Raise hell

+ Excerpt

SIX MONTHS AGO

The Bacchanal is supposed to be a night of excess. Too much sex. Too many drugs.

Half-naked girls shrieking in fear and excitement as bare chested guys in horned masks chase them through the darkness. This night is supposed to be about fulfilling all of our darkest desires.

But not murder.

I kneel down on the grass and cold liquid seeps into the fabric of my jeans. Just like the others, I’m not wearing a shirt. The chill wind blowing over my bare chest feels like the icy breath of the Grim Reaper.

Death is coming.

The girl is facedown on the ground. All I can see is tangled blonde hair filled with leaves and bits of twig. For about half a second, I tell myself that it’s a prank. This has to be a full-size doll or really lifelike crash dummy.

Then I turn her over.

Her face is so bruised and bloody that even her own family wouldn’t recognize her.

But I have a sinking suspicion that I know exactly who this is. I hear a shriek behind me. Anya comes running out of the shadows, her too high heels seeking into the dense ground. She is precisely the kind of girl who wears sky high heels.

“Oh my God. Who is that?”

My mind whirs. I open my mouth and then shut it tight again. “No fucking idea.”

“Is she dead?”

“Do I look like a doctor to you?”

I can already hear the voices of my Havoc House brothers whispering through my head. If I call the police then this party is over and there might not be any other parties ever following it again. The school administration turn a blind eye to our activities most of the time, so do the local police.

Worst case scenario, a random girl gets dropped off at the door of the emergency room so she can get her stomach pumped. We’re responsible for what happens out here, but there is a long history of otherwise reasonable adults looking the other way when we get into trouble.

This is something different.

“We need to do something,” I murmur, even though I have no idea what. We’re at least a mile into the forest surrounding campus. I’m either going to need help carrying her out or hiding her body, depending on how this situation shakes out. “Go find me the nearest Havoc Boy. Now.”

Instead of doing what she’s told, Anya puts a hand on my shoulder that I resist the urge to shake off. “Are you okay?”

I can’t stop a burst of dark laughter, even though nothing about any of this is funny. Anya stares up at me with wide eyes like I’m the one who just got the absolute shit kicked out of me. Her reaction isn’t a surprise. Nobody is going to care about the girl sprawled at my feet. She knew the score when she showed up for the Bacchanal, just like all the others.

Not that it makes this right.

When I glare up at her, Anya takes an involuntary step back.

“Just go,” I growl. My eyes narrow with the full force of my endless authority as the president of Havoc House. “You won’t like what happens if I have to tell you again.”

The simpering expression on her face changes and her eyes widen with true fear.

I know what I look like, especially tonight.

My mask covers most of my face. Filigreed flowers decorate the crown. Twisted ram’s horns protrude from the top of a demonic face that wouldn’t be out of place in the pits of hell. All that’s visible is my eyes and the lips I twist into an angry frown. Made of heavy porcelain and hand-painted with metallic black, the mask could be a work of art.

That’s what Havoc Boys do. We find the beauty in degradation. Havoc Boys are always dangerous, but never more than on the night of the Bacchanal.

One look at us in our masks, each slightly different but equally intimidating, should make everyone watching think we’re capable of anything. As much as I’ve always enjoyed the power and the privilege, I would have said that a line exists for us somewhere.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I lean over the girl, careful not to get any of her blood on me. Blood is evidence of what happened here. It’s messed up that I’m already considering the criminal implications of this, but it is what it is.

Havoc House is more important than a single girl stupid enough to show up for our Bacchanal.

The pulse in her neck is weak, but still there. I have to watch for almost a minute, but eventually her chest rises with a shallow breath.

She’s still alive, at least for now.

Her dress has been ripped nearly to shreds, revealing a delicate pink bra printed with roses. The panties are missing The sound of a someone crashing through the trees makes me tense. The black plague mask appears first, beak jutting forward like a bird of prey. Even though the thing completely covers his face, I know who it is.

“What do we have here?” Vaughn asks, slowing as he catches sight of me.

“A problem.” I shift out of the way, so he can see the girl sprawled on the ground in front of me.

My best friend takes a few more steps into the clearing. He stops short when he catches sight of the girl. “Christ. What did you do?”

“Don’t be a dick. I found her like this.”

“Who is she?”

