My mind shifts from the image of the soaring three-story house and right back toward Pamela again. Like, I hated the bitch. Like, she killed my sister. Also, she’s dead.

She’s dead.

My mother is dead?

And she killed my sister.

My brain fucking hurts when I try to stop and make sense of it. Maybe some things aren’t meant to be parceled and pulled apart and overly examined? Can I just feel sad about it without understanding why? Can I just mourn for the sake of mourning?

“Bernie.”

The soft sound of Aaron’s voice draws me away from a nightmare and into the impenetrable darkness of the countryside. We’re not ten minutes outside of town, and you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face.

What I can see, however, is Aaron. He’s standing beside me with a candle in his hand, the dancing white glow illuminating all the beautifully masculine lines of his face. He smiles at me and hands it over, taking another one off the hood of the car and lighting that, too.

“Let’s go inside?” he suggests, and I nod, listening to the distant rustle of tree branches and the haunting call of an owl from somewhere beyond the small circle of light cast by the Camaro’s headlights. Hael leaves them on while he and the boys gather up our things, carrying them inside the house for me.

Best part of dating five strong dudes: I don’t have to do any heavy lifting. It’s a tad sexist, I know, but I figure after centuries of patriarchal domination, it’s the least they can do for me.

The steps creak as Aaron and I walk up them, using our candles for light. We could use our phones, but that’s boring as fuck, isn’t it? There’s nothing magical about the glowing face of a Samsung or an iPhone. Technology, in its own way, is sort of tragic. I’d much rather exist in the sorcery of candlelight.

I find that the boys have set up our blankets in the parlor, the room immediately to the left of the front door. It’s the same room where I gussied-up for my wedding. This is the same house where two pedophiles died a much kinder death than they deserved.

Already, the boys are spreading the candles around the room and lighting them, turning the place into a witch’s den where I can nestle with all my dark and dangerous thoughts. There’s a sense of ritual to it, which I so very much need right now. Even if I don’t believe in anything spiritual or religious or magical, it never hurts to carry out a ceremony of sorts, something to mark a special occasion.

And—whether good or bad—this is a very special occasion indeed.

Because it means my list is done.

That fucking list I scrawled on the back of an old envelope in Aaron’s now defunct minivan.

It’s in the pocket of my pink leather Havoc jacket, and even though it weighs less than an ounce, it feels like a thousand pounds, like it’s weighing me down and making my knees buckle.

I end up kneeling in the nest of blankets with Aaron by my side. He takes my candle and sets it aside, watching as I strip off my boots and toss them into the corner. It feels like a night to be barefoot, doesn’t it?

Glancing up, I see cobwebs and dust, crumbling plaster, and a ceiling medallion that I already know I’m going to try to save. Poetry might be my artistic medium, but once an artist, always an artist. If you can find beauty in decay, then you’ve just learned what it means to be human. The meaning of life, in so many words.

Love. Art. Compassion. Empathy.

I’m not sure why people act like that’s such a difficult question. The meaning of life is obvious. It’s to fucking live it.

“It’s so creepy in here,” Aaron murmurs, pushing chestnut curls back from his forehead as my heart seizes painfully in my chest. That’s a trigger for me, seeing him touch those goddamn curls. I want to fucking eat them they’re so beautiful. He gives me mad schema.

“You don’t sound like you think that’s entirely a bad thing,” I murmur as Callum crouches beside me, setting the bag of takeout in the center of what’s shaping up to be a circle. Hael sits next to him, then Victor, Oscar, and right back to Aaron. A circle. A sphere. A shape with no beginning and no end.

I reach for the food and find my box of pad Thai sitting on the top.

“A little creepy now and again can be a good thing,” Aaron says, giving Cal a look. For his part, Callum just chuckles and lifts a single shoulder in faux apology.

“I can’t help myself,” he murmurs, passing out white boxes to the other boys until he finds his own food. “It’s just too much fun to scare people—particularly the ones that deserve it.” He steals a plastic fork from the bag and digs in while I study the fireplace behind Victor’s head, the one with the stones tumbling out of it. To fix that, we’re going to need, like, a mason or something—that is, if it’s at all savable.

We eat for a few moments in silence, Hael’s eyes flicking up to me every now and again until he finally sets his food down in his lap and gives me a look.

“You sure this is what you want to be doing right now?” he asks as the candles flicker and jump around us, casting strange shadows on the walls. There’s always a possibility that the GMP could’ve followed us here, that even now, they could be working their way through the woods at the back of the house, out of sight from the two police officers, as they get ready to strike.

But I don’t think so.

Ophelia wants that money. Maxwell probably does want to kill us, but he’ll be careful with his plans. As careful as we’re being. Because if he comes for us again and makes another mistake the way he did at the school, he’ll never live it down. His men won’t trust him. The feds will definitely try for RICO charges—that’s when you get the leader of an organization tried and convicted based on the things his underlings have done.

For now, I feel like we’re relatively safe.

It won’t last, obviously. Nothing this nice ever does. Or at least, it requires sacrifice, and I feel like we haven’t made any big ones just yet.

“This is what I want to be doing,” I confirm, adjusting myself so that I’m situated in a small nest of blankets. If I seem calm, it’s all bullshit. Because I’m not. I’m not calm because Pamela took away my power over her. By killing herself, she’s removed my last chance at reaping justice for Penelope. Now, Pam is dead, and she’s no longer suffering, and the world just keeps on turning, as if it isn’t a tragic loss that the woman never really paid for her crimes.

I poke at my food for a while, glancing up only briefly to make sure that Oscar is eating. He is. He’s been eating a lot more lately, so much so that he’s put on a bit more muscle mass. It ripples in his arms when he dresses in a tank top for bed. It shows in the valleys of his abdominal muscles and the way his dress shirt stretches across his shoulders after he takes off his jacket and loosens his tie.

A ghost of a smile teases my lips before it falls away again.

“Get the whisky,” I command, and it’s Victor who grabs it, unscrewing the top and taking a huge swig before he passes it down the line. When it’s my turn, I drink as much as I can stand, choking at the fiery burn in my throat but loving the way it warms up my cold belly, stealing away just a fraction of that fear and pain. I take a second swallow before handing it over to Cal.

“You’re upset,” Victor says, and it isn’t a question. It’s just a fact and a command, one that demands I spill my feelings out to him because he’s a dark god whose presence won’t allow me to be numb for even a single second.