“Just tell me if my fucking boys are still alive,” I snap back, wanting to dig my fingers into my scalp until my skin bleeds. But only so that I keep them away from her. I want to grab Sara and shake her right now; she knows the suspense is killing me.
Six hours, four minutes, and thirty-two seconds ago, a man shot Stacey Langford in the head, and I ended up spilling more blood at Prescott High than I’ve ever spilled in my life. The police took my phone, and I haven’t been able to get access to a laptop. Shit, I’m so desperate right now that I’d march my ass down to the corner where all the hookers hang out and use the very last payphone in all the city of Springfield. It belongs to Prescott, of course, and it’s used more often for paid fucks than phone calls.
Right now, I’d gladly press that filthy receiver to my ear if that’s what it’d take to hear the voices of my boys. Victor is okay, obviously, but I haven’t seen him since they put us in separate ambulances and drove us away from the school.
The last thing I saw before the paramedics closed the doors was his face, drawn but determined.
I pick the crown up that Victor gave me and hold it in two hands, staring down at it with a frown taking over my mouth. I don’t know why I’m here, at Sara Young’s house, instead of the station. Or Aaron’s place. Because I’m either under arrest or … I’m not.
But of all the things they took from me, for some reason, they let me keep this goddamn crown.
I look back up again, but Sara’s focus hasn’t wavered. She’s boring into me with eyes like swords, sharpened and ready for justice.
“You’re really and truly invested in all of this, aren’t you?” she asks, her tone accusatory, like I’ve torn apart her perfect little life and dashed her dreams on the rocks of reality. “You’re not looking for my help; I’m just an obstacle you need to overcome.”
I slip the crown back on my head, just to feel the weight of it. My eyes close of their own accord, and I pull in a deep breath. If someone had asked in August if this is where I’d be in January, sitting on a cop’s stool and wearing a crown given to me by one of the darkest minds to ever attend Prescott High, I’d have laughed in their face. What is this? What am I doing?
The thing is, I have those answers now. Pretty sure I’ve had them all along. But sometimes it takes a traumatic event to really shake you, to wake you up to the reality of who you’re supposed to become.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I tell Sara, opening my eyes again. The pretty little cop shifts a bit, as if there’s something in my stare that’s making her uncomfortable. Good. She should be uncomfortable. She should be terrified. Of Havoc. Of the GMP. Of the fact that she’s gotten herself firmly in the crosshairs of our turf war.
I killed James Barrasso; I bashed his head in with Mr. Darkwood’s doorstop.
That isn’t something Maxwell Barrasso is likely to forgive anytime soon, regardless of the fact that he sent his guys to my fucking school.
“Bernadette, there are seventeen dead men with tattoos linking them to a gang that’s made the FBI’s most dangerous gangs in America list. Men like that …” She trails off and then swipes both hands over her face, a rare break in her white knight hero act. “Why were those men at your school? Hmm? Because the only reason I can gather is that they were after you.”
“They were after Stacey Langford,” I say, a pang in my chest when I think of the spunky blonde with the loyal crew. Her girls must be devastated. No sooner has that thought crossed my mind when I welcome another: we need to bring her girls into Havoc’s fold. It’s the least we can do, considering everything. Besides, Stacey taught her girls well. They’ll be an asset.
“Stacey Langford,” Sara Young says, grabbing her phone from the counter and scrolling until she, presumably, gets to some sort of file on Stacey. “Eighteen years old, a father with a serious rap sheet, a mother missing under mysterious circumstances, and—”
“Stacey was a good person,” I say, feeling my anger rise to the surface like bubbles in boiling water. I’m liable to scald if Sara pushes me too far tonight. I don’t have the patience for her privileged ass, not when the fates of my boys are so uncertain.
Hael, Aaron, Oscar, or Callum could be dead.
Fuck.
I’m shaking now; I can’t help it. There are few things in this world that can shake me anymore. This, this is one of them. Don’t you dare leave me heartbroken, you assholes. Don’t you fucking dare.
“Stacey was a good person,” I repeat, laying my palms flat on the shiny granite surface of the counter. It’s the color of sand, but even less interesting. I hope for Sara’s sake this really is an Airbnb and not her house. It’s so incredibly boring. “She was more than just a file on your phone.” I shake my head. I’ve relived that moment in the hallway several times already inside my mind. Even though I know there was no way I could’ve saved Stacey, I wish things had been different.
