“Tell me that they’re alive,” I repeat for what’s likely the hundredth fucking time, lifting a hand up and rubbing it across my mouth. I’m used to seeing the bright waxy smear of lipstick on my pale skin. Instead, I’m almost too clean. Scrubbed raw and smelling of powdery soap.

But I had to clean up, didn’t I? After all that blood …

Sara Young stares at me from across the surface of her countertop. After the cops took pictures of me dressed in copper-scented crimson, and collected my clothes for evidence, I was allowed to come back here to shower.

“You owe me that much, at least,” I say, my tongue scraping across the inside of my mouth like sandpaper. Sara is staring at me with a fresh set of eyes as if she, too, made a snap judgement. As if she, too, underestimated me.

She won’t make that mistake again, unfortunately.

“You know,” she begins, adjusting her position against the opposite counter and dropping her chin to her chest. Her eyes are closed, but I have no doubt that her ears are attuned to my every movement. “I thought I had you all figured out, Bernadette.” Sara looks up suddenly, and her doe-brown eyes don’t look so soft anymore. “You were sad, I could see it in your eyes. That much, I knew for sure.”

“Just tell me if my fucking boys are still alive,” I snap back, wanting to dig my fingers into my scalp until my skin bleeds. But only so that I keep them away from her. I want to grab Sara and shake her right now; she knows the suspense is killing me.

Six hours, four minutes, and thirty-two seconds ago, a man shot Stacey Langford in the head, and I ended up spilling more blood at Prescott High than I’ve ever spilled in my life. The police took my phone, and I haven’t been able to get access to a laptop. Shit, I’m so desperate right now that I’d march my ass down to the corner where all the hookers hang out and use the very last payphone in all the city of Springfield. It belongs to Prescott, of course, and it’s used more often for paid fucks than phone calls.

Right now, I’d gladly press that filthy receiver to my ear if that’s what it’d take to hear the voices of my boys. Victor is okay, obviously, but I haven’t seen him since they put us in separate ambulances and drove us away from the school.

The last thing I saw before the paramedics closed the doors was his face, drawn but determined.

I pick the crown up that Victor gave me and hold it in two hands, staring down at it with a frown taking over my mouth. I don’t know why I’m here, at Sara Young’s house, instead of the station. Or Aaron’s place. Because I’m either under arrest or … I’m not.

But of all the things they took from me, for some reason, they let me keep this goddamn crown.

I look back up again, but Sara’s focus hasn’t wavered. She’s boring into me with eyes like swords, sharpened and ready for justice.

“You’re really and truly invested in all of this, aren’t you?” she asks, her tone accusatory, like I’ve torn apart her perfect little life and dashed her dreams on the rocks of reality. “You’re not looking for my help; I’m just an obstacle you need to overcome.”

I slip the crown back on my head, just to feel the weight of it. My eyes close of their own accord, and I pull in a deep breath. If someone had asked in August if this is where I’d be in January, sitting on a cop’s stool and wearing a crown given to me by one of the darkest minds to ever attend Prescott High, I’d have laughed in their face. What is this? What am I doing?

The thing is, I have those answers now. Pretty sure I’ve had them all along. But sometimes it takes a traumatic event to really shake you, to wake you up to the reality of who you’re supposed to become.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” I tell Sara, opening my eyes again. The pretty little cop shifts a bit, as if there’s something in my stare that’s making her uncomfortable. Good. She should be uncomfortable. She should be terrified. Of Havoc. Of the GMP. Of the fact that she’s gotten herself firmly in the crosshairs of our turf war.

I killed James Barrasso; I bashed his head in with Mr. Darkwood’s doorstop.

That isn’t something Maxwell Barrasso is likely to forgive anytime soon, regardless of the fact that he sent his guys to my fucking school.

“Bernadette, there are seventeen dead men with tattoos linking them to a gang that’s made the FBI’s most dangerous gangs in America list. Men like that …” She trails off and then swipes both hands over her face, a rare break in her white knight hero act. “Why were those men at your school? Hmm? Because the only reason I can gather is that they were after you.”

“They were after Stacey Langford,” I say, a pang in my chest when I think of the spunky blonde with the loyal crew. Her girls must be devastated. No sooner has that thought crossed my mind when I welcome another: we need to bring her girls into Havoc’s fold. It’s the least we can do, considering everything. Besides, Stacey taught her girls well. They’ll be an asset.

“Stacey Langford,” Sara Young says, grabbing her phone from the counter and scrolling until she, presumably, gets to some sort of file on Stacey. “Eighteen years old, a father with a serious rap sheet, a mother missing under mysterious circumstances, and—”

“Stacey was a good person,” I say, feeling my anger rise to the surface like bubbles in boiling water. I’m liable to scald if Sara pushes me too far tonight. I don’t have the patience for her privileged ass, not when the fates of my boys are so uncertain.

Hael, Aaron, Oscar, or Callum could be dead.

Fuck.

I’m shaking now; I can’t help it. There are few things in this world that can shake me anymore. This, this is one of them. Don’t you dare leave me heartbroken, you assholes. Don’t you fucking dare.

“Stacey was a good person,” I repeat, laying my palms flat on the shiny granite surface of the counter. It’s the color of sand, but even less interesting. I hope for Sara’s sake this really is an Airbnb and not her house. It’s so incredibly boring. “She was more than just a file on your phone.” I shake my head. I’ve relived that moment in the hallway several times already inside my mind. Even though I know there was no way I could’ve saved Stacey, I wish things had been different.

“Listen, Bernadette,” Sara starts, drawing in a breath that she holds for so long I’m afraid she might pass out. She finally exhales as she steps forward, putting her hands on the counter just twelve inches from my own. My entire body aches, like I’ve been put through a wash cycle or something. Everything hurts. At least I found out during my exam at Joseph General that I was only coughing up blood because I’d cracked a tooth and bitten my own tongue from the beating. Could’ve been way worse, like internal bleeding and shit. They insisted on drawing blood and running some tests, too, though I’m not exactly sure why that was necessary. “You are not under arrest at this time. However”—and here she pauses to emphasize that word in a manner that’s quite menacing—“you are a person of interest.”

“Why am I at your house?” I ask, staring at her and wishing this day would just fucking end. I’m exhausted. “Is this standard procedure, to bring a person of interest to a fed’s house?”