushing me along even after I’d alrea...

Oscar using dull children’s scissors to make me a dress made up of a tho...

Victor shoving a kid down the slide for pulli...

The last thought that I have before I die is this: I set you free, boys. I set you fucking free.

With Bernadette gone, he’ll go home and put a bullet in his head.