“Your makeup is definitely on point, Kali,” I say, cocking my head slightly to one side, like a wolf who’s scented weakness in the pack. Time to cull the herd, am I right? “Hides the fucked-up swelling from your stitches.” I run a finger round my mouth to emphasize the places where Stacey and her girls pushed their wicked needle to sew the bitch’s lips together.

Brilliant. Beyond brilliant. I should befriend Stacey Langford. She’s never treated me like shit, despite being Prescott’s queen bee, and I don’t think she’s ever screwed any of my boys. My eyes shift slightly to the right, finding Hael’s strong gaze in an instant. He stands out in a crowd, carrying this cloud of charisma that draws girls to his honey like flies.

Even though they know he’s off-limits, even though they know that I’m watching, still they come. If I didn’t have Aaron to worry about right now, I’d be cunt-punting and titty-slapping my way through their skanky asses. Well, the Prescott girls are all skanky—it’s kind of our thing. Fuller girls look like catalogue models. Oak Valley girls look like anorexic birds in designer dresses.

I turn back to Kali, but, despite the fire in her eyes, she flips the victim card again and tears appear, as if I started all this by calling Havoc on her. As if I sought her out and started bullying her for no reason at all. Fucking pathetic.

I cannot wait to be done with her. Honestly, I’ll probably close my eyes one day after her demise, wake up, and forget all about the ex-best friend who chose to betray me. And I’ll do it all from a bed filled with boys whose betrayal I have truly and utterly forgiven. How could I not, knowing how deep their roots go?

“You’re horrible,” Kali says, closing her eyes and putting her hand over her mouth. “You’re so horrible. Please, just … go away.” The little rat turns to Sara, as if the police officer gives a motherfucking flying fuck about what happens to either of us. “I don’t need you to hunt me down and keep bullying me, okay? I won’t tell the cops anything about your stupid gang.”

I laugh then because, come on, could her acting get any worse? Could her speech get anymore B-movie cliché?

“Listen, sweetheart,” I say, turning to Sara at the last second, as if my derogatory use of the word sweetheart could be referring to either of them. It’s not, though. I am now specifically speaking to the young officer. “Whatever nonsense it is that she’s feeding you, it has an ulterior motive. She knows that by coming to you, she’ll be confirming her status as a scum-sucking, southside snitch. She can’t go back to school after this; this is an endgame move.”

“Bernadette,” Sara says again, but her eyes slide to Kali like she hadn’t exactly thought of it that way. It’s because Sara—for all her faults—is not a bad person. So she doesn’t think like a bad person. She doesn’t imagine that everything everyone else does is plotted, vindictive, bullshit because that’s not how she operates. I’m here to make sure she fully understands Kali’s motives. “If you need to talk, we can set up a time. Kali was here first, and I’d like to honor her request.”

“It’s okay, Miss Young,” Kali says, softening her voice. God, I could kill her. I could just fucking kill her. I know in my heart that she had something to do with Aaron’s disappearance. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. She did it; she is responsible. She snuck off at the race when Cal was exploding heads. It’s so goddamn obvious. “Bernadette … already knows.” Kali’s eyes flash triumphant as she puts her hand to her belly. To be quite honest, I’m not entirely sure she’s pregnant at all. It’d be just like her to fake something like that.

“Bernadette knows what?” Sara asks, looking between the two of us with obvious confusion on her face. She isn’t wearing her uniform today. No, she’s trying to blend in and be the ‘cool’ chaperone in a short yellow dress and heels. To be fair, I doubt she’s all that much older than us anyway. Twenty-five, at most.

“That I’m pregnant with Neil Pence’s child,” Kali says, sniffling and dropping her head. She puts her hands over her face as Sara—predictably—reaches out to comfort her, taking the sobbing girl into her arms and rubbing her back. Sara’s face hardens into something terrible, and I just know what she’s thinking. She’s imagining that Neil raped Kali the way he did Penelope. In all reality, their wickedness was perfectly matched. Neil and Kali, likely soulmates. That is, if they have souls at all.

“You knew about this?” Sara asks softly, and even though she’s now fully aware of what, exactly, snitches get stitches means, I can tell I’ve lost some credibility.

“Look, officer,” I say, tucking my hands into the pockets of my pink lacy nightmare of a dress. It’s so short in the front that I’ll have to be careful if I sit down. Or don some rings so I can straddle a bitch and punch the fuck out of her. Likely, my panties might show in that case which is fine because I wore some good ones tonight, some white lacy ones that Hael bought for me.

Again, if Aaron hadn’t been missing, I might’ve appreciated finding a lingerie box on my bed that read From the H in Havoc on it. Gah. I need less time fighting monsters and more time figuring out boys.

I smile.

“Kali’s been screwing like, a hundred different guys. It’d be impossible for me to figure out who the father of her kid was without a DNA test,” I continue, keeping that pretty smile in place. The barb works and Kali’s head snaps up, her fangs bared, eight eyes glittering as she rears her arachnid-like body at me.

I am all about animal metaphors today, apparently.

“Like you can talk, letting five guys who hate you stick their dicks in your dry cunt,” she snarls, her words pitched intentionally loud for the room to hear. Things are quieting down around us as people start to eavesdrop. Good. I hope someone records this and puts it online. I’d gladly share every conversation I ever had with this girl with the entire world; I have nothing to hide. I did nothing wrong except maybe hesitate too long in clapping back.

“Oh, I can assure you that it’s never dry,” I purr, removing my hand from my pocket and running two fingers down between my breasts. Since I’m sure Sara is a bit of a prude, I keep my fingers at my belly button rather than going all the way for my clit. “And I wouldn’t need a DNA test anyway. We’re family. It’d just be a Havoc baby. You, on the other hand, don’t have any such arrangement. Does Mitch know about Neil, hmm? What about … Mack and David?”

As soon as those last two names leave my lips, I can see it register in her face: I’m right. She is meeting with Mack and David.

Also, she’s clearly furious about something else that must’ve happened before she got here tonight. Interestingly enough, I don’t think she’s all that butt-hurt over the guys Cal killed at the racetrack, the ones whose bodies we left behind.

Anxiety creeps up on me, despite knowing that the Charter Crew likely did away with their corpses. They can’t afford to be caught either. Still … I don’t like loose ends.

“Typical Prescott bullshit,” Stacey Langford says loudly, drawing the attention of the nearby crowd as she tips back a brown bottle labelled as root beer. It most certainly is not fucking root beer. Bet it’s not even beer. Vodka, probably. Or whiskey. We really like a cheap bottle of Everclear around here at Prescott High. Could be that. “Two girls trying to figure out who’s the bigger whore.” Stacey takes another swig, her blond hair crimped and hanging around her shoulders in thick waves. She’s got a mad nineties look going on tonight as she swipes her arm over her pale-pink painted lips, eyes locking on Kali. “But this isn’t even a competition: we all know what the answer is.”