Havoc:Mayhem Series #4(14)

       
           



       

"Well," I say, "I mean . . . having a private theater in your mansion is going to be pretty cool."

Mike laughs, relaxing the tension in my shoulders. "I'm going to have a private theater in my mansion?"

"Where else would you have it?" I chide, and Mike chuckles again. "I mean, I guess you could put it out by your private grotto."

"Right, the grotto."

"Which will be right next to . . ." I tap my fingers against my  comforter, wondering what Mike would spend an extravagant amount of  money on. "Right next to your microbrewery," I decide, smiling to  myself.

"Well, it's settled then."

"What is?"

"You're designing my mansion."

Laughing, I say, "Then can I get all the autographs I want?"

"And beer and private movie screenings," Mike says, and my smile brightens.

"It's a deal."

We sit in comfortable silence until I glance at my clock and reluctantly tell Mike, "It's getting late."

"Yeah."

"I should probably get some sleep. I have a big presentation in the morning."

"Play again tomorrow?" Mike asks, and I snuggle deeper under my covers.

"We already promised your best friend we would," I joke, reminding him what he said about Luke.

Mike's voice is happy when he teases, "Think we'll have to rescue you again?"

"Goodnight, Mike," I growl, trying not to let him hear the smile trying to sneak back onto my face.

"Sweet dreams, Hailey," he says, and then he makes me hang up first.





Chapter 10




"So let me get this straight," Dee says in the college café on Wednesday  afternoon, one day after Mike's epic wall-exploding trick and three  days after I nearly decapitated Danica with a water bottle. When I sat  down and Rowan asked what I've been up to, I decided to focus on the  Danica thing instead of the fact that I've spent the past three nights  gaming with her boyfriend. Disdain drips from Dee's voice when she  finishes, "You actually had the chance to take that bitch's head off,  and you missed?"

"I wasn't trying to hit her." Actually, I was trying to hit her, but  that was before I realized she wasn't a  robber-slash-murderer-slash-rapist with a fetish for pajama-wearing farm  girls. I take a sip from the thermos of coffee I brought from home,  trying to concentrate on how good it tastes instead of how second-rate  it makes me feel. My uncle gave me a credit card to use while I'm in  school, but I hate using it for things that aren't necessary. Bills,  groceries, gas-those things are essential. Coffee is a luxury I can  bring from home.

"I don't know how you can stand her," Dee complains from across the  table. "If I had to live with her, one of us wouldn't be leaving that  apartment alive. I almost choked her out when she came to band practice  on Sunday."

Rowan chuckles and scoops the whipped cream off her iced coffee. "I think she's scared of you."

"She should be!"

"What happened?" I ask, and Rowan finishes eating the whipped cream off her spoon to answer me.

"She wouldn't stop criticizing everyone-"

Dee makes finger quotations in the air. "Giving suggestions."

"And she actually suggested that Mike try singing this one song-"

Dee throws her hands in the air. "Mike! Sing!"

"And even Mike thought that was hilarious, but Danica was dead serious.  She started getting all frustrated. But Dee was so fed up by then that-"

"So fed up."

"That she told Danica to find some other band to go play Yoko in-"

"That was what Yoko did, right? She broke up the Beatles?"

Rowan smiles and nods as she continues talking. "And then they started  arguing, and Danica told Dee that groupies come and go, implying that  Dee is a groupie or something-"

Dee growls. "I could have killed her."

"And basically everyone had to end practice early because Dee flew completely off the handle-"

Dee's face stretches into an unremorseful grin. "As one does."                       
       
           



       

"And none of us really wanted to hold her back."

"Hence the reason you should have saved us the trouble and decapitated her when you had the chance."

I rub a line between my eyes as I stop looking from Dee to Rowan to Dee  to Rowan. I'm about to take another sip of my coffee when Rowan finishes  eating the whipped cream off of hers and adds, "I don't even know why  Mike brought her."

"Adam brought you," I point out, and when Dee's dark eyebrows knit, I add, "And Joel brought you."

"But no one can stand Danica," Dee argues.

"But she's still Mike's girlfriend."

Dee makes a sound in the back of her throat and says, "He's probably going to bring her with us on Saturday."

Rowan groans and rubs her silver-painted fingernails along the bridge of her nose. "Of course he is."

I'm looking back and forth between them, wondering what's happening on  Saturday but not wanting to ask since it might seem like I'm trying to  invite myself along, when Dee's gaze settles on me, like a magnifying  glass that makes me fidget in my seat.

"Hailey, what are you doing this Saturday?"

"I usually spend Saturdays walking dogs at the-"

"Good, so you're free then," she says with a mischievous grin sliding  onto her face. "We're scouting a location for a music video the band is  shooting. Make sure you wear some boots."



On Wednesday night, I check to see if I brought my hiking boots from  home, and I frown when I realize I didn't. On Thursday, I check out a  few thrift stores, but I don't find any boots in my size. On Friday, I  suck it up and buy some from the clearance rack at Wal-Mart. And on  Saturday, I curl my toes in them as I stand in a blanket of barn-red  leaves, staring out over a vast open meadow in the middle of a forest  far from the city. Rustling autumn trees form a perfect circle around  the wooded oasis, standing sentry around the glittering pond in the very  center of the meadow.

"Finally," Dee and Danica complain in unison, cutting each other with  dirty looks when they realize their mistake. I never thought I'd see the  day when they actually agreed on something, but it didn't take long  today before they both started grumbling about the long hike here. Even  Rowan started drifting toward the dark side, repeatedly asking if we  were close yet and if the guys were sure they knew where they were  going. Forty minutes and a nagging blister on my pinky toe later, the  trees finally broke and revealed this secret pond.

"How did you ever find this place?" I ask in a quiet voice, not wanting  to disturb the serene beauty of it. Long whispers of clouds float across  the blue sky, teasing the long grass that dances in their shadow.

"We went to a party up here once," Shawn says from somewhere to my left.  There are a bunch of us-me, Shawn, Kit, Adam, Rowan, Dee, Joel, Danica,  Mike-and we all stand in a line with the trees.

"Our friend Driver has friends that knew about this place," Adam adds,  finally taking the first step. He turns around and walks backward, a  beaming smile on his face. "This video is going to be so sick."

"How are you going to get all the stuff up here?" Rowan asks, and Adam chuckles.

"With Mosh Records' money."

Shawn follows Adam into the field, and the rest of us follow. "So we're  going to set up on that dock out there," he says, and my eyes travel the  length of a steel grate dock that stretches onto the pond, leading to a  large circular platform, "and we're going to light up the pond with all  sorts of colored flames floating on top, and maybe glow sticks or  something hanging in the water." His long legs push through thick  tangles of grass that wrap around his ankles, and he turns around and  gestures at the surrounding trees. "And since the song is called  ‘Ghost,' we're going to have tons of people in the trees, but we're  going to get the special effects team to make them look really washed  out, and, like . . ."

He struggles to find the word, and Joel finishes, "Like ghosts."

"Kind of, yeah," Shawn says. He turns around and continues walking  toward the dock. "And as the song continues, the extras are going to  start coming out of the trees."                       
       
           



       

"It's going to be so fucking creepy," Adam gloats. He turns around to walk backward again, practically dancing with excitement.

Shawn casts a grin at him before continuing. "So they're just going to  get closer and closer, and it's going to be really eerie, but the closer  they get, the more their color is going to start to come back. By the  time they get to the edge of the pond, their faces and clothes are going  to be really vibrant, and they're going to start jumping to the song."