“Once you say yes to Havoc, that's it. Kiss me and seal the deal. There's no going back after that.” Vic spins the joint around and offers it up to me, a bit of ash catching on the breeze that flows between us. Across the street, I can hear two of his neighbors shouting at one another, but over here, in the sun, it's not so bad. When you exist in the ugly, you learn to live in the beautiful. “But first, smoke with me a little.”
“I don't feel like getting high,” I say, reaching for his cigarettes. Vic's free hand, the one that was resting on my hip, snaps out and grips my wrist, stopping me.
“Don't you ever have any fun, Bernadette?” he purrs, his voice this viciously beautiful sound, like a predator on the hunt. But a smart predator, one that doesn't expend energy unless absolutely necessary, one that stalks. I shiver, even though I can feel the sun on my back, even with the hot, hot heat of Victor's body between my thighs. I'm not shivering because I'm cold; we both know that.
“No, actually, I don't,” I say, but Vic doesn't release my wrist. He stays right where he is, waiting, holding the joint between us. Our eyes are locked, my green ones on his endless black, sharp as obsidian.
“Take the joint, Bern, and chill out a little.” His words, they're not a request. Narrowing my eyes, I take the joint and inhale, watching the cherry crackle down the length of the paper. My lips and tongue tingle as I exhale, blowing that thick, hot smoke. There's no helping the coughing, but Vic laughs at me anyway. There's no pleasure in the sound either, just a cold, cruel analysis of the situation.
He has me by the balls, and he knows it.
The weed hits me quick, sweeping over my body and making my hands and feet tingle. I exhale without even realizing it, like I'm taking my first real breath in a long, long time.
“Ahh, there we go,” Vic says as I take another drag, passing the joint back to him. He stabs it out in an ashtray, and then grips my hips with two, big, inked hands and then quirks a cocksure little smile that would have me feeling all kinds of pissed off if I wasn't high. “Now, kiss me and show me you really want this.” I lean forward, but Vic stops me, grabbing my chin in tight fingers. His frown is all sorts of cold hell. “Don't half-ass this, Bernadette. A deal's a deal, and we take our shit very seriously.”
“Don't you think I know that?” I snap back at him, and his fingers tighten on my chin. It hurts, but I don't want Vic to see how much, so I keep my expression stoic.
“You are going to mewl beneath me,” he says, his voice neutral but threaded with a darkness that makes my throat feel tight. I'm playing with fire here, but I don't care if I get burned. I want the whole world to turn to ash. “I've been wanting to fuck you since ninth grade.”
“Pervert,” I grind out, but only because I don't want him to notice how hard my nipples are beneath my tank top. Vic smirks at me and releases my chin, leaning back in the chair.
“It must hurt you, to sit on the lap of the guy that made your life a living hell. It must just tear you up on the inside, a strong girl like you. Submitting isn't exactly your forte, if I remember correctly.”
“Why don't you just shut the fuck up, so we can get this over with? I haven't agreed to anything yet. Are you trying to get me to walk away from this deal?”
“I'm preparing you. It's a service I don't offer most of my clients. Be grateful, Bernadette.” Victor's face shuts down, and I see the full scope of his brutality. If I push this, if I kiss him and take this deal, I'll end up in his bed. My enemies will end up in the ground; my sister will be safe.
It's all I've ever wanted anyway. Well, the last half of it.
There's no need to drag this out any further: I made my decision this summer, and I'm sticking to it. My own inked fingers curl around his neck, and I try not to think too hard about this. It's just a kiss; I've had other kisses before.
But when I lower my lips to Vic's, and that hot slash of his mouth brushes up against mine, heat slices through me. He puts one of his big hands on the back of my neck and holds me there, his tongue sliding into my mouth and taking over. His kiss is a demand for more, the sealing of a deal, like some kind of fucked-up reverse fairy tale. This time, I'm not kissing the prince to become the princess, I'm tonguing the villain to guarantee the destruction of others.
Watching their downfall should be satisfying, cathartic in a way.
It's hard to think about that though when Vic is holding me so still, kissing me so deep, his cock lengthening beneath me. I can feel it through the black basketball shorts he's got on.
“Fuck me,” he commands, pulling back just enough so that his lips brush mine when he talks. My heart is pounding, but I knew this was coming. I said I'd be their plaything, didn't I? I knew what I was agreeing to.
