“Frame-off restoration, mad respect,” Hael murmurs as he checks out her date’s car. He knows every student at Prescott with a classic car, and far too many details about their restoration projects. Sometimes, he forgets the person’s name but remembers the make and model of their vehicle. We all ignore him as he rubs his crotch the way Aaron did when it came to my sexual sucking of the ice cream cone.

“Mason’s death will make it even harder to convince any of his lower-level employees to come after us. Factor in James’ death, and the loss of Russ Bauer and Will Market, and there won’t be an asshole in that gang who volunteers for the project.” Victor is still watching me like the loss of that pregnancy is still weighing heavily on his mind. He’s talking business, but he’s thinking personal shit.

“Hey,” I tell him, sliding off the hood and moving over to stand in front of him. He isn’t about to just let me stand there, so he grabs me and yanks me into his lap instead, reminding me of that day he took me to the abandoned jailhouse and told me how much we both needed each other.

“I need a way to let my demons out, and you need a way to confront them.”

Fuck, that was sexy. How did I not just die on the spot? My fingers trace up the rounded curves of his tattooed arms, his sweater discarded so I can better examine the pull of his threadbare cotton shirt across his strong chest. No wonder Ophelia is afraid of her son. She should be. Their beef is far from just professional—it’s extremely personal. When I let myself think about baby Vic suffering under the cruel hands of rich perverts, I start to crack around the edges with the desperate need for violence.

“Hey, what?” he asks, cocking a dark brow. My hands lift up to explore the masculine planes of his face. I use both of my thumbs to trace the beautiful curve of his lower lip. His tongue follows the motion, and my body gives an involuntary shudder.

“Think of the chemical pregnancy as a good thing. Like, it means I can get pregnant.” My mouth twitches a little since pregnancy and kids and shit are like, ten years too soon for me right now. “With my irregular periods, it was sort of a toss-up.”

Vic places his big hands over mine, pressing my fingers into each side of his face. Aaron watches us, but his body is relaxed, his expression soft. We’re settling into this together, into being a family, the way we should’ve been all along. Eight-year-old me should’ve lifted her chin up and stormed across that playground in her yellow rainboots and declared herself the keeper of these unruly boys. But since I can’t exactly go back in time, I’m making up for that now.

“When can we start on that by the way?” Vic asks, and I give a dry laugh. “Trying again, I mean.”

“You’re such a dick,” Aaron murmurs, glancing away toward the diner and the happy chatter from inside. We bounce back quick in Prescott. The shooting is a scar that streaks across the neighborhood, but we’re used to scars here. We live in the shape of scars, ragged lines that never quite heal. “She isn’t ready for a baby.”

“But when she is,” Hael begins, and I glance back in time just to see him flash a signature grin. “Who gets to go first? I think since Victor gets the legal marriage, and Aaron got the V-card—”

I interrupt here just to insert some of my ‘crazy political views’.

“Virginity is an abstract patriarchal social construct that has zero validity and exists for the sole purpose of commoditizing young women but go on, I’ll wait.”

Hael snorts and shakes his head, sitting up and leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees.

“I say it’s between me, Cal, and Oscar.”

“I say,” Cal begins, sitting down on the hood and putting his basket of fries in his lap. “We just fuck bareback and forgo a DNA test. Seems the fairest way to go, in my opinion.”

“You would think up an egalitarian approach to orgies and conception,” Oscar inserts, glancing back at me in just such a way that I wonder if he isn’t interested in a bio kid of his own. Biology means basically nothing to me. If I let myself dwell on it too much, I’d have to consider that Pamela and her broken, twisted DNA were an infection on my soul. That just can’t be true. We’re human, and if being human means anything at all, then it means overcoming the basics of biology by using our brains and our hearts and our spirits. “But I would like a child specifically made of my seed.”

My turn to snort a laugh as I adjust myself from Vic’s lap to the tabletop between him and Aaron, so I can better see all five boys at the same time.

“Just so you all understand that I’m the only one who gets to decide how this goes.” I muse on it for a moment, wondering if I’m really going to have to have like, five kids or something in the future, just to please five alpha dicks. “If you’re all really, really nice to me, I’ll consider your wishes on my thirtieth birthday. Then you can, like, draw straws or some shit.”

“I’m happy to go last or not at all,” Aaron volunteers, looking back at me with his pretty eyes glittering mischievously. He’s being serious, and he’s being nice, but he’s also throwing that niceness in the faces of the other boys to be a dick. Which I like. A lot, actually. “Whatever makes Bernie happiest.”

“Okay, fuck you, Fadler,” Vic says, chucking a stray fry in his direction, but he doesn’t sound totally pissed off about it. His obsidian gaze sweeps Aaron before panning across the other three boys. “Look, I’m not an easy person to get along with.”

“Understatement,” Oscar murmurs, but Vic just narrows his eyes and chooses not to comment.

“Anyway, I acknowledge Hael’s feelings—even if I consider him to be a whiny little bitch.”

“Aww,” Hael says, putting a hand to his heart as Cal chuckles. “I appreciate that, Vicki.”

“Call me Vicki again and see what happens,” Victor challenges, but he’s clearly being playful, and my heart swells like sixty-nine sizes larger. “We’re in this together, alright? I get it. I don’t share Bernadette; Bernadette shares herself. You happy now?”

“You look like you’re in the middle of an enema,” Hael muses, but he’s already smiling. “But you know what? I’ll take it. We’ve got to be solid, going into that fucked-up hellhole they call a prep school. There’s no room for dissent.”

Cal cups his hands around his mouth and howls, taking up the mantle of my little cry Havoc game.

The other boys follow suit and I mimic them, adding my voice to the chorus of sound as it takes over the night. In less than a minute, we’ve got more than three-quarters of the parking lot joining us.

It’s a fitting way to end our time at Prescott High, now isn’t it?

There’s something sinister about the grounds of Oak Valley Preparatory Academy. The last time we were here, to talk to David and Trinity, I felt it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Now that we’re here to stay, dragging bags from our cars and tossing them into a shared pile behind Hael’s Camaro, I know what it is: excess.

“Fuck, I hate this place,” I murmur, putting my hands on my hips as I stare up at the soaring sides of the dormitory. The ornate oak leaf designs around the windows and doors probably speak to some specialized form of architecture, but … we don’t really teach that sort of shit at Prescott High, you know what I mean?