“Let’s do this,” he purrs, licking up the side of my neck and making me shiver.

Oscar rolls his eyes, but he isn’t actually upset. He just likes to quip and pick and needle because it’s how he survived for so many years.

“Miss me?” I ask as he adjusts his glasses on his perfect nose, as I take in the ink crawling up his neck and over his hands. The way he looks at me, with eyes the color of gravestones and fog and full moons edged in starlight, tells me all that I need to know. He does. He did. He’s as obsessive as I am, as any of the other boys are.

“Of course not. Why on earth would you think that?” he quips as I grin at him and give him a hug anyway, breathing in that distinctive cinnamon scent of his. His hair is still black, he still dyes it, and that’s okay. He can manifest his pain in whatever way suits him best.

“I saved you a seat,” Cal says, perching on one of the swivel chairs behind the counter. The tattoo artist looks on, unamused but also unable to say a goddamn thing. Because we’re still Havoc. And there’s still one gang you don’t want to piss off in the city of Springfield.

“I see that,” I say as he stands up and then hops over the back of the chair as easily as anything, moving over to embrace me in a sweet-smelling cotton and Tide scented hug. He still smells like talc and aftershave, and he still teaches dance in a big, beautiful studio in the southside that never charges a dime. His eyes are still blue and endless and perfect, and his mouth is still that of a fallen prince’s. His hair is still gold and reminiscent of sunshine. “Thank you for that. Because, you know, if I hadn’t gotten here soon enough, it’d have been taken.”

We pull apart with a bit of reluctance as I look up at Hael.

Hael, with the bloodred hair who still wears it in a fauxhawk, who still has a scar on his arm from a dad that didn’t love him enough, who still blames himself for what happened to me and sometimes wakes up with nightmares that I soothe away with the sweetness of my cunt.

We are a family, but we’re still broken in some ways. And that’s okay. Nobody expected us to heal into perfect model citizens overnight. Or in five years. Or, like, ever.

“Blackbird,” he says, indicating the chair with his hand, like he’s performing yet another chivalrous act. An act like, say, fixing our cars after that shootout so that I can still drive around in a Cadillac with the top down and my red-dipped hair tousled by the wind. This boy, he smells like coconut oil and grease, and he still plays with vintage cars. He just does most of that work in the five-car garage that Victor built beside the old house. “Your throne awaits.”

I sit down and somebody—maybe Vic—puts that stupid ass crown back on my head.

It’s mostly symbolic, mostly just for fun.

Oscar kneels down on the floor beside me so that he can watch. He can watch as the tattoo artist cleans the left side of my neck and transfers the design we’ve been working on for weeks right there, beneath my ear.

Five names.

Not just letters.

But names.

“Necks hurt,” Oscar tells me, his eyes half-lidded and protective. “Horrendously so.”

Our hands curl together, and I close my eyes as I think about all the hiccups and potholes and bumps in the road we’ve been through in the last half a decade. He still gets scared sometimes, still brings me to the tattoo or piercing parlor, so that he can feel that sharp slice of pain and remind himself that physical pain is never as bad as emotional. Never. And also, that it’s okay to hurt and bleed and maybe even cry, although he never does.

The boys sit with me while I get my tattoo, and then they each get their own (even Aaron who already has Bernadette etched into his flesh).

My name, their skin.

All of us marked, drawn together with blood and ink and bullshit.

Then, even though we’re hurting a bit, we go out. We party. We drink. We dance.

We go home together, and that’s the best twenty-third birthday present I ever could’ve asked for.

Ten years later …

“Stop it, Bernie,” Heather snaps at me, slapping at my hands. I’ve got a cigarette hanging from my lips as I desperately try to fix a stray strand of hair that’s clinging to her forehead. She looks beautiful—of course she does because I’m a Prescott bitch through and through and I know just how to do makeup—but she keeps fussing like she’s second-guessing herself. “My date will be here soon.”

“Do you know how relieved I am that you’re bisexual?” I ask, because when I found out Heather was going to her senior prom with a girl, I was elated. Nobody knows how tricky boys can be better than I do. I have five of them, after all.

“You’ve mentioned it, and it’s weird, so please stop, okay?” she asks, pushing me back and sliding her hands down the front of her dress. “Do you really think a boy would try anything with me anyway?” She gives me a look that isn’t hard to interpret.

Nah, there are three kids you don’t mess with at Fuller High.

Not unless you want them to destroy you.

Some weird, stupid part of me almost wanted Heather to go to Prescott—especially with Ms. Keating as the principal. Things are different there now. Shit, all of Prescott is different. All of Springfield is different.

There will always be an underground; there will always be blood to shed; Havoc will always run it.

Turns out though: there’s something called a happy middle ground for most things. For us, it was Fuller High.

Oak Valley is too elite; the wealthy are grotesque and obscene.

Prescott High is too sad; the building and the learning tools might be new, but the students are still the same old rachet southside folks they’ve always been.

Fuller High seems okay, though. And, as Heather stares back at me from matching green eyes, I find myself smiling. Sometimes, when I walk into a room and the sunlight is just right and the air is perfumed with that lemony body spray that Heather loves because Penelope loved it, too … I see my older sister in my younger one. My breath catches and I’m so fucking certain that Pen’s come back to life that tears spring to my eyes, and my chest tightens, and my heart thunders.

It’s never a disappointment though when I realize that Heather is Heather and Penelope is gone, because I’m proud of who my little sister is becoming. I’m proud of myself, too, for raising her and loving her and giving her the life that she deserves.

“Do you think it’s possible that I could just, like sneak out of here and not tell the boys I’m leaving?” Heather’s gaze darts toward the staircase behind me like she’s worried Callum might be crouching there and watching. He’s done worse things to her dates. This one time, when she tried to date some douchebag from Oak Valley, the guy climbed out of his car to find Cal already perched on the roof.

Suffice it to say he never made it up to the front door to knock. Heather was pissed at first but later she admitted to me that if a guy isn’t strong enough to face off against Havoc for her then they aren’t worthy of her love and affection.

Goddamn it, but I love this kid.

“Do you think it’s possible that pigs can fucking fly?” Aaron asks, appearing in the direction of the parlor. It’s beautiful now, papered with textured wallpaper that I picked out and applied myself because even with Ruby’s money now safely in Victor’s hands where it was always meant to be, I don’t like paying people to do things for me. And even if putting the wallpaper up was a pain in the ass, it was worth it because every time I look at it, my chest swells with pride and I remember that with a little gumption and a whole lot of determination, you can do anything you put your mind to.