“What the fuck?” Hael growls, but I’m already throwing open my door and taking off after the shimmer I just saw. Kali’s purse. What else would shine gold in the woods like that? Of course, more than likely it’s just a teenage couple, wandered too far from the party to fuck.

“Bernadette!” Hael shouts, catching up to me at the edge of the trees. His fingers wrap my bicep and yank me back.

“Hael, stop!” I shout at him, something breaking inside of me. I wrench my arm from his grip, and he lets me. If he hadn’t, I doubt I’d have gotten anywhere. There must be something in my voice though, some shard, as sharp as glass and ready to cut.

“Vic’s orders were pretty clear, babe,” he tells me, looking defeated but resigned. “Please get back in the car.”

“That was Kali’s purse,” I hiss at him, pointing my finger into the darkness of the woods. The way he looks at me, I wonder if I’m not starting to lose it. “She says she knows where Aaron is. She says she …” I can’t make my lips form the words, so I don’t bother. “If she’s here, I need to find her.”

“Bernie, don’t make me pick you up and carry you back to the car,” Hael warns me, but then his gaze sharpens and lifts up to look over my shoulder. When he grabs me and yanks me against his chest, turning and slamming his back into the trunk of a tree, I don’t resist. Clearly, he sees something I don’t.

The dirt in front of us explodes, like a shot’s been fired, but the sound is muffled and strange. A silencer, with subsonic ammo. That’s what makes it real quiet, according to the guys. I’m learning all sorts of fun things, being a part of Havoc.

“Motherfucker,” Hael grumbles, scooting me to the side so he can bend down and retrieve his own gun from his ankle holster. “Bernie, Vic is going to turn your ass red for this.”

Hael stands up and waits, counting breaths before turning around the side of the tree trunk and taking a single shot. It’s loud, like a car backfiring, but I don’t bother plugging my ears. Instead, I join Hael, putting my shoulder up against his as he takes another shot. There’s a man on the ground about three yards away. It’s hard to make out much detail in the dark, but one of his boots is caught in the headlights of the Aston Martin.

Pulling out his phone, Hael turns the flashlight on and walks over to the man, kicking at him with his own boot.

The guy doesn’t move.

“Jesus Christ,” he grumbles as my phone vibrates, and I realize I’ve forgotten to call Vic.

Yep, most definitely getting my ass beat for this later.

“Do you have an allergy to following orders?” he snaps at me when I answer, but then I hear a rustling in the darkness that has my heart thumping like crazy. “Where are you?” I hand the phone to Hael and he takes it with a grim expression on his face.

“We’re in the woods,” he says, and that’s when I see my chance. The Havoc Boys are so fucking good at what they do, it can be annoying sometimes. I take off into the trees with the pistol in my hands as Hael shouts at me, cursing as he follows along behind me. He’s fast too, probably faster than I am, but then I’m ducking low and scrambling under a hole in the chain-link fence, the one that denotes the logging company’s property line. “Bernadette!” Hael snarls at me, starting to climb the fence.

The flashlight of his phone bobs around, illuminating the darkness, but I don’t need it.

Instead, I find myself in a dark playground filled with old, wooden play equipment. It looks nothing at all like a modern playground. In fact, if I didn’t know that was what it was supposed to be, I may have never even guessed.

I might be barking up the wrong tree here. Maybe Kali isn’t in the woods at all, and the gold flash I saw had something to do with the guy Hael just killed. Or even if I did see her, maybe she’s on the other side of the fence still. Regardless, I keep going, creeping underneath a massive slide held up by four rustic posts. Well, really, they’re pretty much just tree trunks, cut and stuck here for long-ago children to play on.

“Kali,” I call out as I hear Hael cursing behind me. If he catches me, I’m in trouble. He’ll throw me over his shoulder as promised, and I’ll end up in the passenger seat of the borrowed Aston Martin. “I know you’re out here.”

I creep forward, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. There’s a sound not too far off, and I decide to follow it, jogging lightly across the packed dirt area toward a short fence made of river rocks and mortar. There’s a break in the solid stone structure, likely where a gate once stood, that I use to slip past. On the other side is a pioneer cemetery. Pretty fucking creepy, to put a playground right next to a graveyard.

Just seeing the old headstones triggers me a bit, and my pulse begins to race against my will, remembering the Thing, chasing me while I stumbled around Penelope’s final resting place in handcuffs.

Still, it would be poetic justice if I got Kali here, wouldn’t it?

“Bernadette!” Hael shouts, using his phone’s flashlight to illuminate the darkness. It only lasts a second and then it’s gone. My heart races, knowing that he won’t leave me out here. Not a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.

Almost immediately, an arm wraps around my neck and Hael’s hot hand flattens across my lips, keeping my gasp of surprise from escaping.

“Not a word,” he growls, dragging me backward and underneath the rickety platform that holds the metal slide. It’s much higher than a modern-day slide; just the sight of it would give most parents the chills nowadays. “We’re being hunted,” he huffs, and then, after a moment, “and you’re an asshole.”

And it’s true.

I am.

“Bernadette.” I hear my name being called from the shadows of the trees and my blood runs cold. It’s fucking Kali. She must know that there’s no hope for her, not anymore. She must know that she’s going to die.

My hands tighten into fists as Hael releases his hold on my mouth. He doesn’t, however, release the arm around my neck. With good reason, too. He must feel the way I’m trembling, must sense the violence in my veins. It percolates through me, a feud in need of an abrupt ending, a destiny begging to be shrouded in blood.

Kali Rose has lost. It’s over. I just need to go in for the killing blow; I just need to finish it.

“Bernie,” she coos again, but Hael keeps me close against him. I can hear his heart thundering like crazy behind me, but as we wait there in the dark and the cold, the distant edge of metal music making its way to us, he slows his breathing until it seems like he’s holding it. But no, Hael’s just a predator lying in wait. “I gotta say, I can understand why you forgave Aaron.” A pause. She sounds a bit louder now, like she’s moving closer. “Why you took him back. That cock is legendary.” Her laugh echoes through the trees, and I decide then that she’s much worse than I even imagined.

A liar, a cheater, a thief, yes. But a sociopath? That’s a new one. Good work, Kali, you managed to surprise even me, and I’m not so easily surprised. The one female rapist in the entire county and I managed to get on her bad side.

I grit my teeth so hard that my jaw aches.

“Keep it together, Blackbird,” Hael murmurs against my ear, stoking the fire burning in my belly. The beast inside of me writhes, mixed up in a dark space between love and hate. I love Hael. I hate Kali. The intensity levels are hard to separate. I feel both violent and horny at the same time.