“I'm teaching a beginners' class, for adults,” Cal finishes, reaching up to push blond hair away from his forehead. He gives me a tight smile and a wink before taking off down the sidewalk, hauling his black duffel bag up his shoulder.

I wait until he disappears around the corner before I turn and head up the driveway, pausing as I see Oscar inside of Hael's Camaro instead of the minivan.

“Pretty sure Vic didn't stutter when he said the van,” I murmur, sick and tired of Oscar's crap. This morning, I am precisely out of fucks to give. I climb in as Oscar tilts the edge of his sharp mouth up into a smile, turning the key and warming the engine up to a gentle purr. When I'm sitting in here, I feel like I can figure out where Hael's coming from. I know who he is. Saucy little playboy with a heart of gold, a love for cars and kids, and … an ex who could be dangerous to us in so many ways.

I slide my hands over my face again as Oscar reverses down the driveway, pausing at the next stop sign to select a song from his phone. Homicide by Logic and Eminem starts to play, and I frown hard.

Maybe I only think I know Hael Harbin? Shit, maybe I don't know any of them?

I haven't forgotten what I overheard at the party.

The boys castrated Donald. They carved the word Rapist into his forehead.

What the actual fuck are they going to do to the Thing?

I also haven’t forgotten what I heard after the party.

“We have a video, of him with your sister.”

But I need time to process that, along with everything else. Some part of me wonders if I’m suffering from some sort of emotional shock.

“I want to talk about the next name on my list,” I start, and Oscar laughs. It isn't a pretty sound. No, actually, it sends chills down my spine. I flick my gaze his direction, trying to align the boy who made a paper princess dress for me in elementary school to the whip-smart gangbanger sitting beside me. There's no correlating the two.

“Of course you do, Bernadette. We can't let such an important matter slip through the cracks. Perhaps we should talk about you flashing me first?”

“Oh, you’re still on that?” I quip, feeling this warm, gooey sense of smug satisfaction steal through me. “And here I thought only the idea of Vic’s bare cock could get you going.”

“If it’s between him, and that terror you call a cunt, then I’ll choose him every time,” Oscar agrees, maliciously smirking at me. He’s acting like he doesn’t care, but it’s quite clear that he’s got my naked body on the brain. “Do you need me to set you up with a waxing appointment this weekend? Bushes like that haven’t been in since the seventies.”

“Don't start with me this morning,” I warn, giving him a sideways look and wishing like hell I'd brought a hoodie with me. It is cold as fuck this morning. Leaning forward, I turn the heater on and sit back as warm air drifts over my chilled skin. “I put my hands around your throat once; don't make me do it again.”

“You think you're tough, don't you, Bernadette?” he asks me, his voice deceptively mild. If he thinks I don't notice the way his fingers curl around the steering wheel, then he's grossly underestimated me.

“No, I don't think anything. I've proven it. I want to go after my social worker, Coraleigh Vincent.” Oscar’s eyes widen slightly at the name, like he expected me to mention the Thing or Kali. But even I understand they’re a bit more complicated than some of the other names on my list. As far as Principal Vaughn … I have no idea what to think.

“I know all about Ms. Vincent,” Oscar says, his smile growing in depravity. It's practically obscene now, almost wantonly uncivilized. “She's been promoted, you know, since you last saw her.”

My jaw clenches as I think of Coraleigh Vincent and her plastered faux smile, her murmured words of comfort, her promises.

“Don't worry, Bernadette. Everything will be different here; you can start a new life.”

She delivered me into the hands of a monster, my foster ‘brother’, Eric Kushner.

A social worker who takes money to deliver pretty girls to ugly monsters.

She handpicks ‘em, girls who seem like victims, who don't have any extended family that might care what happens to them, girls who are pretty.

I've always hated being pretty.

I wish the scars I had on my soul showed on my face. Touching gentle fingers to the bandage on my cheek, I wonder if I’m not already on my way to getting that shit granted.

“Promoted, huh?” I ask, thinking about how a woman paid to rescue children from bad circumstances cares more about money than actually helping people. Hell, she went out of her way to make sure I was hurt.

“Come sit next to me, Bernie. I'm your new brother, after all.”

Memories swirl like a dark storm inside my head, pushing against the emotional levees I've built over the years. My protective layer of numbness is falling apart; these next names on the list are going to hurt.

1. the stepdad

2. the best friend

3. the social worker

4. the ex-boyfriend

5. the principal

6. the foster brother

7. the mom

One down, just six more to go … which, unfortunately, is one more than I thought we had to deal with last night.

“She's now the director of DHS’s new child welfare program.”

I throw my head back with maniacal laughter at Oscar's words. The thought of Coraleigh being in charge of protecting children … that's priceless.

Life isn't fair.

But if I have to sacrifice my life to make sure the people who hurt me suffer, then so be it.

Even if it means siccing villains on villains, I'll do it.

Even if it means becoming one.

“She lives in a big, fancy house in Oak Park with her husband Marcus,” Oscar continues, his voice as smooth and even as a snake's scales. I don’t liken his relative calm to tameness because, like a viper, he could strike at any moment and I wouldn't see it coming. “They have a Ferrari now, and a vacation home in Newport.”

I punch the dashboard and then immediately regret it, clutching my fist against my chest as my ears ring and my heartbeat thunders like a herd of horses.

Oscar smiles.

“You're not nearly as put together as you'd have the world believe,” he tells me, as if he knows the dark, twisted depths of my soul better than I do. What he doesn't know is that I once heard him crying in the boys' bathroom when we were eight. One of the boys in the class had pulled his glasses off and crushed them, and Oscar couldn't see anything. The boy and his friends took his backpack, ate his lunch.

Eight years later, I saw him curb stomp that kid's head outside of Prescott High.

I lick my lower lip to wet it and shake my head.

“He who is without sin should throw the first stone, Oscar …” I warn, and he laughs again. Maybe he finds it funny, me using a religious story to chastise him. We both know we're headed straight for hell.

“Your stepfather's becoming a problem,” Oscar admits as we pull into the parking lot of the grocery store. Across the street is the pharmacy where Hael took me to get a morning-after pill. “Seeing him at Aaron's house last night was a concern, to be sure.”