My hands come down and curl under the hem of my shirt, pulling it over my head and tossing it aside. I'm still wearing my bra, but that doesn't stop Victor from sliding his hand up my side and searing me with heat. His tattooed fingers knead the heavy flesh of my breast through the black lace.
We're still sitting in the front yard, but whatever. I'm sure the people in this neighborhood have seen worse.
Vic reaches around behind me to unhook my bra … and then a man comes out of the house, wearing a stained wifebeater and smoking a cigarette.
“Don't fuck your whores in front of my house, you little bastard,” the man snarls, stumbling toward us. Vic tenses up, but he doesn't move from where he is. He does, however, let me go so I can stumble up and grab my shirt from the lawn, slipping it back over my head.
“Get your ass back inside, old man, you're an embarrassment.” Victor waits while the guy makes his way over, sneering at me in a way that has me bristling. I've been looked at by older men that way for far too long, and I won't put up with it anymore.
If I have to choose between victim and aggressor, I'll pick the latter every time. My life as an innocent has long since slipped from my grasp.
“Get over here girl, and I'll show you how a real man fucks.” The old guy with the thinning hair grabs his dick and runs his tongue across his lower lip, making me feel sick to my stomach. My hatred for Victor Channing is only outshone by my lust for him, but this guy … he's repulsive, exactly the sort I've always hated.
Vic moves from his chair in such a fast, fluid motion that he's just a blur. His tattooed hand wraps the other man's throat, and he walks him backward until the creep's being slammed against the trunk of a tree. Victor gets right in the asshole's face, the expression on his one of murder.
“I told you not to touch my girls.” Slam. He pulls the guy—who I'm assuming must be his father—away from the tree, only to slam his back into it again. “Don't talk to my girls.” Slam, slam, slam. “Don't even look at them.”
Victor releases the man, who crumples to the ground right away, choking and grabbing at his throat, before stepping back. Vic glances my way, running his inked fingers over his violet hair, his mouth in such a severe frown that I'd be worried if I were his dad.
“Go home, Bernadette,” he says, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket before removing one and lighting up. “Don't be late to school on Monday.”
“I wouldn't dare,” I mock dryly, turning and grabbing my backpack and my bike before heading down the street. I can feel Vic's eyes on me all the way to the corner.
Prescott High is such a dump, this crumbling old stucco-sided building that my grandparents went to school in. It'd be charming and all that if, one: I didn't hate that side of my family, and two: there'd been any maintenance done on the building at all in the last fifty freaking years.
I smoke a whole cigarette in view of the front entrance, knowing the security guards on staff have worse to deal with than some defiant bitch smoking a shorty on school property.
“Good morning, darling,” Oscar says, appearing behind me like a specter. I turn slowly, finding his tall form dressed in a white button-down, jacket, and slacks. It all looks very fancy, despite the tattoos on his hands and knuckles. He lives in one of the most dangerous parts of town, too: South Prescott. I'm guessing he bought the suit with blood money. That, or stole it. He wears them a lot. “I hear you're one of us now.” The smile that steals across his lips is pure malicious intent. He pauses a moment to glance up at one of the security cameras near the front gate. “Welcome to Havoc.”
A huge explosion sounds from across the street, and Mr. Vaughn's car—this brand-new, pretentious as fuck Range Rover in a custom shade of pearl—goes up in a fireball. I'm all the way across the street, and I can feel the heat on my face.
“Holy shit!” My hands clamp over my mouth as the SUV is engulfed, students screaming, one of the campus cops racing across the road. Mr. Vaughn bolts down the steps in his off-white suit, his jaw slack, eyes reflecting the orange and red of the flames.
The first thing he does is dart his eyes my direction. Our gazes meet, and I smile.
“Don't look at me, although we both know you deserve it.” My mouth feels like it's smiling, but all I feel inside is sick, sad satisfaction. The principal rushes forward to grab a fire extinguisher from a passing staff member, and goes to town on the car with it while sirens sound in the distance.
“You can thank me later,” Hael says, sliding up on my left side, a cigarette clenched between his teeth. He gives me a hard wink, and then flicks the butt into the nearest trash can. “Set the radiator up with some small explosives on a timer. It'll look like the whole engine just went. Happens you know, on these foreign cars.” Hael takes off and clomps his way up the three steps that lead into the front entrance of the school, setting off every metal detector in there, the way he always does.
“How far, exactly, you want this to go …” Oscar runs his finger down the back of my neck, making my muscles tense up. “That's up to you.” He moves past me, and I shiver.