Page 124 of Raise Hell

“Everything I do is for you and Mamma,” I sigh. I know how hard it’s been for Felicia to fit in here. Before Olivia arrived, my sister had spent almost all her time alone. “You don’t need a friend like Olivia Pratt. And now that she’s gone for good, I better not see you anywhere near this house again.”

“So, what’s good enough for you, isn’t good enough for me?”

“I’m in Havoc House because I have to be. I don’t want you mixed up in any of this shit.”

“Tell me why you’re doing this, why you’ve been insisting I stay away from her since the year started,” Felicia begs. “If it makes sense to you, then maybe it’ll make sense to me.”

“I can’t do that, and you know it. It’s—”

“Havoc House business,” she interrupts, tone mocking. “How many times have I heard that?”

“Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.”

She looks at me like I’m not someone she recognizes. I ignore the flash of hurt I feel at the disgust in her eyes.

“You know all this makes you look like the bad guy, right? You promised Mamma that coming here wouldn’t change you, that you’re still the boy she raised. You promised us that you wouldn’t become one of them.”

“I’m not,” I insist through gritted teeth.

“The brother I thought I knew wouldn’t shame a girl like this, call her a slut for doing the same things he does and humiliate her in front of the whole school. I barely even recognize you anymore.”

Her words hit me harder than I expect, like a punch right to the gut.

Most of this Havoc Boy shit doesn’t interest me at all. I indulge it because this is what my father wants, for me to be the tip of this bloody spear.

I thought that I could become a part of this without losing myself.

Maybe I actually believed it, or maybe I’ve just been lying to myself.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I originally agreed to come to St. Bart’s because I actually cared about pleasing him, about being the son he actually wants. I know now that nothing I do will ever be enough for him.

But even in my most disillusioned moments, I do what my father asks of me. Because the alternative is ending up back in the muck where I started, taking Mamma and Felicia with me.

If I can’t be the son he wants, then he will no longer have any use for me.

No one deserves what happened to Olivia Pratt.

I don’t want Felicia to see the internal struggle on my face, so I make a point of looking away. “You saw the video.”

“And those guys are totally innocent, right?” Felicia scoffs. “They just fell into her vagina over and over again?”

“That isn’t the point.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize the double standards were incidental to this conversation. Here I was thinking they were exactly the point.”

“It’s late,” I groan. “I have a headache that a whole bottle of aspirin won’t cure. I need to go to bed.”

“Olivia isn’t what they’re all saying she is. If you cared at all about the truth, then you would see the same thing I do.” Felicia stomps past me and throws open the door. “And I’m telling Mamma what you did.”

I go to the window and watch to make sure she gets out of the house without being waylaid by any of the guys. Her words play in my mind long after she’s gone.

Felicia isn’t wrong.

I do want the truth.

* * *

I stoleOlivia’s rosary because I wanted something to remember her by, but it doesn’t take long for me to realize it might be useful in other ways.

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