Nobody.

Fucking nobody.

Just weeks before her death, she was able to smile at me, to braid my hair and talk about impossible things, like flying to Paris to visit the catacombs. Traveling to New Orleans to see gators. Road-tripping along Route 66. Somebody who’s thinking about suicide doesn’t dream the way she did, right?

Right?

“Let who get to me?” I ask belatedly. It’s a dumb question because we both know exactly who she’s talking about. Havoc. Havoc, Havoc, Havoc. It’s always about Havoc nowadays. They’re so damn good at what they do that I’ve stopped wondering when they’re going to come. I’ll never be able to predict it, so why bother?

“Bernadette, don’t pretend you don’t know,” Penelope chastises, clucking her tongue like an old lady. “Havoc.” She pauses as Kali comes down the steps, her high pony swinging, her lips plastered into a permanent smirk, one that I so desperately wish that I could slap off her face. But I can’t touch her, not with Havoc at her beck and call. “Stupid cow,” Pen hisses, and I just know that as sweet as my sister is, she’s got enough Prescott blood in her to beat a bitch.

“Take a look at this ass and get used to kissing it,” Kali purrs, smacking my sister in the shoulder with her bag. Penelope watches her with narrowed eyes as I get to my feet. I know from past experience that once Pen gets an idea in her head, it’s almost impossible to dislodge it. She takes off down the steps after Kali before I can stop her.

“Penelope, no,” I growl, stumbling down the cement stairs as she grabs Kali by the strap of her bag and yanks her back.

“You can’t touch me!” Kali screams as Pen shoves her to the ground and gets on top of her. Pretty in pink with her blond hair in loose waves, my sister proceeds to beat the shit out of Kali as I stand off to the side, shaking but unable to interfere.

As far as I can tell, Kali asked Havoc to keep me away from her. She never asked for protection from my sister. Penelope should be okay …

“Oh dear.” I hear Oscar Montauk’s smooth voice behind me, whirling around to see the five of them standing there like they’ve been summoned. If I put a pentagram down, and bled myself in sacrifice, would they appear for me, too? It doesn’t seem fair, that I should lust after them for years only to lose them to Kali Rose-Kennedy. “What should we do about this?”

My eyes slide past Victor Channing, past the enigma that is Callum Park, and across Hael Harbin, the naughty bad boy that every girl in this city dreams of taking to bed. I find Aaron Fadler, the love of my life, his green-gold eyes dark, his motivations impossible to understand.

Everything was okay between us until … until it just wasn’t.

“Please don’t hurt her,” I whisper, a desperate pleading in my voice that I’m immediately ashamed of. “Penelope has nothing to do with … us.” It’s the only way I can think to phrase our strange and eternal relationship, me and these boys.

All five of the them are staring at me now, but it’s Victor who answers. It’s always Victor.

“Your begging changes nothing,” he tells me as several administrators and one of the campus cops appear to drag the two girls apart. The only person that’s bleeding right now is Kali. “But you’re lucky, Bernadette,” he continues as the rest of the Havoc Boys move around me, like I’m a rock in an ice-cold stream, breaking in half until there’s two of them on either side. “Penelope has nothing to do with Kali’s request.”

Vic peels off and the boys follow after him, leaving me panting and shaking as my sister is dragged into Principal Vaughn’s office.

As for Kali … she looks at my sister’s retreating back with murder in her eyes.

Later, when we come home to Pamela waiting in the living room for us, I know things are about to go from bad to worse.

Pen and I both freeze where we are, our conversation about the fight forgotten for the briefest of moments. The world is scary; it is for nearly everyone who attempts to traverse it. But it’s a whole other animal to be afraid of the person who brought you into it, the one person who should care when nobody else does.

“I hear you got into a fight today,” Pam says, her blond hair coiffed, her makeup ready for a night out. She’s still wearing jeans and a tank top with no bra, sipping from a glass of champagne. Neil isn’t here yet—thank the stars—but Pamela will go to the party without him. Other than working weekends at an elderly care facility, she has no job but schmoozing and stealing from the wealthy.

“I did,” Pen challenges, her hand clenching on the strap of her backpack. The two of them stare at each other, and I feel like I’m about to witness something awful.

“Do you two think I’m stupid?” Pam snaps, setting her glass down so hard that champagne sloshes over the sides. “One of you stole my dress for the party tonight. So, which of you was it?”

Ah. Of course. She gives zero fucks about her daughter getting into a fight. Only Pam matters to Pam.

I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it seems that Penelope does.

“I took it,” Pen says, her tone even despite the tension rising in the small, outdated kitchen. “And I sold it.”

Pamela doesn’t move from where she is, staring her oldest daughter down with narrowed green eyes. We all look so similar, me and Pam and Penelope. It isn’t fair. I hate my mother so much that when I look in the mirror, I hate myself, too.

After a moment, the tension breaks and Pam picks up her champagne again. A huge sigh of relief escapes me as Penelope and I head for the stairs together.

“I can’t believe you just got away with that,” I whisper, but my sister’s already shaking her head. She knows as well as I do that this isn’t over. Pamela is like a black widow; she’s more than happy to bide her time in the shadows until you’re thoroughly caught in her web.

“I didn’t. But it’s okay.” Pen’s eyes glitter as she hits the top landing and turns to look at me. “Bernie … if I weren’t around, do you think you’d be okay?” She smiles at me and reaches out to cup the side of my face. “You’re so much stronger than I am, you know that?”

I bat her hand away. I bat it away because I feel like I’ll be able to have her touch me like that forever, like my sister is as permanent as the sun and endless as the moon. If I’d known then that we only had a few weeks left together, I’d have thrown my arms around her and held her so close that it’d be her turn to see what it’s like to be suffocated by a sister’s love.

“You’re being weird,” I gripe, pushing a loose strand of hair back from my face. “If you weren’t around, where would you go?”

Pen just smiles at me and drops her hand to her side.

“Anywhere,” she breathes, gaze distant and unfocused. “Anywhere but here.”

Later that night, after she gets home from the party, my mother pretends not to notice that her husband is in my sister’s bedroom. That was Pen’s punishment for a stolen dress, a blind eye to rape.

After her suicide, I replayed that conversation in my mind over and over again.

Anywhere but here.

I’d thought she intended to kill herself all along, but what if she were planning on leaving instead?