He wants to fuck me here, I bet.
“Don't look so resigned,” Victor tells me, lighting up a cigarette. “I just like to come here to think. You look like you need a moment.” He passes the smoke to me without taking a drag, and I accept it, holding it between two red-nailed fingers. “What ever possessed you to date Donald Asher?” he asks me, and I cringe at the directness of the question. “He doesn’t exactly seem like your type.”
“He’s rich, a ticket out of South Prescott. What is there to figure out?” I ask, and Vic gives me this look that says that even though we're just getting started here, he's done with my bullshit.
“Don't play me like that. You play everyone else in your life. And what do you have to lose with me?” Victor laughs, the sound bitter and broken. “Fucking nothing,” he murmurs, watching the sunset.
I turn to follow his gaze as he lights up another cigarette, and we sit there smoking together for a while. All the anti-smoking ads in the world can't change my life or take away the pain. So what if I want to have one, little pleasure in my life? I don't stop anyone else from eating hamburgers that clog their arteries or driving gas-guzzling SUVs that poison the air as much or more than my smokes, so they can all get fucked. Cancer doesn’t seem like such a big deal when you don’t know if you’ll even make it through your twenties.
“You brought me here to think?” I ask, and Victor laughs again, shaking his head like I'm just too much. He rakes his fingers through that purple-dark hair and turns to look at me, his gaze so open and direct that I'm not sure how long I can put up with it. This man, he's buried in secrets, and yet he looks at me like he's an open book. What am I supposed to make of that?
“What else? You think I brought you here to fuck?”
“You read my mind,” I quip back, lifting my cigarette in salute.
The look he gives me is pure hell.
“You think if I wanted to fuck you sooner, I couldn't do it?” he asks me, and I stiffen up as he moves closer, tracing the edge of my leather jacket with a finger. “You belong to us now, Bernadette. You're a Havoc girl. There's no reason for me to drive forty minutes out of the way to have you.”
My jaw clenches and I flick my cigarette over the edge, not caring if it starts a forest fire. What does it matter? I want my whole life to burn.
“The anticipation is making me sick; I just want to get it over with.”
“No,” Vic snaps, his entire mood darkening, violence edging into that one word. “You're not just going to get it over with.” I turn to face him and find him watching me with that inexplicable gaze of his, an impossibility, a puzzle without a solution. “No. That's not how it's going to be between us, Bernadette Blackbird.” He takes another step toward me, cupping my face in a huge, inked hand. The smell of him poisons me in the best way possible, this smoky amber and musk scent that makes my body feel like a traitor. It's always been that way though, me against my body. This stupid fucking body that's only ever bought me pain. Why does it hurt to hate yourself so much?
“How is it going to be then?” I ask, realizing suddenly that I'm holding back tears. I never wanted to be pretty; it was a curse that was thrust on me. But I've suffered so much because of it, I figure why not? Why not put on mascara and lipstick and leather? Why not, why not, why not?
The monsters come anyway—whether you wear short skirts or sweats. A sob gets caught somewhere in my throat, stifled and drowned out when Vic tilts my chin up to face him, his eyes a dark impossibility, his mouth a slash of definitive heat.
“You're going to love every moment of it, Bernadette. We need each other, you and me.”
“How do you figure?” I ask, my voice rough and broken. Just like his. He's broken, too. Maybe that's it, why he thinks we need each other?
The smirk he gives me is cocksure and definite: Victor knows what he's doing to me, how wet I am, how tight my body is clenching in anticipation of his touch.
“I need a way to let my demons out, and you need a way to confront them.” He cups the back of my neck with a tattooed hand and tastes me. That's what it is, both more and less than a simple kiss.
My hands fists in the front of Vic's black wifebeater, and all the blood in my body rushes to my head, making me dizzy. Victor's kiss is exquisite torture, a moment torn from the timeline of my life that I can never get back. It both hurts and excites me, all at once.
I offered my body to get my revenge.
I didn't expect to get anything else along with it, but it feels like I'm getting more than I bargained for. Much, much more.
His tongue takes over everything, leaving me aching, reaching, wanting more. Heat sears between our slanted lips as I arch my back and press into him. It only lasts a few seconds, but it could go on for an eternity, and I wouldn't know how to process it.
Vic releases me suddenly, and I stumble back. I don’t mean to; it just happens. I can’t seem to find my feet or my breath. Lifting my eyes up, I meet his, as dark as obsidian, as endless as the night sky without the stars. He looks at me then with that cold, business-like expression burning away all the passion of the moment before.
