Callum nods briefly, and then smiles again, reaching out a hand and putting it on the top of my head. When Victor does that, it feels patronizing. Somehow, it’s okay when Cal does it.

“Yep. One of our girls is fucking an officer in the GMP.” Cal stops for a second and frowns. “Was, I mean. She was fucking him.” He pats me on the head and then drops his hand to his side. “Her information was good though. Really good. The GMP is actively attempting to move into our turf.”

“What does any of that have to do with Ophelia and Trinity?” I ask, choking on that bitch’s name as it slithers out of my mouth. Trinity Jade. Jesus Christ, what a pretentious fucking name.

“Dunno,” Cal says, shaking his head. “But we’ll figure it out. We always do.” He studies me for a moment and then looks up at the sky. “It’s about to get dark.” I shiver when he says that, can’t help myself. Hearing Callum Park say the word dark in that deep, husky voice of his activates every primal instinct I have, from survival to fucking and everything in-between. “Do you want to play a game?”

“What sort of game?” I ask warily, looking back at him.

“A game of shadows,” he tells me, stepping back. “You hide, and I try to find you.” There must be something on my face that gives away what I’m thinking because he throws his head back in laughter. “Oh, Bernie, don’t look so scared. You’re the one person I would never hurt.” He drops his head back down and then reaches out to push some hair back from my face. “You said you wanted to learn to creep in the shadows, right?”

“I did, but I wasn’t aware it was going to be a game of hide-and-seek.” I think about the cemetery and Neil’s mocking voice and that horrible “Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me” song. I take another drag on my cigarette and put it down. “But okay. Yes. Teach me.”

“Let’s make a wager: you manage to hide for fifteen seconds and I’ll give you something nice.” He flips his hood back, and I have to hold in a small gasp at the beauty of his hair. It really is the color of sunshine and spun gold; I wish I saw it more often.

“Nice, how?” I query, shaking out my hands. “Oral sex? That’s Hael’s favorite thing to bet.”

“Even better than that,” Cal says, pulling a pack of gum from his hoodie pocket. He unwraps a single stick and folds it into his mouth. “Now,” he puts his hands on either of my shoulders and leans in close to my face, smelling like mint and sweet things. The scent is completely at odds with his aura, this dangerous swirl of smoke and long-buried bones. “You run; you hide. I’m going to count to sixty in my head.”

Callum releases me, and I feel this surge of adrenaline take over that I didn’t expect. It feels like a serious PTSD reaction to the idea of hide-and-seek, one of Neil’s favorite games to play with me and Penelope as children. I almost choke as I turn and sprint into the yard, around the corner of the house and toward the old playhouse. It’s been here for years, slowly rotting away.

Hiding inside the house seems too obvious, but there’s a space underneath it that I know I can crawl into, a hole dug by Aaron’s first and only dog. I remember her, actually, this beautiful golden retriever that his father took to a bar one night and ended up trading in exchange for some of his debt. Nobody ever bothered to fill the hole in, so here it is: big enough to hide a body.

I hit the dirt on my knees and shimmy underneath, cursing under my breath at the pulling in my side. I cannot fucking wait to get these stitches out.

As soon as I’m under, I do my best to control my breathing. It seems impossible though, with the adrenaline making my heart pound like a heard of galloping horses. You can do this, I tell myself, but then I glance over and see Kali’s rotten face in the darkness. My breath catches, and I almost scream.

“Hide-and-seek?” she mocks. “How fitting. One of your worst nightmares, and you’re using it as a game.”

But I’m not.

I trust Cal’s instincts. If he thinks he can teach me to move the way he does by playing children’s games, then I’ll do it.

A hand clamps on my ankle and drags me from the hole as I do my best to swallow a scream. Callum releases me as soon as I’m free of the playhouse, standing up as I roll onto my back and stare up at him.

He smiles.

“You made too much noise running over here. Slow and steady wins the race, Bernie.” Cal nods at me again, pushing up the sleeves of his hoodie to reveal his tattoos. The desperate ballerina on his arm stays slumped over, mourning a dream that will never come true. “Try again.”

Callum turns away, and I stand up. This time, I take his advice into account and move as slowly and quietly down the cement walkway as I can. Since I’m moving more slowly, I can’t cover as much ground, settling for crouching behind a trellis covered in winter-dead roses, as black as a corpse’s fingers and in desperate need of trimming.

I’ve not fully settled into a crouch before Callum appears beside me, like a demon summoned from the lengthening shadows of early evening. This time, I do jump, but he just laughs at me.

“You took too long,” he tells me, licking the edge of his pink mouth. “Again.”

I stand up and dart from the bushes as fast as I can, slowing down only when I near my next hiding spot: the house. Cal never said I couldn’t hide in here.

When I slip inside and Aaron sees me, I put a finger to my lips, winking to let him know it’s nothing serious. He raises a brow but stays where he is, settled on the couch with the girls flailing around in their VR headsets in front of him.

I tiptoe down the hall, slip into the master bedroom, and hide behind the open door. If the sliders in here hadn’t been locked, I’d have gone in that way.

Closing my eyes, I try to guess if it’s been a minute or not.

I have no idea, so I start to count down from fifteen, just to see if I can make it that long.

Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen …

The door slams closed, and I open my eyes to see Cal standing in front of me in the dark.

“What gave me away this time?” I ask, my voice soft, almost tentative.

“I could smell you,” he whispers back, putting his palms on the wall on either side of my head. “Like peaches and leather. But you did better this time.” He leans close and breathes me in. “I have the advantage here, since I know your scent so well.”

“Creepy,” I whisper, but when he drops his mouth to mine and kisses me like he’s absorbing my very essence, I know that I don’t care. He might be a scary motherfucker, but he’s here for me. He can’t dance anymore; there is only me, only Bernadette.

Callum pushes his body up against mine, pinning me to the wall with his lean form. My hands slide up under his hoodie and t-shirt, finding the planes and valleys of his lower abs. They contract at my touch, and he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Do I still get the prize?” I whisper and Cal chuckles, pulling away from me just enough to talk.

“No.” He grabs my arm and leads me toward the bed, leaning in to put his lips near my ear. “But you can have something else.”

He pushes me down on the mattress and then crouches on the floor, sliding one of my boots off and then the other. He takes his time, too, setting them aside before removing my socks and pressing his thumbs into the arch of one foot.