If she were smart, she’d run faster. And never look back.
After school, I get a text from Callum that they've cornered Kali on her way back from gym. I run as fast as I can, backpack slapping my shoulder as I jog toward the path that leads to the football field.
That's where the boys are, with Kali held between Callum and Hael. Facing off against them, I find the Charter brothers along with the Ensbrook boys.
Guess Kali was right.
“This is such bullshit,” Aaron says, standing at the front of the group, like a vice president while Vic is away. Nobody's seen him since lunch, and it's freaking me out. “What do you care what happens to this bitch?”
Whoa.
Still weirds me out, hearing Aaron talk like a thug.
I pause in the half circle behind Aaron, casting a glance in Oscar's direction. Do these other guys know how fucking crazy Oscar is? I just saw him put a bullet through some random dude's leg. What else is he capable of, I wonder?
Oscar turns his gray eyes over to mine and smiles, an awful sort of smile that promises he's not afraid of violence. He rubs his tattooed fingers over his equally inked-up throat, and I shiver.
“Because we're dating, you piece of shit,” Mitch Charter, one of Billie's brothers, says. She's standing not too far behind him, and off to one side, her glare dark and accusatory. Guess she's pissed that we beat the snot out of her new beau.
“Are you also aware that she’s dating a boy from Oak Valley Prep?” Oscar interjects, but nobody responds to his accusation.
“Kali knows better than to fuck with Havoc,” Aaron says, and then he nods in Hael and Callum's direction. “Besides, we're going to give her a choice here.” Aaron turns back around, his face dark and cold and empty. He's had to learn to be that way, to protect his family. The world isn't fair. How fucked is it that such a sweet boy could be turned into this, just for the simple act of keeping those he loves safe? He leans down and looks into Kali's face. “Choice one, we post your porn all over the web, and we send links to your parents, your colleges of choice, and that modeling agency that asked you to do a catalog shoot.” He stands back up and frowns. “Or we break your hands. It'll hurt, but the physical pain might be easier to stomach than the emotional.”
“If you touch a hair on her head, we will end you, Fadler.” Kyler's brother, Danny, takes a step forward, nostrils flared. He's a big guy, too, wider than any of the Havoc Boys, with tree trunks for arms. And he looks pissed.
Heart racing, I run my tongue over my lip and take a second to figure the odds. Five of them, five of us. Not sure if the guys realized it or not after my little tussle with Oscar, but I’m not a throwaway, a tagalong for their little group to fuck and push aside. No, I know how to kick some serious ass, too.
“I can take Kyler,” I start, because I think pairing each of us with an opponent of comparable size would be best. Oscar gives me a look and then pushes his glasses up his nose with his middle finger, a signature move of his.
“Does Billie not count?” he asks, and I shrug.
“I beat the crap out of her last year without breaking a sweat; she doesn’t even factor into this.”
“You go straight to hell, you fucking whore,” Billie growls, tossing her teal and black hair over her shoulder. “We all knew you’d be spreading your legs for the Havoc crew sooner or later. But getting them to fight your battles for you in exchange for free pussy? Now that’s pathetic.”
There’s a moment there where I don’t think. I’ve trained myself not to. Instead, I just react. I go for Billie without thinking, that pesky fight or fight harder response kicking in. I’m going to beat her flat face into the fucking pavement, I tell myself, jerking to a stop as a hard, warm arm wraps my waist and knocks the air out of me.
“No fighting on school grounds,” Vic murmurs around a cigarette. It hangs loosely from his full lips, unlit and flopping around as he talks. “We hang our dirty laundry elsewhere.” He nods his chin in Hael and Callum’s direction. “Let the bitch go.”
“Seriously?” Hael snaps, his cheeks coloring with frustration. “This cocksucking idiot had the audacity to threaten our girl, and you’re going to let her walk?”
I might be aching for violence, growling low in my throat, but I don’t miss the words he says. Our girl. It’s surreal as hell, but I should’ve known that the Havoc Boys don’t play around. As soon as I said yes, it was on. It’s all on.
“Get lost, Kali,” Vic says as Hael snarls colorful curses under his breath, obeying his boss whether he likes it or not. “And the rest of you, fuck off.”
“Screw you, Channing,” Mitch snaps as Kali throws herself into his arms, ever the whimpering, simpering little victim. I should never have trusted her, spilled my dark secrets to her during our sleepovers. All she ever did was turn my own words against me, from my stolen essay to my nightmare with Havoc. Kali Rose-Kennedy is a backstabber, and a nightmare, and I swear if the guys don’t take action soon, I will. “Touch my girl again, and we’ll find out who’s really in charge here.”
