I close my eyes.

“Where did you get this number from?” I ask, but then I realize that I already know the answer: off my fucking phone. “Never mind, don’t answer that. It’ll just piss me off.”

“Honey, I need to talk to you for a moment. Are you alone?”

That gives me pause, but I just shrug my shoulders, remember that she can’t see me, and sigh again. “Close enough. What’s up?”

“Well, the hospital just called your cell.”

I stare at the wall above the phone where an old painting sits. It’s a wolf, painted by Aaron’s mom back in high school. I’d wonder why it was still hanging here if I didn’t understand how screwed up mommy issues could be. My mother allowed her husband to rape my sister. How could I ever forget that? Why don’t I just want her dead and fucking gone?

“Okay,” I say, because I have no idea where this is going. “And?”

“They’d like you to call them back. It sounds urgent. Do you want to write their number down?” I just narrow my eyes slightly. I don’t like the direction of this conversation. Immediately I’m thinking internal bleeding or some shit. I let them draw my blood when I was there, do some tests. Maybe a result came back that isn’t good? At least if I call them back now, maybe I’ll understand why I feel like such shit at the moment.

“I have Google, but thanks for letting me know. I’ll call them.” I hang up and turn back to the table, grabbing Aaron’s laptop off the edge of the couch arm on the way.

“What’s up?” Vic asks, but I just shake my head.

“I need to call the hospital real quick,” I say, and he gives me a dark look. “I have no idea what for. That was Sara Young; she said they called my phone, so I’m calling them. Chill out.”

My stomach clenches again, and I let out a long, low breath, putting my hand across my belly. Period cramps plus body aches from being beaten on the front lawn of my school. Fucking ouch.

I sit down at the table with the cordless phone receiver, flip open the laptop, and search for Joseph General.

“The hospital,” Aaron says, taking the seat across from mine. He moves gingerly, like maybe he got the crap beat out of him, too? He’s still wearing the medical boot which makes his survival during the shooting even more miraculous. If I’d had a broken fibula and a medical boot, I might not’ve been able to make it out alive. “What could they possibly be calling about?”

I shrug my shoulders, trying to play it off as nothing.

“Probably after me to pay the bill since I don’t have insurance.” I smile tightly because jokes about our fucked-up for-profit healthcare system aren’t really all that funny (it’s actually entirely probable that that’s why the hospital called) and then dial the number.

Hael sits beside me, Oscar across from him, while Vic takes the head of the table. They eat pizza and share the two-liters of soda around, not bothering to get a glass. Well, Oscar gets a glass. Nobody else does. And, shocker of all shocks, he actually eats.

I just stare at him as the phone rings and rings, offering me one useless menu after another.

“What?” he asks finally, setting the crust down on his plate—also the only boy to use a plate by the way. “See something you like?”

“You,” I say succinctly, and that shuts him the fuck up. I avert my gaze back to the pizza boxes and try not to let that itchy feeling beneath my skin take over. Callum was alive as of six hours ago. Alive enough to get up and leave that basement. Alive enough to consider not leaving a trail.

That’s something, right? Because … “Hope is the thing with feathers,” I breathe aloud, not meaning to quote Emily Dickinson but doing it anyway. Because, deep down, in my heart of hearts, I am a poet and not a killer.

“That perches in the soul,” Oscar continues for me, picking up his pizza crust and finishing it as I try to fight back a weary smile.

“Fuck, you two are weird sometimes,” Hael murmurs, but not like he dislikes our weirdness. No, quite the contrary. As much as he and Oscar squabble, I know they love each other in that strange, obsessive sort of way that the rest of us do. Havoc’s way. Poison and possession, delivered down the throat in a dose as smooth as cognac.

Finally, after a half-dozen department transfers, I get someone at the hospital. She looks my name up, transfers me, and then I’m finally on the phone with the doctor.

“Hello Bernadette, how are you?” she asks, but I’m officially done with peopling today, so I barely grunt in acknowledgement.

“Fine. What’s going on?” I ask, listening as the woman shuffles around on the other end of the line.

“I just wanted to let you know that we got your blood results back. Bernadette, you’re pregnant.” The doctor pauses a moment before continuing, saying something about the injuries I received today, how a hard blow to the belly can cause miscarriage in early pregnancy.

I hang up the phone on her.

When I set the receiver down, I see that my knuckles are as white as virgin snow.

I choke out a laugh and stand up, my chair scraping across the floor with a loud sound.

“Everything okay?” Vic asks, like he’s a fucking mind reader. Frankly, I wouldn’t put that skill past him. He very well might be able to. I hardly know what to say, so I just stare at the wolf painting for a moment. It’s in mid-howl which is funny, considering the whole Cry Havoc trend I started.

I bite my lower lip.

Another cramp makes me close my eyes and clench my hands into fists.

Shit.

No, no, this is a situation for the word fuck. I don’t care if I’ve used it a hundred and sixty times today. There are just certain times in life when that word is the only appropriate thing to say.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Motherfucker, cocksucking, son of a bitch!

“Excuse me,” I say, heading for the stairs and pounding up them as fast as I can. I shove my way into the bathroom and then kick the door closed behind me, putting my hands on the counter and letting my head hang down.

The pills that Oscar got me, they were real. I’ve been taking them like I’m supposed to. Maybe not at the same time every day, but every day, nonetheless. This is bullshit. This is complete and utter bullshit is what this is.

Oh, come on, you know that birth control pills are only ninety-nine percent effective. That means that out of every hundred people, somebody gets knocked up. And not taking them at the same time each day … that makes the percentage of failure even higher.

I lift my gaze to my reflection and stare at myself for a minute.

If I was pregnant when I stepped into the halls of Prescott High yesterday, I’m not anymore. I just know it. I know it because I’m bleeding again and there’s red all down my thighs. My belly cramps as if in response to that thought.

A soft knock at the door makes me jump just before Aaron cracks it open to peer in at me.

“You okay, Bernie?” he asks, and the genuine concern in his voice stabs me right through the heart. He looks down at the floor beneath my feet, spattered with red. He lifts those gold-green eyes up to mine as I clench my jaw against the rush of feeling that spirals through me. Am I relieved? Pissed-off? Am I upset? All of those things?

“I think …” I start, but the words just don’t seem to want to come out. Aaron slips in the door and closes it behind him, leaning against it with his massive body. When did he get so big? When did he outgrow that gangly teenage form and get muscles in his upper arms like that?