Worse, they let the Thing taint Aaron's house, ruin an already shitty Halloween, mock me.

They let him get a leg up, and I'm not sure if I can ever forgive them for that.

I’m soaking wet and my feet are killing me by the time I get back to Aaron's place, but I ran out of fucks to give a long time ago.

A rough hand grabs my wrist as I pass by an overgrown yard, and my fight-or-fight-harder instinct kicks in. I throw a hard punch with my left hand, but my attacker intercepts it, keeping me from killing him long enough for me to realize through my adrenaline-soaked haze that the person I'm fighting with is Victor Channing.

“Oh, great,” I snap, tearing my arm away from him and wishing it didn't feel like my skin was branded by his touch. “The absolute last person I want to see right now.” I look up into his ebon eyes and feel my rage begin to crack and burn around the edges of my vision. Vic is the leader. He's the one who's supposed to be in charge. Ultimately, this decision fell to him and he fucked it all up.

“How could you run off like that?” he asks, his voice dark and low and dangerous, his hair wet and hanging in his beautiful face. He's frowning at me, nostrils flared as he takes me in like a runaway kid who needs to be kept in line. So much for being a Havoc Girl, right? If I were, they'd have told me. “You're a Havoc Girl now, and we don't keep secrets from each other.” What a crock. “We're in the middle of a war, Bernadette. Do you understand that? You could've been killed.” He pauses for a brief moment before flicking those dark eyes away from mine. “Or worse.” Vic spits into the wet grass, and then pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket.

I say nothing.

I'm afraid to say something, the way I feel right now. Likely, it'd be something I'd very much regret.

Victor tries and fails to light a cigarette, the rain soaking his clothes and plastering them to his muscular body. My eyes find their way down to his chest, despite my reservations, despite my hatred. Part of me is an animal, and she still very much wants her alpha male. I grit my teeth against the impulse.

“You lied to me,” I say, the words coming out in a hiss. With everything that happened last night, I think I was in some sort of shock. Right now, the world seems crystal clear. “After all that bullshit about the one currency you can carry is truth.” I imitate Vic's voice, and he smirks at me, as if he has any right to look at me like that.

“Nobody lied to you, Bernadette. We have a lot of information; we're disseminating it on a need-to-know basis.” He reaches out to grab me again, but I take a step back, putting some much-needed space between us. Vic lets out a long sigh, and I swear, if I couldn't hear Heather laughing through an open window, I might have attacked him. “There are no secrets in Havoc; there are no lies.”

“Where did you get the video then?” I snap, taking note of Oscar as he moves halfway across the front yard, pausing with one arm over his chest, the elbow of the other resting in his palm. He cradles his chin in his hand and watches me, but I ignore him, too. If he wants his shattered iPad back, he can get it from Callum.

Vic sighs again and stares at the tip of his soggy cigarette. He holds it between two fingers and studies it carefully, like it holds all the answers he could ever need.

“Oscar,” he says, like that’s explanation enough. The rain stops and Vic gets out another cigarette, offering it up to me, but I’m not taking his metaphorical fucking olive branch. “For Christ’s sake, Bernadette, have you not noticed he’s got some skills with computer shit? He got them off of your stepfather’s laptop.”

“Why did you have Neil’s laptop?” I whisper, burning up on the inside. My eyes are narrowed on Vic, homed in on him like weapons. He’s just lucky that looks can’t actually kill.

“Because we were in your house,” Vic growls out, stepping close to me again. This time, when I take another step back, I can see in his face that he knows he fucked up. And it’s terrifying to him. Absolutely terrifying.

We’re toxic, Vic and me.

We’d be better off apart.

The thought kills me.

“We were in your house, to drag you out of bed, to send you scurrying through the woods like a little mouse.” There’s bite to his words, a rancid sort of anger that I can’t abide by. I slap him hard across the face, but he does nothing to stop it.

“All this time, you had that video …” I start, disbelief making me feel insane. When did I start thinking of these guys as allies? They’ve only ever been the enemy of my enemies. That’s it. What the actual fuck is wrong with me?

Callum killed Danny to protect you, Bernadette. That must count for something. It has to.

“What would seeing it have changed?” Vic retorts, smoking his cigarette. He doesn’t lift a hand to his cheek, even as it turns a warm pink color. “You knew what Neil was doing; you read Penelope’s journal. The only thing that video did was upset you,” Vic snarls, sneering as he turns his attention on Oscar.

The two of them maintain a long, terrifying sort of stare, one that says they’re long overdue to vent some frustration at each other. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when that happens.

“Seeing it …” I start, images flashing in my mind that make me feel dizzy. Images that I never wanted to see, that I now can never unsee. My attention slides back to Oscar, and I can’t decide if I want to kill him more or less than Vic. Either way, they’re both dead to me. “Seeing it doesn’t matter. But you could’ve put him away with that video, saved me and Heather both. All these years, I’ve been fighting, and you could’ve ended it at any time.”

“Every action has consequences, Bernadette. Everything. If we’d turned that video in, Neil would’ve buried it. His brother, that fancy ass DA, he would’ve buried it. Or what about his father? He’s a circuit court judge. Even if—and that’s a big if—someone took it seriously, what sort of time would he be looking at? I hate to tell you this, Bernie, but our world is fucked. It’s fucked up and broken and ugly as hell.” Victor steps toward me again, but this time, I don’t pull away. How can I? He has me in orbit, and I despise him for that, too. “People don’t care about girls who get raped.”

My throat starts to close up, and white splotches flicker across my vision. I am this close to passing out. Screw the tacos, I guess. No way in hell I’m cooking tonight.

“People don’t, but we do,” Vic corrects, his words commanding me to look his way. But I won’t. If I can at least withhold this one thing from him, then maybe I’ll feel better. “And we’re going to get Neil, but these things take time. If we turn the video in, eyes will turn his way. We need as many of them to look away as we can, before we act. Do you believe me when I tell you that we’ll get him?”

“Hey, I called out Havoc. Make a deal, pay a price.” I start to move away, and Vic comes after me. The look I throw him must change his mind about grabbing me. “Do not touch me, Victor Channing.” Hurt flashes across his face, rapidly replaced with a scowl and a snarl that I just don’t have the time for today. “And don’t talk to me for the rest of the night.”

I storm across the street, across the front lawn and past Oscar, and into the house.