“Tonight, we’re going to do some bad shit, Bernadette. Do you understand that?”
“I understand,” I say, and Vic nods, looking back out across the overgrown parking lot toward the city. He laughs, this dark sort of chuckle that promises bullshit. The thing that makes that sound so scary is that he damn well means to deliver it.
“Let’s go fuck up some prep school brats.”
He turns and walks away, leaving me to follow along behind him. Guess he’s used to that, snapping his fingers and getting people to follow. Even scary motherfuckers like Hael and Oscar do what Vic says.
To me, he seems like the mildest of the Havoc Boys.
But then, like I said, that laugh promises bullshit, doesn’t it? And Victor Channing, he’s fucking full of it.
Oak Valley Preparatory Academy is almost two hours outside of town with its own front gate, security force, and cameras. How we’re going to get on campus at all is questionable, not to mention exact some sort of revenge on Donald.
Just standing here, I feel a wave of pain hit me, the sight of the school a trigger for what I’m sure must be PTSD or something. What are the key points again? Avoidance of specific triggers? Check. A physical reaction to said triggers? Check. Nightmares? Check.
“How do we get in?” I ask, shoving that pain down with everything I have, and taking a deep breath. Fighting the emotions back like that leaves me empty and numb, but it’s better than feeling sick and scared. I’ll take it. Licking my lips, I work to channel that numbness into rage. It’s the only thing that’s kept me safe all these years.
“Simple,” Oscar says, tapping something on his iPad. With a whirring death rattle, the generator outside the security office goes quiet, and the lights flick off. With a curse, the night guard comes outside to scan the darkness with his flashlight, not noticing six kids standing in the shadows behind him.
Callum and Vic exchange a look, and the leader of the Havoc Boys gives a curt nod. Like a fucking ninja, Cal flips his hood up, flashes me this cocksure smile, and then moves up behind the guard, hitting him in the back of the head with a goddamn baseball bat.
The man drops to the ground with a groan as my heart begins to pound. This is for real, isn’t it? There was a reason Vic asked me if I wanted to go, and a reason why Aaron didn’t want me here. I glance his way and find him glaring back at me. He’s not happy about any of this. Maybe he should’ve thought about that before betraying me for his fucking gang?
“Is that guy dead?” I ask, feeling this light, panicky feeling take over me. Vic just stares back at me, completely dead in the face.
“What would you do if he was?”
“Vic, come on, knock it off,” Aaron growls as Callum comes back over to us, swinging the bat up and onto his shoulder. He reaches up to tug at the tuft of blond hair that sticks out of his hood.
“Nah, he isn’t dead. He’ll have one hell of a hangover in the morning, but a small price to pay for getting us free entry into this den of assholes.” Callum smiles at me and then bends down to snag the guy’s keys, unlocking the small gate embedded in the ten-foot fence and letting it swing open with a creak.
“Here,” Hael says, passing over a black ski mask and letting his fingers caress mine more than necessary. “Put this on.” He yanks one over his red hair as I bite my lip, watching the other guys transform themselves into faceless monsters. My throat tightens up, but I follow along with them, drenching myself in anonymity.
At night, Oak Valley Prep is beyond creepy, a soft white fog drifting across the campus. It looks ominous, towering over us like a brick castle, one complete with torture chamber. Trust me, I know they've got one: I was there. It was called Donald’s Dorm Room at the time. Still is.
A shiver takes over me that I can't quite suppress, this cold chill that Vic takes note of, flint-like eyes scanning over me. For such a 'bad boy', he doesn't seem interested in fucking girls against their will. Maybe he doesn't get off by shoving his dick in some poor chick's mouth when she doesn’t want it? Maybe Vic is a real man, after all?
But then I remember the coldness in his gaze when he locked me in that closet, how hoarse my voice was from screaming, how little he cared.
No, he truly is a monster, just of a different breed.
“Show us the way,” he says, holding out an inked hand. I nod and turn, knowing the Havoc crew will be close behind me. They're never far apart, these boys. It occurs to me that we're all here because nobody loved us enough, nobody cared. The boys, they created their own family. And me, I just stumbled into it.
“In there,” I say, remembering the night Donald brought me back here, how he smirked, and I giggled. How he pushed me up against this wall and kissed me breathless. He was good at that—probably still is—but being a good kisser doesn't make up for the fact that he's a rapist, too. Or at least a wannabe one.