“Where the fuck are our girls?” Aaron asks, still bleeding, still with a goddamn bullet in his arm. He resists when I pull him down toward the sofa, but he hasn't got a lot of strength left and finally gives in. This couch is gonna end up drenched in blood … Aaron and I, we're covered in it. The smell is actually starting to make me dizzy.

“Your girls?” the Thing asks, lifting one scarred eyebrow. Want to know how that happened? Our neighbor's super sweet golden retriever broke out of the fence one day, charged Neil, and attacked his face. Clearly, he knew something about Neil that nobody else but me seems to notice.

He's a bigger monster than all five Havoc Boys combined.

“You heard me, you pedophile piece of shit,” Aaron grinds out, his hands shaking but his gold-green gaze steady and fierce. I have no doubt that he'd bleed himself out going after Neil if he had to. He'd do anything for his girls, even bully me. But would I want a man that wouldn't do those things for the children he loves like his own?

No. No, I would not.

I squeeze Aaron's hand a little harder. Sometimes, it feels almost impossible to see past one's own hurt, like looking directly into the sun. The brilliance of it is blinding. But if we close our eyes, we can feel the warmth of those rays on our skin.

“Our. Girls.” Aaron lifts his chin up and flashes the nastiest smirk I've ever seen on his face. It's a mask, I see that now, but we're both players in a much bigger game. What choice does he have? His father is dead; his mother is gone. This is all he's got left, the grinning maw of a master thespian. “Because you lost that right when you raped Penelope Blackbird. Matter of fact, you lost the right to life.”

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Vaughn simpers, and I flick my green gaze his direction, making him flinch. “They probably killed somebody tonight. That blood … that's not costume blood at all, is it?”

“Keep talking and maybe you'll get to see the difference for yourself?” I say, my voice a cold deadpan that doesn't quite match the frantic beating of my heart.

“Oh, Penelope,” Neil says as Kali bristles and glances his way with narrowed eyes. “She certainly was a pathetic little fuck-up, wasn't she?” The step-thing turns toward Kali, like he's about to explain a sad truth. “Brought her into the station drunk on more than one occasion. She was a fucking delinquent, but nothing like this bitch.” Neil gestures my way. “This bitch has gotten herself tangled up in a gang.”

“I'm going to kill you one day,” I tell him, shaking with rage, the words from Penelope's journal echoing inside my head. He said he'd kill my sisters if I told, that he'd kill my mom. He says he's killed before and gotten away with it. That look in his eyes when he said it … there's no doubt in my mind that he was telling the truth. “And I'm going to cry tears of joy.”

“Are you threatening a cop?” Neil asks, cocking his head to the side. His eyes shimmer with loathing and licentious greed, a want so strong it makes my head spin. Underneath that average Joe persona he has going on, his need to break and consume innocence shines brightest. If you know to look, it’s impossible to miss it. “You know how serious of an offense that is?”

“You better have a fucking warrant, considering you're sitting in my house,” Aaron says, his hand clenching hard to mine. “Now, where the fuck are our girls?”

“Sound asleep in their beds,” Neil says in that infuriatingly calm voice of his. The way he says the word beds, however, frightens me to my very core. I don’t think he would commit his dark deeds with Vaughn and Kali as witnesses, but you never know. Fear flutters in my chest like a bird with broken wings. “Such sweet, beautiful little babies. Angels, really. I sent that babysitter home a few minutes ago, gorgeous young thing.”

I'm surprised Havoc's safety net didn't alert the boys to what was going on, but then … maybe they did, and we were just too busy to see the messages?

“If you touched them,” I begin, because at this point, all gloves are off. I'm sitting here covered in both my ex's blood, and the blood of a boy who tried to kill me tonight. A boy who's now dead. All Neil has to do is call us in, that's it. The question is: why hasn't he?

“Listen, Bernadette,” Neil interrupts, smirking as he leans forward, a shimmer in his eyes that says he has me right where he wants me. “If you don't want your little gang to go to jail, you'll shut the fuck up and say yes, sir to every word that comes out of my mouth.”

My entire body goes ice-cold, to the point that I just don't smell blood, I'm choking on it.

“Talk to my girl like that again, and I'll break your face,” Aaron says, and my gaze snaps his direction. My girl? He's like an echo of Vic right now. I don't … hate that though.

“Listen, you little prick, you've got no fucking choice.”

“Watch me,” Aaron says, standing up so fast that he ends up stumbling and slamming into the coffee table. He's dizzy from blood loss; I'm seriously worried about him. I stand up, too, grabbing onto his shoulder as he braces both palms on the table, panting for breath. I need to get some fluids in him, and fast.

“Forgive me if I'm not running in fear,” Neil says as that little rat Kali giggles next to him.

“Tough guy,” she says, playing off her perceived seat of power next to Neil. But she has no idea what Havoc has in store for her. Hell, neither do I. All I know is that if the boys were willing to castrate Donald, Kali is going to suffer just as much.

What was it that Callum said? Her face isn’t pregnant.

Principal Vaughn doesn't look quite so smug, eyes darting from the front door to the back, like he expects trouble. No, no, like he expects Havoc.

“Sit down,” Neil repeats, eyes hardening as he looks at me. “And say yes, sir.”

“Bernadette,” Aaron says, panting as he looks over at me. “Don't do it. We have Neil by the balls; he can't touch us.”

“How?” I ask as Vaughn makes a small sound of protest, wringing his hands as he paces in front of the fireplace. Aaron just glances my way, meeting my eyes, and shaking his head slightly. Fuck. Whatever it is they've got on Neil, I'm not going to like it.

“You said you'd bring them to heel,” Kali demands, standing up from the couch and turning on Neil with a pouty expression on her pretty little face. Is it Neil's baby that she's carrying? “Well, I'm still waiting.”

Neil rises to his feet at the same time I notice movement in the shadows near the staircase and in the small hall by the master bedroom.

“Last chance, Bernadette,” the Thing says, putting his hand on the radio at his hip. “Say it, or I call you and your friend Aaron here in.” He pulls the radio out and pauses as a clicking sound comes from behind his head; it’s the distinct sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back.

“Don't make your final mistake here, Neil. I'd hate to have to scrub your brains off the walls of Aaron's living room.”

Vic's voice is ice-cold, his full mouth twisted in a dark frown. His purple-black hair is slicked back from his face, still wet from a shower, his makeup wiped clean, clothes fresh and blood-free. As soon as I see him, a dark thrill travels through me, one that tastes like sweet, heavy poison.