I sit down on the toilet and then take the cup out, turning the water ruby red. It’s a little weird that they’re all still watching me, but I don’t care. This is life. If we’re going to be together, they may as well see every facet of it, even the less pretty parts.
“Don’t,” I growl out, but Vic just raises an eyebrow at me.
“Don’t what?” he snaps, gritting his teeth and then exhaling sharply. He flicks his cigarette into the sink as Hael crowds between him and Oscar so that he can stand directly in front of me. Aaron moves up to fill the gap, and then they’re all just there, inches away from me in the relatively small space of the bathroom.
“Don’t get all overprotective and weird. These things happen.” I try to rinse the cup in the sink and Vic takes it from me, washing it himself. I’m surprised, I’ll admit. Guess there’s more to him than just a primitive caveman asshole, huh?
“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.”
They all continue to stare at me, pants-less and vulnerable on the toilet, bleeding everywhere. Again. Always bleeding. Be it metaphorical or physical, that’s just my life.
“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.
And oh, how I recognize that scent better than any other.
“Shot up our school,” Aaron adds, but his voice cracks, and I know he’s struggling to give me space.
“Encroached on our turf,” Hael adds, his brown eyes meeting mine as I lean against the back of the toilet. The cramps are next fucking level, but I can deal with it. 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.
“Made a deal with Ophelia.” Oscar pushes his glasses up his nose, but he isn’t smirking or sneering at me this time. Instead, he looks reserved, like he isn’t sure how to behave right now. I don’t blame him: emotional intimacy is terrifying. It’s the scariest thing there is because once you show your soft side to someone, they know exactly how to hurt you.
“Worked with the Thing,” Cal croaks out, putting a hand to his throat. He smiles again, but it’s not pretty this time. Instead, I imagine it’s as sharp as the garotte that was wrapped around his scarred neck.
“Mostly,” I say, one arm banded across my midsection. “They pissed me off. Get me another hot water bottle, some more ibuprofen, and a laptop. Let’s plan our next move.”
My declaration sounds cool as fuck, but I barely make it twenty minutes before I’m passed out in the master bedroom, waking up to sweet sunshine falling across my face. Blinking awake, I find that I’m alone in the room. There’s a small bloodstain where I was lying, but if that’s all there is, then the bleeding must’ve slowed down substantially during the night.
With a groan, I drag myself out of bed, wobbling slightly on my feet.
The boys all look at me as I pad out, blinking away sleep and finding Cal sitting up on one of the sofas. He look substantially less ashen and waxy than he did yesterday. I point at him and he raises a blond brow.
“You’re going to the hospital today—no exceptions.”
“Well, good morning to you, too,” he replies in a husky voice, hands wrapped around a mug of either coffee or tea, I’m not sure. Aaron watches me from behind the peninsula, making pancakes while Hael sits on one of the stools, an observer instead of a chef today. Vic and Oscar are, as usual, at the table, plotting.
“Being cute won’t save you either,” I tell him, heading up the stairs for another rinse, another cup change. When I head back down, I settle on the couch opposite Callum and accept the pampering that the boys so clearly want to give me.
And, for the first time since I kissed Vic on his front lawn and sealed the deal with Havoc, I’m asking questions that I should’ve asked all along: how many people are in our crew? what sort of weapons do we have? how much money can we spend? do we have any informants?
“There’s no way we can deal with the GMP head-to-head,” Vic is telling me, sitting in the chair on my right. I’m lying on the couch where Oscar and I fucked for the first time, the old bloodstains—from both me and Aaron—scrubbed up and covered with a blanket. I might very well add to them today. Definitely time for a new couch. That is, if we don’t die in a gang war first.
“Head,” Hael says, bringing over a cup of tea and a plate of cookies and setting them on the coffee table in front of me. His eyes meet mine as he crouches down in front of me. “Zombie.” He makes a line across the front of his throat. “We need to get rid of Maxwell. That’s how we do it. There’s always infighting during a power shift; the GMP will turn its attentions inward.”
