I lean my back against the tree, panting and hurting, but relatively unharmed.

Oscar finishes his work and then lets Maxwell go, watching as the man slumps face-first into the leaves.

And that’s when our phones vibrate in unison and Oscar whips his out faster than Cal or I do. He answers the call with a sharp “what?” and then goes completely still.

That’s when we hear the howling, that’s when Callum starts to run and Oscar moves over to help me so that I can run, too.

“What was it?” I ask, glancing down and seeing that the call on his phone is still connected: it’s Hael.

“Mare’s nest,” Oscar breathes as panic surges through me, and I find myself facing the almost unthinkable reality of losing one of my girls for the second time that day.

Bernadette Blackbird

Ten minutes earlier … again.

Callum and Aaron hop over the front of the Camaro and take off, chasing the men that are now racing up the hill toward Oscar and the Eldorado. Likely, they’re going for the road in an attempt to escape. Either they don’t have a lot of ammo left or the distant sound of sirens has sparked their movements.

Regardless, Cal attacks one of the men from behind while Aaron peels off and heads into the woods after Maxwell. I’m about to go after him when Hael’s hand snaps out and grabs me by the wrist.

“No,” he says, giving me a sharp look. “Vic’s orders. You stay here.” He releases me and then takes aim up the hill, firing off several more shots and then cursing when he realizes the remaining GMP members are now out of range. Hael drops his gun to his side and steps back, unwilling to leave me here alone.

But, like, there’s no way I’m just going to sit around when my boys are in trouble. I’m backing up and considering the possibility of escaping Hael to go after Aaron when movement in the trees on the opposite side of the road draws my attention.

Time seems to slow down in such a way that I notice every little detail, like the striations in Hael’s beautiful eyes as he starts to turn toward the rustling sound. I see what’s happening first, as Martin Harbin stumbles out of the woods, his brown eyes bloodshot and his hair mussed. He is a man unhinged and broken in unfixable ways.

His wife, Marie, is clutched against his side, bleeding and bruised, with her husband’s hand clamped prohibitively over her mouth. Her eyes—such a sweet and gentle reminder of Hael’s—are wide with fear and terror.

I see the tattoo on Martin’s right arm, the red one that looks like the silhouetted face of a clown. It occurs to me then, in that split-second of time, that he’s been in prison for years. That, sometimes, when people go to prison, they join gangs.

Martin Harbin is white and awful; the Grand Murder Party is a white supremacist gang made up of awful, awful people.

It’s a match.

And we took his wife from him. We humiliated him. We walked away and left him all alone because it was the safest thing to do, the smartest thing to do.

He’s lifting up a weapon and pointing it at Hael like his son is the only thing left in the known universe, and then his finger is tensing on the trigger, and even though I know Victor would tell me to stand down, I don’t.

I’m already moving before I can even consider the consequences. Because there is no consequence greater than losing one of my boys, of seeing them hurt and bleeding and dying. That’s something that my soul can’t bear. So, regardless of what my actions mean, I take them because there’s no alternative for me.

I’m sprinting forward now, running so fast that the air seems to stream past me like water, flowing across my cheeks and tangling in my hair. If there was more time, I could probably shoot Martin while still being careful not to hit Marie, attached to his side and wrapped in his arm as she is. But that’s not how life works.

You can plan and estimate and figure and calculate all you want, but sometimes random events occur that can change the trajectory of the entire world. This is one of those things.

Martin is Hael’s father, so he was able to get a pass to come on campus today. Also, he’s in the GMP, so he knows about Havoc and all the things we do and the vendetta with his boss. He’s angry and he’s desperate and he’s violent, and so when he pulls the trigger to shoot his son, I’m right there in the path of that bullet like I was born to stand in that one place, to fall into line even as Hael lets out a roar of rage, even as he tries with valiant effort to fire his own gun at his father in a preemptive strike.

The thing is, it’s too late.

The sound of Martin’s gun going off is like a car backfiring, but the pain … the pain is indescribable. It’s like being impaled by a hot iron, one that sears and cooks the flesh as it goes in. I’m still standing, adrenaline flooding me and keeping me on my feet for a moment as Hael’s muscled body explodes into violent action.

There’s another gunshot and another and another. It feels like those shots, this pain, are occurring over hours, like time is passing slow and sticky like molasses. In reality, I’m pretty sure Martin’s shots are continuous and near instantaneous, so quick that Hael unloads his own gun into his father before charging the man’s sagging form and managing to tackle him before he even hits the ground.

In a fit of dark rage and tumultuous despair, Hael whips out the hunting knife from his ankle sheath—similar to the one Maxwell Barrasso is wearing, though I don’t know that at the time. All I know is that everything comes full circle, everything recycles, everything repeats and patterns and mimics. And even though I can’t see it, I think of that scar on Hael’s arm, the one that stretches from shoulder to fingertip.

The one that his father gave him.

So it seems appropriate that Hael would take that knife and that he would plunge it straight down into his father’s chest. There’s so much blood; it looks like Hael is being bathed in it. He stabs his dad again. Again. Again. As many times as Martin shot me, that’s how many times Hael stabs him.

Oh, he finally got him, I think, and that’s when I realize that something is really and truly wrong. That’s when I look down and I see all the blood, and I think briefly about that blood running down my thighs. I think of it running when I was on my period and Oscar fucked me. I think about it running when I had the miscarriage and the boys crowded around me in the bathroom. I think about the blood at the high school and the crown on my head and the time when Kali stabbed me. Every significant moment in my life is slathered in blood. Drenched. Soaked. Consumed by it.

I’m supposed to be running now, but I’m not. I’ve stopped moving even though I’m still telling my body to run, and it’s frustrating as fuck because I can’t get close to Hael to throw my arms around him, to bring him close and hold him tight.

There’s a lot of blood when I fall, when my knees hit the floor and it’s so red and everything is wet … My breath comes in strange, gasping chokes as I fall forward, palms hitting the ground. But my elbows won’t hold me up, and I end up collapsing, face-first. I have just enough energy to turn my face to the side, so that I can see Hael. Mine. Always mine. My Havoc Boys.

His mother is crawling over to me now, weeping and shaking and murmuring in French. She continues to whisper to me as she turns me onto my back, drawing my head into her lap.