“Neil is dead,” Kali repeats, like it hasn’t quite hit her yet. Maybe she really did love him? Monsters can love other monsters. I know that because I am one, and I love as fiercely and deeply as the earth. “He’s dead and you killed him.”

I shove up to my feet, throwing the bit of broken headstone and hitting Kali with it. The gun goes off anyway, but it misses me by several feet as I make the split-second decision to leave my knife and charge her. If she keeps the gun, it’s over. That’s it. No more Bernadette Savannah Blackbird. No more Havoc Girl.

The boys might never be the same again. I don’t hold a ton of credit to my own worth, but … I think that they might.

Our bodies collide, and I manage to get the gun, putting it up to her forehead and staring down at her. This time, I don’t hesitate. I won’t, not anymore.

The barrel of the gun rests against Kali’s pale skin.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, because I am.

And then I pull the trigger.

But nothing happens.

With a scream, Kali takes advantage of my surprise and my blood loss to shove me off of her. I’m cold now, and shaking. Fuck, I’ll probably need a blood transfusion the way Aaron did, on a school nurse’s couch during the witching hour.

Kali dances away as I sit in the grass, panting, my hand on my side, trying and failing to stop anymore of that awful bleeding.

“You’re not so clever as you think, bitch.” Kali moves over to something in the grass. It’s too dark for me to have seen it, but she seems to know exactly what she’s looking for. I watch in horror as she turns and, bathed once again in moonlight, slams the magazine back into the pistol. Fuck. That was a clever, move, I have to admit. “Goodnight, Bernadette,” she tells me, lifting the weapon up and putting her finger on the trigger.

I see her hand flex and tense as she goes to pull it, and I close my eyes at the sound of a gunshot. We’re out in the open now, so the boom rings sharp and clear, scaring away a murder of crows that were nesting in the trees.

When nothing happens, no sharp slice of fire and pain, no flood of darkness, I open my eyes and find Kali on her knees. She doesn’t stay there for long, shaking and bleeding and staring down at her chest like she’s as unsure as I am as to where that shot just came from.

“Bernadette,” a voice says. The sound is dark with pain, but clear and sharp and oh so familiar that I want to cry.

Aaron. Aaron. It’s fucking Aaron!

I look up as he appears at the break in the stone fence, holding his weapon on Kali but his eyes on me.

I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as that, as Aaron Fadler with blood on his face and hands, a grim frown spread across his full lips. He’s as dark as he is light, the perfect dichotomy. Moonlight streams over him in a silver blanket, making his chestnut hair shine.

“She said that she raped you, that she killed you,” I whisper, hardly recognizing my own voice. Even though the pain of my knife wound is making the world seem small and dark, I can see Aaron as clear as if this were a summer day.

“She tried, but like in everything else, she’s a fuck-up.” Aaron pauses beside Kali as she turns her head to look up at him, gun lost in the grass, a scared and pained expression on her small face. “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance,” he informs her grimly, shaking his head and leveling the weapon on her face. “Before I release you from this misery, I need you to understand something.”

“Please,” Kali whispers. No … more like she stutters. She’s having trouble talking. “I’m not ready to die.”

“Havoc never served you. We thought we could use your request to scare Bernie off, to give her a different, better life. Now, we’re going to give her the best one we know how.” Aaron’s finger tightens on the trigger, the moonlight on his hair making it look like he’s wearing a halo. An avenging angel, my avenging angel.

“Aaron, listen—” Kali starts, but then the sound of a second gunshot startles even the most stubborn of crows into the starry sky, and her body slumps over into the grass.

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence, blood, and gravestones.

“Is she dead?” I choke out, and Aaron fires again. And again. And again. He empties the magazine into Kali’s body and then turns to look at me. And fuck, he’s beautiful. Beautiful, but also … death warmed over. Something is clearly wrong with his right hand.

“She’s dead,” he whispers back, and then he’s stumbling over to me and falling to his knees. We manage to put our foreheads together, both of us shaking, both of us bleeding.

“I had a chance to kill her, and I couldn’t do it,” I whisper, tears coming even though I don’t want them. I’ve barely cried over anything since Pen died. I can’t start now, not when Kali is finally dead and gone.

“You’re my moonlight, Bernadette,” Aaron whispers back, voice ragged and tired and full of a tempering relief. “I live to walk in your light. Don’t ever question that.” He leans forward and captures my lips; even though I’m sure I taste like blood, I kiss him back, pressing my fingers against the back of his neck.

Sparks of pure feeling wind through me, curving like shooting stars inside my heart. Kissing Aaron would be an okay way for my twisted fairy tale to end. If I died right now, right here, then it would be with few regrets. That’s how powerful a kiss is; it speaks in long-dead languages and transcribes the impossible. It’s love, in a simple, single action.

“Well, well,” a deep voice says, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I could live a thousand lives and I’d never forget the sound of that voice. Victor. “Looks like the star-crossed lovers found each other.” He sounds as confident as always, but to me, somebody whose ears are trained to listen to their soul mate’s every nuance, I can tell that he’s freaking out on the inside.

He’s good at pretending, though. They all are. Because people who share their emotions too freely are punished by an unforgiving world.

“You’re in need of a spanking, too,” Hael says, pointing at me as I turn my head to look at him. He’s standing nearby, and his hand is shaking, even if he does his best to control it. “Maybe a dozen of them. Naked. And then we’re having our way with you. Girl, what the fuck?”

I try to smile, but the emotion isn’t in my repertoire, not tonight.

It’s a night of mourning—at least for me it is. And I don’t mean because of Kali.

“You put yourself in reckless danger,” Oscar chastises, and I notice that his glasses are missing. His nose busted. Somebody got into a fight. He glares down at me, a shadow amongst shadows, an enigma worth shining the light on. “You very well could’ve put yourself in an early grave.”

“Back off,” a husky voice whispers from behind me. When I turn, I see Callum crouching on a single fence post, ever the dancer, even as he plays the monster. Who ever said a dark thing with claws couldn’t pirouette? “She’s been through enough tonight. Bernadette, are you bleeding?”

“Oh,” I say as Aaron adjusts his attention from my face to my stomach. He pales, something that’s surprising considering how ashy he already he is. “I am.”