Aaron moves around the front of the van and climbs inside, starting the engine and waiting there for me to join him.
To prove my own point, I wait on the curb, watching him through the window until I’m sure he’s about to break and take off without me. I climb in at the last second, and we suffer the rest of the drive to the school in silence.
Three years earlier …
The pageant meeting takes place in the cafeteria at seven, so I beg my old neighbor, Mrs. Kentridge, to watch Heather, and then head for Prescott High. The cool evening air is settling in quick, but the shivering doesn’t bother me, the rain doesn’t bother me. No, the only thing I’m thinking about is how this pageant could change my life.
The winner gets a full-ride scholarship to Everly All-Girls Academy in Maine which is about as far away from Prescott as one could get. I’d be flown there, first-class, get my own dorm, fully paid tuition, and I could finish my high school career out somewhere better than a drug-infested shithole in an asbestos-ridden building.
Penelope said she’d take care of Heather for me, and even though I don’t want to leave my sisters, I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take my mother or my stepdad or Principal Vaughn and the way his eyes glide down my bare legs during PE.
I’m at a breaking point.
Exhaling sharply, I take the steps up to the front of the building two at a time, and head for the security office to check in and gain entrance to the school. As soon as I do, I hit the front hall and pause, waiting as the security guard’s door slams shut and I’m left alone in a dimly lit building crawling with memories and pain.
Before I even see him, I know somebody’s watching me.
“Hello, Bernadette,” Victor says, stepping out of one of the classrooms and making his way slowly toward me. It occurs to me that we haven’t spoken since Aaron broke up with me. Aaron. Sweet Aaron. Aaron whose heart was ripped out by tragedy, who has nowhere to go but to the devil himself for help.
“What do you want?” I ask warily, hyper conscious of the fact that we’re alone together in here, that bad things can and have happened at Prescott High. A girl was raped in one of the classrooms just after a football game. It happens, and nobody cares.
My hands begin to shake, but I don’t run.
I want nothing more than to simply skip down this hall and slide into a seat at the pageant meeting. I’ve never thought of myself as pretty, or if I did, then I hated the world for it. Pretty girls get looked at; they get hurt. But if I can use the curse of this face and this body, and turn it into a blessing, I will.
Victor walks up to me, and even though I’m tall, he’s taller. I have to look up at him. He reaches down and brushes some white-blonde hair behind my ear, his fingers trailing across my skin, leaving scorch marks. My breath catches. Does he know that I’ve always watched them, him and his friends, that I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be a part of something, to belong?
“Do you know Kali Rose-Kennedy?” he asks, and my face flushes.
Oh.
Of course he’s not here to talk to me. But for a moment there, I breathe a sigh of relief. Victor isn’t here to hurt me: he’s just here to ask about my best friend.
“We’ve been close since second grade,” I say, shrugging my shoulders loosely. Kali will be at the pageant tonight, too. We’re doing this thing together, me and her. In fact, she’s probably already waiting for me … “I should go.” I start to move around Vic, but he puts an arm out, palm flat against a locker and looks at me with something almost akin to sympathy in his dark gaze. Whatever I think I see though, is gone in an instant.
From one of the classroom doors, three of the other boys appear, the ones who make up the rest of their new gang: Havoc. The only one who’s missing is Aaron. My stomach clenches, and my heart picks up speed. It’s hard to swallow now, and I feel faintly dizzy, standing in this dark, dingy hallway wondering 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 pink, just like her shirt, nails, and hooker heels. She’s got on cut-off shorts that show off her ass, and she flashes this smile over her shoulder like she thinks she’s hot shit. “They made me their little toy, and you know what?”
I stand quiet and still as her words sink, but even when I feel the anger rise hot and itchy to my skin, I refuse to give into it. God knows this wouldn’t be the first time Kali Rose has lied.
“What, Kali?” I ask, crossing my arms over my black tank and waiting for her to spew whatever venom is tainting those sugar-sweet lips. One brow goes up again, but I make sure to tap my foot impatiently.
“I loved it,” she says, spinning around to smirk at me as Billie chuckles from her guard position near the door.
I smile.
“Doesn’t surprise me. You are a whore, after all.” I shrug my shoulders, but if what she’s saying is true … Jesus, for Havoc’s sake, I hope she’s lying. Those boys do not want to know what I’ll do to them if I find out she isn’t.
“They’re talented lovers, don’t you think?” Kali continues, choosing to ignore my insult as she sashays toward me, reaching out to tease the pink-tinged ends of my hair.
“Wouldn’t know,” I continue, forcefully pushing her hand away. “So, if that’s what you’re here to talk about, sorry, but I won’t be able to contribute.”
“Please, the whole school knows they asked you to be their little fuck toy,” Kali spits, face darkening. She’s always loved playing games. It’s hard for her when others don’t follow along with the charade. “Why else would they let you join their little gang? Are you knocked-up or something? I don’t see how else you’d get Vic Channing to put a ring on your finger.”
I laugh—can’t help myself—and Kali’s face tightens even further.
“Maybe Havoc let me join their gang because they realized I’m not some desperate, diseased snake looking for her next victim to infect with venom? And maybe Vic asked me to marry him because he’d been around a worthless, lying bitch before and knows how to spot a real woman.” I smirk and plant one hand on my hip. “Now, I came in here to piss. Get out of my goddamn face before I show you one of the reasons why the Havoc Boys took me on.”