Mayhem At Prescott High (The Havoc Boys #3)(106)

“Aaron Fadler,” Ophelia murmurs, cocking her head to one side like a wolf observing its prey. It’s disturbing, how much like her Victor looks. Unlike Victor however, she has no heart and no soul. None at all. Looking into her dark eyes is like looking into a black hole, ready to crush you into a meaningless pulp and wipe you from existence.

She scares the fuck out of me.

“Ophelia,” I reply, as coolly and calmly as I can. This is not a good situation, but at least I’m out of the trunk, right? It’s dark out, so either I conked out for an entire day and into the next night, or it hasn’t been all that long since I was taken. “Fancy seeing you here.” My eyes swing over to Tom, wondering if I might be able to kick the shotgun from his hands before he shoots me. The thing is, I bet Ophelia and Kali both have weapons on them, too.

“Why did you bring him here?” Ophelia asks, turning to Kali. She’s staring down at me with mud-brown eyes and a lazy smile. I’ve never liked her. Never. We’ve been going to school with her almost as long as we’ve been going with Bernadette. I know for a fact that Kali’s had a hard life, that her dad was an alcoholic who beat her and her mom. Still, she’s a shitty, petty person whose trauma has manifested into something wicked. I just straight up don’t fucking like her.

“We can use him,” Kali explains, and it occurs to me then that she could very well be the person who hit me with their car, loaded me in the trunk, and brought me out here … wherever here is. There was a lot going on at the race; it’s possible that she was able to sneak away while I was having my ass kicked. Cal was too busy shooting people to pay attention. “Victor cares about him, just as much as he does Bernadette.” Kali scowls, the sound of my girl’s name like poison on her lips. “Mitch has definitely outlasted his usefulness, don’t you think? This will work much better.”

Ophelia just stares down at me with crow-black eyes, contemplating. The way she studies me, it seems like it never occurred to her that I—or any of the other boys—could be valuable in her fight against Victor. The reason she thinks that is because she doesn’t care about anyone or anything; she probably assumed her son didn’t either.

“He’s just a school friend; you should’ve killed him,” Ophelia says, and Tom scoots a bit closer, licking his lips, like he’s excited by the prospect of being able to blow my brains out with the shotgun.

“No, it’s not like that with them,” Kali whines, and there’s just something in her voice that tells me she’d do anything to be a part of us, to become a Havoc Girl herself. We should never have indulged her price with Bernadette. Even though it goes against everything we stand for, we should’ve just spirited her away in the woods and buried her.

I adjust my position and cringe; my entire body hurts. Seriously, there’s not a fucking part on me that doesn’t ache. My fingers subconsciously seek out the bullet wound on my shoulder that still isn’t healed all the way. It feels extra tender and sore right now.

“How do you mean?” Ophelia asks, clearly losing her patience with Kali. She glances over at the girl, her makeup refined and elegant, her hair coiffed. It looks like she might’ve been on her way out the door to dinner or something. Ophelia, I mean, obviously. Kali looks like any random southside girl, her makeup too thick, her hoop earrings too big, tits hanging out, shorts up her ass crack. I mean, Bernie dresses like that sometimes, too, but it’s cute as fuck when she does it.

Kali looks down at me, and there’s something in her expression that scares the fuck out of me.

There’s a twisted, unearned, and unwanted sense of affection.

“He’s not just a school friend to Victor,” Kali says with a sigh, reaching out to touch the side of my face. I jerk back from her and scowl, but I don’t say a word. Not a goddamn word. Ophelia and I do not have a good history together. Despite the fact that I held a knife to her throat at the beach house not all that long ago—I should’ve seriously killed her when I had the chance—we’ve had verbal brawls for years. “They’re like brothers. If we tell Vic that we have Aaron, he’ll do whatever you want.”

Ophelia muses on this for a moment before glancing over at Tom. They exchange a look before she turns her dark gaze back on me.

“I have a hard time believing that,” she murmurs, cocking her head slightly to one side. “But I suppose it’s worth trying. We can always kill him later.” She smiles at me, and it is most definitely the smile of a reptile. “Alright, Aaron. Get up and let’s go. I suppose you’ll get to see how much your little gang really means to my son. Unfortunately for you, I have a feeling you’re going to get a rude awakening.”

Tom spins the shotgun around and before I can even think up a way out of this, he’s hitting me in the head with the butt of it and I’m slumping back down into the trunk.

The last image I see before everything goes black is Bernadette, smiling at me.





Bernadette Blackbird





We spend the rest of the night and all of the next day looking for Aaron.

We find absolutely nothing.

Nothing at all.

I can’t sleep the following night, pacing the floor in the living room and running my hand over my face to swipe away the tears.

“Bernie,” Callum says softly, slipping in the back door in his hoodie and shorts. He’s been out for hours, searching fruitlessly. I go stone-still, waiting for whatever information he’s brought back with him. When Cal looks away from me, my heart shatters, and my knees go weak.