“You’re right, but,” I start, lifting up one of the cookies. They’re a bit odd looking, like discs of fudge or something. “What the fuck is this?”
“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.” He shrugs his shoulders loosely, but he doesn’t need to explain. He can tell whoever he wants. Before I fell asleep last night, he kissed me like he was drowning, and then tore himself away so he could head home and comfort his mom. She was hysterical—understandably—because of the shooting.
The whole of Prescott is hysterical.
And I swear to fucking god, it’s like every pair of eyes in this city are on us.
You let enemies into our turf; you let them hurt our kids. What are you going to do about that?
The only thing I can promise is that we aren’t going to let it slide.
Prescott High belongs to Havoc.
“A praline is made with sugar, cream, and nuts.” Hael lets a cocky smile slide into place and gives me an exaggerated wink. “We all know how much you love nuts. You’ve got ten delicious nuts just waiting around for an invitation.”
“She’s bleeding everywhere, fuck off,” Aaron growls at him, but I just smile. I smile because I like them both, even though they couldn’t be anymore different. Hael wants to laugh and play away the pain because it’s what he’s used to; it’s what makes him feel better. Aaron wants to coddle and protect me. I’m okay with both.
I take a bite of a praline and give Hael a thumbs-up.
“Okay, so we take out Maxwell Barrasso. How?” I scroll through a bunch of documents on Oscar’s iPad. He’s actually letting me touch it. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is. Honestly, I’m not certain I shouldn’t be madly jealous of the goddamn thing. He’d probably fuck it on its period, too. You know, if iPads had menstrual flows. “His house looks like a military fortress.”
“It is a military fortress,” Oscar says, sitting across from me on the other sofa as Aaron drops a plate of pancakes on the table in front of me. Callum watches us, smoking a joint and looking like death warmed-over. His hand shakes as he lifts it to his pretty, pink lips, but I’m fairly certain it’s from fatigue and pain rather than fear or stress. That’s just not how Mr. Park rolls. “Electric fences, security cameras, guards, dogs.” Oscar shrugs one, elegant shoulder. The effect of his aristocratic evil isn’t lessened by the fact that he’s shirtless and wearing only ink on his top half. His sweats are threadbare and rachet, an old pair of gym pants from Prescott High. I think—although this is Oscar so who the fuck knows—that he wore them out of nostalgia.
“Don’t forget about Mason,” Aaron adds, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze has barely left me since he found out about the … miscarriage. What a strange word, isn’t it? I’m having trouble registering what, exactly, that means. The only thing I know is that I don’t want a baby yet. I figure if I can’t legally buy a bottle of vodka then I don’t want a kid. Besides, if I can hold out at least one more year, I’ll be the oldest mother on Pamela’s side of the family.
What can I say? Prescott blood runs thick and hot. We just can’t help ourselves.
“Mason Miller,” I start slowly, because I haven’t heard much about the guy. I look over at Callum and find him watching me with eyes the color of sorrow and melancholy. He’s always said that if someone in Havoc had to die, it would be him. Part of me wonders if he’s even really here or if I’m imagining his ghost the way I did Kali’s.
I wonder if she knew how far into this she was? Like, she clearly knew about the GMP being at the after-party, but what else? How deep was she? I guess, like with Penelope’s suicide, we’ll never really know. Then again, I could be wrong about at least one of those things …
“He’s notoriously loyal to Maxwell,” Aaron says as he glances over at Vic, as if for confirmation. A very subtle, slow nod from our leader and Aaron turns back to look at me, his eyes shadowed in the early morning light. The sun has just begun to peek its head above the horizon, but the air outside is as cold as ice. I keep checking the time, so I can call Heather as soon as she’s awake. I texted her new phone—Oscar had them ready for when we took the girls to Oak River Elementary—but I haven’t responded to her reply just yet. I want to hear her voice so bad that I ache. “If we take Maxwell down, he’ll come for us all the same.”