You’d be surprised what a little personal growth can do for you.

Like I said, educated monster. Knowledge is truly motherfucking power.

This guy, Russ, though, he’s an enforcer. His job is to keep gang members in line, deal with rivals, and dispose of informants. He knows what he’s doing, too. So, he crosses his ankles together beneath my knees to hold me in place, and then backhands me with an easy, fluid movement that has me tasting blood.

I’m so dizzy there for a minute that I can feel it, her name perched on the edge of my lips. Bernadette. I would quite literally murder the world for her. Acting on instinct, I bend my leg at the knee and use my heavy boot to kick down at Russ’ crossed ankles. He grunts, but he’s wearing leather boots as well, so I don’t quite get to break his ankle the way I planned on.

Another kick and I’ve at least got his legs uncrossed. My back arches like I’m possessed, and in the back of my head, I can hear the taunting murmur of children playing London Bridge. The London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down …

I flip Russ over with the movement, but he’s still got his legs wrapped around me. Using both fists, I smash them down into his face. Bone shifts, blood runs. He slips a knife from his belt and thrusts it hard and quick toward my midsection.

Tatted fingers wrap his wrist, the letters of HAVOC inked into my knuckles. With my other hand, I snatch the knife and spin it until it’s pointing down at his neck.

“Will!” Russ shouts, and that’s the only warning I get before I feel a breeze at my back. There’s another one. Somebody sent the cavalry after us, didn’t they? I can’t, for the life of me, imagine why. But politicking isn’t my forte. I’d much rather make people bleed.

My body falls to the side just as Will—another name I recognize from crew intel—hops down from the roof. He doesn’t shoot at me because he’d just as likely kill Russ. Interesting. A bit of loyalty.

I swipe my hand across my bloodied lips and smile.

“I’m impressed,” I say as I retrieve my pistol with my right hand and stand up. “I wasn’t certain there was any loyalty left among thieves.” Except for Havoc, of course. Blood in, blood out. Always.

“This kid is fucking nuts,” Russ says, choking on blood and snorting as it pours from his nose in two crimson rivulets. “Blow his fucking brains out.”

Will—a man just as ordinary as his buddy—removes an assault rifle from over his shoulder.

Too bad he doesn’t know all the things I do.

A gunshot takes him between the eyes as Oscar fires a round from the roof. I tilt my head back so I can stare at him upside down. He adjusts his aim and shoots at Russ, but when I drop my chin to look, I find the man halfway down the alley already.

“Victor’s got Bernadette, and the fucking VGTF is here.”

Ahh. A smile lights up my mouth. Victor. I trust our leader with Bernadette. A strange sort of calm settles over me, soothing some of that exquisite ache in my blood that screams at me to find Bernie, hold her, fuck her. Wetting my lips, I exhale and let those emotions go—for now. There’ll be plenty of time later for finding and holding and fucking, but in this moment, all I need is the violence.

I turn around to look up at Oscar, finding the white parts of his suit speckled with blood. Doesn’t show as much on the black. Isn’t that nice? That there’s a color you can wear that helps hide the bloodstains.

“Roger that, O.”

Oscar pauses and turns his head sharply, gritting his teeth in response to something. And then he’s gone, and the sound of bootsteps behind me is drawing my attention around. Three men come around the corner, pausing when they see me standing there, dressed in a hoodie and shorts and bleeding from the throat.

I can’t beat them all, not like this. My head is whirling and swimming, but I keep my mind focused through sheer force of will. Turning on my heel, I take off after Russ. I’m faster than the men chasing me, and that’s my only advantage right now.

Cupping one hand against my mouth, I let out a howl. A lone wolf in need of a pack.

As I round the corner behind the school, another gunshot drops one of the men pursuing me.

Oscar, again.

I keep after Russ. He’s the type of person that, once he gets your scent, never stops coming. If he’s here now, it’s because the GMP has decided that even a taste of Victor’s inheritance isn’t enough to put up with the risk that is inherently Havoc.

The enforcer pounds the pavement hard, leaving a trail of blood behind him, and then disappears into an abandoned apartment building three blocks down. Not surprising. We are deep in the heart of south Prescott here. I can practically hear its heartbeat, one-part dereliction and one-part unshakeable courage.

I wet my lips and slip around the back of the brick building, weaving my way through a sheet of ivy to climb into a first story window. Two of the men are still behind me, cursing as they struggle with the foliage.

While I wait for them to catch up, I creep through the shadows the way I taught Bernadette. Move with purpose, but don’t rush it. Be unpredictable. Never assume you’re safe, not even buried in the dark.

“Those little punks killed Will,” a voice is saying, the words echoing from upstairs. The speaker pauses briefly and curses. “He’s in the building with us.”

“Is he?” another voice replies, one that makes my jaw clench and my skin prickle. There are different sorts of monsters. I’ve always found the ones who use sexuality as a weapon to be the worst. Perversion is a terrible, terrible sin.

Who could that be, Callum? I wonder, making my body as small as possible so that I can crawl into the open door of an old sideboard. Carefully, I pull the door closed and then aim my weapon through the crack, waiting. I’m good at that, the waiting part.

It’s what makes me so fucking dangerous.

Rabid dogs that bite too quick are put down.

Two men come down the stairs, the weak light from inside the building doing little to illuminate their features. One of them is clearly Russ. I can tell by the metallic stink of him. The other … I’m hoping that the wild guess forming in my mind is wrong.

Maxwell Barrasso wouldn’t send his second-in-command to a high school, right?

I mean, if we weren’t so purely and honestly Havoc, then the forces the GMP marched through the doors of Prescott High would’ve been mad overkill. I wet my lips again, squinting to see if I can’t line up a shot.

“Well, where the fuck is he?” Russ asks when the two men that were chasing me finally make their way into the room.

“He came in through the kitchen window,” one of them says, and I notice Russ’ eyes immediately begin a scan of the room. It’s unlikely a man of my size would choose a place like this to hide, but they’ll check here. Not yet, maybe, but soon. “No fucking clue where he is now, but Kody is dead.”

“This the blond kid we’re talking about?”

That voice … One of our girls said that when she heard Maxwell’s second, Mason Miller, speak for the first time, that she felt like she’d already lost. She said that when she got home, she took a scalding shower and cried as if she’d been assaulted.

And Prescott girls … they don’t say that sort of shit lightly.