I just keep staring at the shower wall, so I don’t have to look at Victor’s face.

He stands there for so long that I’m forced to look back. His sheer force of will is astounding; his patience is beyond epic.

“I’m struggling, Vic,” I admit, turning back to him with a frown on my face. If my eyes are filled with sadness, at least I’m not crying. “I thought … I guess I thought I was a badass?” I tilt my head to the side as I ask the question and Victor chuckles, reaching out a hand to run his HAVOC tatted knuckles down my cheek.

“You are a badass, Bernie. Stop trying so hard and you’ll see that. You don’t have to prove anything, not to me or anyone else in Havoc.” He slides his thumb over my mouth and then pulls his arm back, nice and slow and careful, like he’s afraid he might just jump in here and fuck me into the wall.

“I talked a big game, Vic,” I whisper, my hand shaking as I toss the sponge into the bathtub by my feet. “In my head, I was sure I was going to do it. I wanted to taste blood. I wanted it so damn badly. I wanted that crown.” I grit my teeth hard and shake my head, reaching my fingers up to dig in my hair. “And I know I can wear it. I know I can.” I look over at him, his handsome face peaceable and so fucking handsome I want to cry.

“You can, you will,” he tells me, dressed in a black wifebeater and jeans. It could be any other day, couldn’t it? But it’s not. It’s Christmas Day today, not a holiday I usually look forward to.

The reason is that a holiday like this is always a disappointment. Penelope and I, we used to look forward to it so much when my dad was alive. There were presents and big dinners and driving around town to look at Christmas lights.

With Pamela and Neil … I remember one Christmas, when I was ten years old, we had a party at the house. There was no tree, no presents, just coolers full of beer and some haphazard lights tacked to the walls. The only food in the house was for the party, but Pamela wouldn’t let me eat it. I remember sneaking handfuls of chips and then getting so sick that I threw up in the middle of the living room.

All my mother did was laugh at me.

“You’re in your head, Bernie,” Vic warns me, and I look up at him. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Despite what you might think, I want to know. I want to know every fucking thing there is to know about you.”

I stare at him for so long that I’m not even sure if he’s real anymore.

“I hate Pamela,” I tell him, and he nods. Pretty sure he knew that already, but maybe he doesn’t know that the reason I threw the tape dispenser against the wall so hard it broke last night was because I’m sad, too. Underneath all of that vengeance is the pain of a little girl. “I hate Christmas.”

“You’re the one that wanted a tree,” he tells me, but we both know that the tree isn’t for me. It’s for Heather, and Kara, and Ashley. “I hope you like sappy, stupid, sentimental presents because I’m pretty sure they all got you one.” My lips twitch at the irritated edge to his voice. We both know that when he says they all, he’s not talking about the girls. No, he’s talking about my beautifully broken Havoc Boys, himself included, I’m sure. I can’t imagine Victor would let the other guys buy me presents if he hadn’t already done so.

“And you?” I ask, but Vic just gives me this inscrutable sort of look. “You did.”

“Finish up and get that sexy ass out of the shower,” he tells me, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair as I laugh. He totally bought me something, probably wrapped it, too. “I can’t look at you anymore without doing something I really shouldn’t do to you right now.

I oblige him, shutting the water off and turning to see that he has a towel waiting for me. Biting my lower lip, I step into it and Victor wraps it around me, pulling me in close and resting his chin on top of my head.

“Stick with me, Bernie, and it’ll all be worth it; I promise.”

He releases me, stepping back to watch as I dry my body and then towel dry my hair. Slipping into black sweatpants and an old gym shirt from freshman year, I blow-dry my hair so we can both see how the red tips turned out.

They’re vibrant as fuck, fading as the color travels up until it lightens into my natural white blonde.

“What do you think?” I ask as Vic makes a sound in his throat that rumbles through me. It’s a growl, that’s what that is. “I take it you like it?”

“Fuck it,” he says, and then I’m gasping as he pushes me over and yanks my pants down. His huge cock pushes up against my opening, and then slips in effortlessly. I’m wet as fuck, so wet that it doesn’t matter that I just showered. As soon as I stepped out of the water, I felt myself grow slick for him.

My husband.

My Vic.

Mine.

At least, out of everything, I have this.

He screws me into the countertop in that rough, primal way of his, but I love it too much to tell him to stop, even though I’m sore as hell, even though I probably shouldn’t. Despite the brutal way Victor fucks, he’s careful with the wound on my side. I work my hips, rolling them into Vic, making him moan like a tortured man.

When he comes inside of me, I push him off, but he grabs my hand, curling his fingers around mine. Our eyes lock, and I try my best to pretend that I’m not enthralled.

“Stop punishing yourself,” he warns me, lifting me up onto the counter and putting his mouth between my legs. I curl my fingers into his hair and lean my head back against the mirror, groaning and writhing against him. I let him make me come, but I don’t know if I can do that, stop punishing myself.

“Because you know you’re not worth shit,” Kali whispers after we finish, and I’ve washed up in the shower again. I pretend not to see her. If she isn’t gone by the time school starts, then I’ll tell somebody. For now, I keep my craziness to myself.

Two years earlier … People are not born hating themselves. It’s something that comes with time, with careful conditioning and spiteful words, with fingernails dug into your arm until you bleed. It’s a special sort of skill, to hurt someone so badly that they don’t love themselves anymore.

“You can’t let them get to you,” Penelope says to me, putting my hair in a fishtail braid as I sit on the edge of Prescott High’s front steps. I was missing for seven days and yet, Pamela and Neil barely noticed when I came back, sweaty and disheveled and twisted into a whole new shape.

The Havoc Boys did me a favor, locking me in the closet like that. The reason I say that is because I had seven days of darkness to contemplate my life. Seven days to get to know myself better. I realized then that I didn’t hate myself so much as I hated everyone else. Neil and Pam, Kali and Coraleigh, the Kushners and Principal Vaughn.

The only people who were worried about me were my sisters.

Penelope held me so tightly that day, I thought I might never breathe again.

“Victor came to me,” she whispered in my ear. “He told me that he had you, and that he’d give you back. I didn’t know what to do.”

But I don’t blame Pen for handling things the way she did. How could she call the cops when Neil is one of them? As twisted and dark as anything that ever came out of Prescott High. Who was going to help her find me?