“You’ll need to ask whoever broke her face. She could be anybody under all this swelling.”

“Someone really did a number on her, huh.” He kneels next to me, but is as careful as I am not to touch the girl’s body.

Neither of us bother to speculate on who it might be.

Between the new pledges and the other Havoc brothers, there are dozens of potential suspects. Our fraternity has some of the most privileged sons on the eastern seaboard in its ranks. Self-control isn’t an attribute that we tend to focus on. Membership in Havoc House is lifelong. Even once our school days are long behind us, we honor the pledge we took to protect each other.

The thought of one of us beating a girl up for kicks makes me sick, but that doesn’t mean I’m eager to figure out who did it.

“I need your help carrying her out of here.”

“And get her blood all over me? No way.” Vaughn looks over the girl’s still form, his disgust obvious. “This is a hot mess.”

“Fine, I’ll just call an ambulance.” When I pull out my phone to make the call, he slaps it out of my hand. “What the hell?”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You really want the police and paramedics swarming around here? Tonight, of all nights?”

There have always been rumors about what we do out here during the yearly Bacchanal. People running naked through the trees. Animal sacrifices. Rites and rituals borrowed from pagan religions. Orgies, consenting or otherwise.

Most of the rumors are exaggerated, but not all of them. The last thing we want out here is witnesses wearing badges.

I pronounce each word deliberately. “Are you saying we should just leave her here.”

Vaughn shrugs. “Get some of the pledges to drop her off at the door of the ER in the morning. That’s what we always do.”

“She’s bleeding from her head. She might be dead by the morning. This isn’t like the time Declan had to go get the matchbox cars surgically extracted.”

“Pledge week can be a real bitch.” Vaughn’s lips quirk at the memory before he gets serious again. “You’re overreacting.

“Is that why she’s unconscious and barely breathing?”

“You know what, call the cops.” He holds his hands up in surrender, expression slightly mocking. “If you want to be the one responsible for one of us getting carted off to jail, then I guess that’s on you. And when the school threatens to shut down Havoc House unless we narc on one of our brothers, just go ahead and flush three hundred years of tradition down the drain.”

Vaughn and I have been best friends since practically the cradle. Our fathers were Havoc Boys and so were their fathers before them. Loyalty to Havoc House has been driven into both of us for our whole lives.

Nothing is supposed to be more important.

Not even a girl’s life.

My father’s voice rings through my skull, making my head ache.

Havoc means brotherhood over blood.

Havoc means never having to apologize.

Havoc is for life.

He’s been married three times in the last ten years and hasn’t spoken to my mother except through lawyers for longer than that. But he has never missed monthly drinks at the club with his Havoc brothers, even though it’s been a quarter century since they graduated.

Havoc is for life.

I can practically feel my father’s glare boring into my back, even though he’s five hundred miles away. “We can’t just leave her here.”

“We’ll get some pledges to drop her off at the hospital, okay. Marty was smarting off to me this morning so I owe him a bad night.” Vaughn stands and brushes off his pants, seeming more annoyed at the dirt on his knees than anything else. “As long as they dump her at the door and get out of there before anyone sees them, it should be fine.”

I don’t ask why he’s not worried that the girl will say anything, because I already know the answer. She’ll take whatever happened here to her grave, or suffer something worse than a beating.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Vaughn strides away. His posture is loose and relaxed. He’ll do what he said he would and get the pledges, but he’s already halfway to putting all this from his mind. Too much pussy is running through the forest for him to worry for long about the broken one in front of me.

I stare down into the girl’s face. Her eyes are so swollen that she probably couldn’t open them, even if she were awake. There are scratches and dark bruises all over her body and her leg is bent at an awkward angle.

This is what it looks like when you beat someone so badly that you’re hoping it kills them.

My phone grows hot in my hand, the screen still on because I started dialing and never finished. The nine and one on the screen taunt me, waiting for me to delete them or press one more number. These sorts of things are easy to track. It isn’t as if I’m going to find a payphone in the middle of the forest. If I make this call, eventually it will come back on me. There won’t be any taking it back.

The girl makes a choking sound, liquid rattling in her lungs as she tries to breathe.

I’m no doctor, but I know that sound isn’t a good one.

I look down at my phone again and decide.

Havoc is for life.