“Listen, Bernadette,” Sara starts, drawing in a breath that she holds for so long I’m afraid she might pass out. She finally exhales as she steps forward, putting her hands on the counter just twelve inches from my own. My entire body aches, like I’ve been put through a wash cycle or something. Everything hurts. At least I found out during my exam at Joseph General that I was only coughing up blood because I’d cracked a tooth and bitten my own tongue from the beating. Could’ve been way worse, like internal bleeding and shit. They insisted on drawing blood and running some tests, too, though I’m not exactly sure why that was necessary. “You are not under arrest at this time. However”—and here she pauses to emphasize that word in a manner that’s quite menacing—“you are a person of interest.”
“Why am I at your house?” I ask, staring at her and wishing this day would just fucking end. I’m exhausted. “Is this standard procedure, to bring a person of interest to a fed’s house?”
“I’m trying to help you, Bernadette,” she says, pink mouth flat and grim, eyes shadowed in a way they weren’t before she walked into that building today and saw carnage spread out across the decrepit school like it was the fucking end-times. “I brought you here because I have a deal for you.”
Sara turns away and gathers a packet of papers, bringing it over and laying it out in front of me. I look at it for a moment and then adjust my gaze to hers.
“Pardon me, but I don’t speak legal bullshit. What is this?”
“Full immunity for you,” Sara says, tapping her fingers on the pages. “In exchange for information … and your testimony.”
“Testimony for what?” I ask, feeling my skin prickle with goose bumps. I want to go home. I want to see my boys. Shit, that’s the only thing I can think about right now, going home and curling up in bed with them. If I ask real nice, you think they’d all snuggle up with me together? Stranger things have happened.
“Against Pamela,” Sara says, crossing her arms again. Looks like a defense mechanism to me, all that arm crossing. Like Vic’s chin rubbing, Cal’s hood, Oscar’s iPad … and the way Stacey Langford stared at her phone with a hollow, distant look in her eyes. Shit, motherfucker. We should’ve protected her.
That’s on us.
That day in the cafeteria, when she called off her deal with Havoc, that’ll haunt me forever.
“My mother?” I ask, crinkling my brow. I’m not stupid: I heard what the boys said. Their plan was to pin Neil’s murder on Pamela. If Sara is asking me to testify, then she must have found evidence to support the idea.
“Yes,” Sara says with a long sigh. After a moment, she leaves the room and I’m left to stare at the paperwork in front of me. No way would I ever be an informant or a witness for the cops. Talk about social suicide. Besides, how would that look, for Havoc’s wife to do such a thing? I push the paperwork back and thread my fingers in my hair.
When Sara comes back in, she’s holding a familiar box. She sets it on the counter beside me. I don’t touch it, not right away. I don’t want her to know how important that box is to me. Old Homework and Assignments stares back at me in looping, feminine letters.
“We kept what we needed of Penelope’s things,” Sara tells me, laying a hand on my shoulder. It’s meant to be comforting, but my skin itches with the need to throw her off. I don’t want to be comforted right now; I want my phone back. I want to see Havoc. “You’re welcome to keep the rest.”
“Am I free to leave?” I ask, knowing that what happened at the school won’t be enough for a charge of any kind to stick to me. That was self-defense. Of course, the very fact that the GMP came to Prescott in the first place is enough to get Sara to look more closely at Havoc. But I can’t be charged for defending myself against white supremacists wearing ski masks and carrying weapons with silencers.
“You can leave,” Sara says carefully, but I can tell there’s more to this. She isn’t done with me, not by a long shot. “But I would like you to consider this offer. It’s a onetime thing, Bernadette. The DA isn’t going to give you this opportunity again.”
“Please take me home,” I insist. Sara stares at me for a moment and then nods, taking the paperwork for the deal and stacking it neatly before slipping it back into a manila folder. I grab the box of Pen’s things and head for the front door.
There’s an uneasiness in the air that tells me our city is on the brink of change.
What that change might be, depends on us.
Sara wants an informant to help clean up the streets?
Fuck her.
We take care of our own in Prescott.
And the GMP … they’re Havoc’s problem now.
Victor Channing
My palms slam into the glass of the French doors leading into the Bordeaux—an upscale wine bar in Oak River Heights that serves escargot and pâté as bar food. It’s the most pretentious place I’ve ever fucking seen. The doors swing open with a bang, causing the hostess to jump as I scowl in her direction and she cowers against the decorative rock wall like a shrinking violet.