Vic smiles.
It’s not a pretty smile, the way he does it, this ironic, bemused twist of lips.
“Counting on it,” he says, and then he scoops me into his arms and takes my breath away.
“Where have you been?” I ask, but his eyes darken, and his face goes cold.
“Later,” he murmurs, and then he carries me down the hall for the whole school to see, the engagement ring on my finger sparkling in the sunlight.
It’s disgusting, how much I enjoy that.
On Friday when Victor invites me back to his place, I take my backpack, but I leave my sleeping bag. As usual, when I get there, he's sitting outside in a lawn chair, a cigarette in one hand, watching the sunset.
“Where is everybody else?” I ask, tossing my bag to the ground as I pause near him. He turns those dark eyes over to me, clearly pissed about something.
“Not here yet.” Vic ashes his cig out on the metal ashtray and then reaches for my wrist, yanking me onto his lap. A small sound escapes me as I stumble into him, and fire burns through me in a fierce wave, promising that it’ll feel oh-so-warm before it hurts, before it burns so bad that I go numb and never feel again.
He stares ahead, at the overgrown foliage that creates a sort of natural fence around his front yard, and glowers. All week, he’s been touchy as hell and pissed off about whatever happened on Monday. But when Victor Channing says later, apparently he gets to decide when and where he tells us all what happened in Principal Vaughn’s office.
“Do you always get together for sleepovers on Fridays?” I ask, and he shrugs, the muscles in his big shoulders moving like well-oiled pistons, taut and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. I recognize that alertness in him, that readiness, even when he’s at rest, because I have it, too. Deep down inside of me, a jungle cat paces, waiting to unleash her claws, her fangs, knowing that she has to because it’s a wild, wild world out there. One wrong step, one wrong move, and everything comes crashing down.
“Been doing it for years. Keeps us focused. We get most of our work done on the weekends anyway.” Victor turns to look at me, the wind ruffling his dark hair and making my heart do strange things inside my chest. “Where’s your sister?”
I feel my throat get tight. We haven’t talked much about Heather or what she means to me, or what I have to do to keep her safe. But somehow, it feels like Victor already knows. Reaching up, I trace a finger along the hard edge of his stubbled jaw, just to see if he’ll let me. I’ve never actually seen him with a girl, but clearly, he has them. Loads of them, probably. Something dark slithers around inside of me, and I clamp down on the emotion before it can rear its ugly head.
“At a friend’s house. But to be honest with you, she’s starting to run out of friends and favors.” A dry laugh escapes me as I slide my palm down my face. Tired. So damn tired. That’s the story of my life. I feel like I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in years. Those two nights at Aaron’s were like a dream, an almost painful reminder that I don’t often get much rest, not even when I fall into one of my light, fitful little spells of sleep. “And my mom, Pamela, she doesn’t like us being gone so much. Eventually, she’s going to snap.”
Victor chuckles, but it’s a dry, dark laugh. Humorless. He lights up another cigarette and holds it between his fingers. Today, some bitch yelled at him for smoking out front of the school. He flashed white teeth at her, told her to shove her anti-smoking propaganda bullshit down her throat, and then flicked the still burning ember of his cig into the backseat of her fancy gas-guzzling SUV, singeing the leather.
She gaped at him, knocking over her diet soda in an attempt to save her precious upholstery.
“The aspartame sweetener in that drink is a known carcinogen. Hell, it’ll probably kill you before my cigarettes do me, but you don’t see me shoving that shit down your throat. Get fucked and have a nice day.”
Clearly, he’s in a mood.
I almost … like it.
“Let be me real honest with you right now, Bern,” he says, making my name into something foreign, hot to the touch. I shiver. “I’m not afraid of Pamela Pence.” Vic scoffs her name like the sound’s dirtied his tongue, dulled some of that hot ember to ash. “She can snap if she wants, I don’t give a good goddamn.”
“It’s not her I’m afraid of,” I say. Lie. Some dark, little part of me will always be afraid of my mother, will always be that little girl crying because mama’s manicured nails dig too deep, pinch too hard. Go sit on Daddy’s lap, she’d command as I pulled away with what little strength I had. He’s not my daddy, I’d scream back, and then I’d be forced there anyway, onto the lap of a pervert whose touch lingered too long, whose smile cut too deep … I choke a little, and Vic notices.