Oscar, on the other hand, is glaring at me like he wishes he had his hands around my throat again. Not sure I can play that game again after tonight, but we’ll see. He’s got on a different pair of glasses, white ones this time. They make him twice as terrifying as he was before. Not sure how, but there’s something about that careful civility that makes me shiver.

I swipe at my face with the edge of the hoodie’s sleeve.

Any other girl, standing in the dark like this, with these three men, would be terrified. I’m the only person in the universe that’d be delighted, surrounded by predators like these.

“Let’s go home,” I say, hands twisting in the hoodie fabric as my nerves start to get the better of me. When I let Kali go, I risked Heather’s life and happiness. I mean, the boys would’ve taken care of her, but losing Pen was bad enough; my baby sister doesn’t need to lose another sibling.

“Let’s,” Oscar hisses, like he may very well slap me later. “Do you mind if I drive? I’d rather not sit next to Bernadette.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Vic groans, rubbing his hand over his face. I’m too tired to deal with Oscar’s bullshit, so I just flip him the bird as he glares down at me.

“I’ll sit next to her,” Cal suggests mildly, hands tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie. He’s anything but mild, however. When I look at him, I can easily translate that inane phrase into: I will sit next to Bernadette.

“So be it,” Victor replies, his jaw tight as he licks the corner of his mouth. It kills him to make that concession, but he does it. The way he looks at me, though, I feel as if his decision to sit in the front passenger seat has more to do with himself than it does Callum. Maybe he can’t resist touching me? I’m sure having trouble keeping my hands to myself.

They slide up Cal’s chest and curl over his shoulders. He lets me do it, keeping his own hands to himself. His eyes shimmer though, like he’d much rather pull me into his lap.

“Do you feel any different?” he asks me, redirecting my groping fingers so that they’re woven with his, curved together and trembling. Callum levels his dark stare on me, his hoodie draped over my shoulders, so he can’t bury himself inside of it like he usually does. His blonde hair shimmers as we pass under orange streetlights, but his eyes are dark as pits. “Now that Kali’s dead, I mean.”

“I couldn’t kill her,” I admit, because I’m not sure if Aaron relayed that information or not. Oscar stiffens up in the driver’s seat, and I glance briefly at the back of his head. When he pauses at a stoplight, he very slowly turns his long neck to look at me. The red of the stoplight bathes his face in blood. “My hands were wrapped around her throat; she was going still. She …” I trail off, biting my thumbnail and tasting blood underneath. I can’t decide if it’s mine or not, but I suck it off anyway, feeling a bit like a vampire.

The sun ducks its hideous cloud-covered head below the horizon, but I ignore it. It isn’t time for sunlight anymore, thank fuck. I feel like if its yellow light were to touch my ashen skin right now, that I’d burst into flames.

Callum cups the side of my face, and I look back at him.

“You don’t have to be ashamed that you couldn’t take someone’s life; that’s a virtue.” Cal releases me as I suck in a sharp inhale of breath, finding his sweet, soapy scent marred with the grit of tobacco. I like it though, so I scoot a little closer. Callum stares at someone—Oscar, based on the direction of his gaze—and holds it for some time.

The light turns green, and off we go.

That night, I sleep in Aaron’s bed. I just have to, because that’s where I was last sleeping when he was missing. Now that I know where he is, I’ll wait here for him to come back.

In the morning, I find Hael singing Valerie Broussard in the kitchen. He even sways back and forth as he does it, flipping pancakes in a stainless-steel pan. They don’t even stick when he flips them without a spatula, just the motion of his hand against the pan’s handle.

“Where is Aaron?” I ask, because I’d thought he might climb into bed with me when he got back.

“Outside with Vic,” Hael says, looking me over appreciatively. I’m wearing one of Aaron’s t-shirts and his boxers which are already sagging down around my hips. I don’t need any fucking fabric touching my stitches, and I also really don’t need Heather to see my wounds and start asking questions. “Giving him the rundown on what happened, I think.”

Hael bites his lower lip and looks up at me, brown eyes mirthful and open. It’s all bullshit, that expression. There’s so much more going on behind that pretty face than he wants to admit. He pretends like life is just one, big joke, a party with sex and drugs and alcohol. In reality, he hates it. And himself, probably. I remember what he said, about wanting to be a superhero.

I gingerly lower myself onto one of the stools with a groan, putting my elbows on the counter and my head in my hands. Not only is my side killing me, but I’ve got a fucking migraine from the bullet that grazed my skull. Ding dong, the bitch is dead. So why don’t I feel more excited about that prospect?

Oh, right. Because I’m an adult—have been for years—and have to think about the consequences to everything.

“Like how you told yourself all night that you were dreaming of bloodshed, and then bitched out at the last second? You are pathetic, Bernadette.” Kali’s ghost is still there, at the edge of my vision, a flickering hallucination sent to torment me from beyond the grave.

“Kali …?” I start and Hael barks out a sharp laugh.

“Visiting Tom,” he says not-so-cryptically, and then pauses when Oscar comes in the back door.

We stare at each other for a moment.

“We’re attending the gala for Victor’s mother next Sunday,” Oscar says succinctly. “You’ll need a new dress for that.” He pauses and narrows his gray eyes on me. “Seeing as you ruined the other with your disobedience.”

I just stare right back at him, unyielding.

“We’re attending that stupid fucking thing?” I ask, but I knew we were going to. We have to. We’re adjusting the game here. We’re not playing against novices; this is the big league. “You know as well as I do that the cheap piece of shit I wore on Snow Day wouldn’t pass the security booth at a party like that. Stop being a fucking twat and just say it.”

“Say what?” Oscar challenges, cocking a dark brow at me. His nose is slashed across the middle, slightly swollen on the sides, the skin purpled. It makes him disturbing to look at, so perfect in the mouth and eyes, so beautifully destroyed in the nose.

“That you were worried about me, so you’re angry now that I’m alive and okay enough to be angry with.” I tap my nails on the counter. Before I came downstairs, I spent a half hour scrubbing dried blood out from underneath them. Can’t wait to hear about the gang members the boys killed at the party. That should be fun, a gang war—a real gang war. And against a racist, big-time criminal circuit while worrying about biology tests and English papers on the side. We’re just a barrel of laughs over here in south Prescott. “Just admit it and stop making a fool out of yourself.”