“With good reason, it seems,” I murmur, thinking of that awful moment between life and death, that split-second when Aaron pulled the trigger before Kali. I keep smoking my cigarette, leaning over to tap the ash into the tray on the nightstand. As I do, I grab my phone.

There are plenty of messages for me, but I ignore them all. I don’t give a shit about anyone that isn’t located within these four walls. Instead, I pull up Spotify and start a random playlist. The very first thing that comes on is “WAP” by Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion.

I raise an eyebrow.

“There’s at least one ho in this house,” I murmur, sliding off of Aaron and off the bed. Coincidentally, I stand directly where Kali’s ghost sits, our forms melding into one beautiful monster. The loose boxers finally slide down my hips and hit the floor as I plug my phone in and turn the volume up.

Aaron sits up, getting a cigarette for himself. He snags a bottle of rum from the nightstand, too. Not sure where it came from or how long it’s been there, but who gives a shit? Alcohol is alcohol. He swigs a huge mouthful of it and passes it over, watching as I down several shots worth in a single drink.

“Come back here, Bernadette,” Aaron tells me, reaching out for my hand and pulling me back to the bed. He takes the rum bottle away, setting it aside as he half-covers my body with his, making sure to keep his weight on his forearms so he doesn’t hurt me. I touch my hands to either side of his face, savoring the rough feel of stubble against my palms. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll fuck you into the mattress until you come all over my dick.”

I snort and shove at his chest, but he doesn’t move.

“Go get us something to eat,” I purr, licking the sweat from the edge of his jaw. “I’m starving.” Aaron smiles and sits up, swiping his hand over his face. The way he looks down at me, handcuffs dangling from his wrists, I can tell he meant what he said.

“Stoner,” he murmurs with a smile, the air in the room tainted with a tentative sense of relief. Like, here we are, we survived that.

And yet … I know we’re on the precipice of something much bigger, something much more dangerous.

Evil is evil, but evil with money is … relentless.

Aaron stands up, yanking his sweatpants into place and heading for the door. He leaves it cracked, a finger of light cutting the bed in half and illuminating the pink dragon tattoo on my hip. I stare at it for a minute, sitting up and then turning over to dig in the drawer of the nightstand.

“Bodak Yellow”—also by Cardi B—starts to play, and even though I curl my lip a bit, I let it keep going. I’m more of a metalcore kind of girl. I actually beat up a metalhead bitch last year for telling me that metalcore was nothing more than metal without complexity. Pretty sure I smashed her face into the bathroom sink. That’s sort of my signature move, the head-smashing I mean, not the sink part.

I snort as I drag out a vibrator from the drawer, flicking the switch to make sure the batteries are good. A pleasant buzz takes over my hand as I press my fingers to the tip with a sigh. One orgasm is nice, but two is even better.

While I wait for Aaron, I settle into the mountain of pillows and close my eyes. The vibrator slips between my thighs as I rock my hips against it, imagining that the boys are all in the room with me, just a tangle of hands and mouths and cocks. That’s what I want: all of them at the same time.

If Cardi and Megan aren’t afraid to be whores, maybe I should take some inspiration from “WAP” and just roll with it? Nothing wrong with liking sex anyway. As long as it’s consensual, I don’t see why the rest of the world should give a fuck what I do.

The fingers of my left hand dig into the sheets as I writhe and moan, phantom hands sliding across my heated flesh, slick tongues licking beads of sweat from my tattoos. My legs bend at the knees, my toes curling as that pulsing sensation between my thighs bleeds into the rest of me, a demon of pleasure unfurling in my body.

With a violent groan, I arch my back as the climax takes over my body like a possession, pressing the vibrator into my clit as hard as I can and then collapsing with a shuddering moan.

It takes me about thirty seconds of hard breathing to realize that I’m not the only person in the room. My eyes crack open to the easy flicker of the TV. Apparently, the playlist I chose is all Cardi, all the time. “Money” is playing now as I lift up onto my elbows to get a better view of what’s going on.

All five Havoc Boys are standing at the end of the bed, shirtless and wearing skeleton masks.

A flicker of fear passes through me before I wet my lower lip with my tongue and carefully set the vibrator aside, like any sudden movement might trigger their predatory instincts. My skin is white as fuck, almost glowing in the strange half-light; I can feel them all staring at my nakedness.

“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice steady and even. You wouldn’t think that lying here naked on a bed with five masked men that I would feel safe. But I guess I feel even better than safe because the cockiness in my voice is an eerie mimic of Victor’s even-keeled tone.

“I told you to rest,” Victor says, standing at the head of the group, like always. “Why are you so insistent on disobeying me? Nobody else does.” He gestures at the four men on either side of him. Aaron is on one end, the cuffs still dangling from his wrists, and likely who Vic is referring to right now. He was told to put on a mask and get his ass in here, and he did. “You shouldn’t be fucking anyone, sweetheart.”

I grit my teeth as Victor leans forward and places a hand on either side of me.

“Call me sweetheart again and watch me get violent.” My voice is dark and gritty, like I’m falling apart on the inside. Put me back together again, it says, begging Vic to do what he does best. He owns me. He clears my numbness. He wakes me up inside.

“I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want. You rebelled and almost got yourself killed. If you think I’m not pissed, it’s only because I know how to control my temper. You would not want to be present if I truly had a blow-up.” He laughs at me and stands up again, the mask he’s wearing one I haven’t seen before. It covers the top half of his face, made of black glitter and brittle bones that might very well be real. “I didn’t want to do this with the stitches still in, but if you’re well-enough to ride dick then you’re well-enough to say sorry for what you did. Turn over and show me your ass, Bernadette.”

I look down the line of men as one of them cocks his head at me. Callum. He studies me from behind his mask, limned in low light and impossible to read. Oscar mirrors his position on Victor’s other side, his chest, arms, and hands so covered with ink that it’s impossible to find even a square inch of bare skin. Hael and Aaron are at the end on either side, one of them sporting cuffs, the other with a bit of danger etched into his smirking smile.

He’s pissed at me, Hael is.

I wet my lips.

My initial reaction is to put up a fight. But why? Victor is right: I fucked up. I chased after Kali and nearly got myself killed. I do deserve to be punished. So why does this feel more like a dark dream come true than a nightmare?

“You were made to be a whore, that’s why,” Kali’s ghost says, and I ignore her. At least the weed didn’t make her apparition any worse though I was hoping she’d go the fuck away. I can’t be seeing shit; I have to tell somebody about this if it doesn’t stop soon.