“When your time comes, you’re going to die choking on blood,” I respond coolly, and Tom laughs. He jams his gun against my dick again and pain shoots through me, causing my vision to go splotchy. Oh fuck, that hurts. But I don’t flinch. I don’t do anything. Instead, to deal with the pain, I just think about my girl. At the very least, this arrangement we have with Bernadette … if something happened to my cock, she could still get her needs met with Havoc, and we could still be together. The thought makes me twitchy, so I decide not to even go there.

“Big talk for a man chained to a bed with his dick hanging out,” Tom says, shrugging his weak-ass shoulders. “But don’t worry. You’re not worth much without a cock.” He swings the shotgun up to his shoulder and then moves over to a dresser on the opposite side of the room, removing a small box and gesturing at me with it, as if I care. “Forgot the engagement ring,” he tells me, cracking the box and smiling. “I’ll be asking Ophelia to marry me tonight.”

“Gotta make sure you’re legally bound before she gets her money, eh?” I ask, and Tom laughs.

“Damn straight, kid,” he says, smirking at me as he tucks the ring in the pocket of his slacks and then runs his palm over his meticulously styled hair. Looks like he was aiming for that fifties greaser look but failed miserably. Trust me: any Prescott boy worth his weight in salt knows how to get his hair slicked back properly. This ain’t proper. “I’ll be back with some benzos, so enjoy your last few hours awake.”

Tom slams the door so hard that the framed pictures on the wall rattle. One of them—some hideous oil painting of a buck—falls to the ground.

Benzos.

Benzodiazepines are a type of drug which includes rohypnol aka roofies aka the date rape drug.

Motherfucker.

My breathing quickens, and I tilt my head up to look at my wrists. The cuffs are attached to these thick ass wood spindles, but there’s a better chance of me getting them free than if I try my feet. The footboard is solid as fuck, and I am not sitting around to wait for Tom Muller to drug me. No goddamn way.

“You can do this Aaron,” I say aloud, taking slow, controlled breaths until my pulse has slowed. “For Kara, for Ashley, for Heather … for Bernadette.” Bracing myself, I yank on my right arm as hard as I can. Pain shoots through me, blinding and hot. I can feel my bones and joints protesting, but I don’t care. If I have to chew my own arm off like a coyote trapped in a canyon, I’ll do it.

I’m getting out of here.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I close my eyes and think about that night when Hael and I took Bernie’s dress from her. She fought like a wildcat, scratched up our arms and faces. I remember getting back in the car and seeing Hael put his face in his hands.

“What are we doing, Aaron?” he asked me, his voice muffled by his palms. I didn’t know what to say to that. “If she wants to live this life with us, who are we to stop her?”

“Sometimes you have to love someone enough to let them go,” is what I’d said.

I yank on my arm again, so hard that for a moment my heart stops, and a strange sensation shoots from my fingertips to my brain. Pretty sure I just broke something. I ignore it.

We followed Bernadette home the entire way. We watched over her. No way in hell I’d leave my girl alone in the dark in a bra and panties. So even if she didn’t know it, we kept her safe. And then I fucked her. All night long. Over and over.

Another violent wrenching of my arm, and a scream tears from me that I can’t stop. Doesn’t matter though because I heard both David and Tom drive away. The fact that there’s nobody here to guard me means that Ophelia doesn’t have enough money to keep any of her hired thugs on retainer. She’s working with scraps right now. We have to keep her cash flow down if we’re going to win.

My muscles tense for another go, but my mind drifts back to a different night.

“I’m scared, Aaron,” Bernie said, curling her fingers through mine. We put our foreheads together, just naked and breathing.

“If you’re scared, we don’t have to do this,” I told her, and I meant it. If all I cared about was sex, I’d be my father. He’d screw anything that moved; it made my mother suicidal.

“Not of the sex,” she’d whispered, nuzzling against me. “I’m afraid that if we do this, we’ll get too close to each other. If I give you my heart, will you make me bleed?”

And she did give me her heart. And I did make her bleed.

I imagine if I were to die here tonight, Bernie would struggle to recover.

I can’t and won’t do that to her again.

With another scream, I wrench my arm against the cuffs, and something pops. For a second there, I must black out because the next thing I know, my arm is free and sitting bloody and limp on the bed beside me. “If I give you my heart, will you make me bleed?” My brain conjures Bernie’s face up and holds it there as I lift my eyes to see what I’ve managed to break—besides my arm or wrist or what-the-fuck-ever.

The bed frame is still nearly intact, but the spindle I’ve been yanking on has popped out of the horizontal piece above it. Looks like there was a peg on the end that I’ve managed to snap off. At great cost, I might add. Whoever built this goddamn bed deserves a medal; this thing is sturdy as shit.

My breathing is ragged as I try and fail to lift my arm. My right shoulder is screaming in pain, but if I don’t get moving then all of this is for naught. I’ll have hurt myself for no reason at all. It takes me a couple of tries, but my lips move on the syllables of one beautiful word. Bernadette. I know it isn’t healthy to live for one person and one person alone, but … I clench my stomach muscles in anticipation of the pain as I lift my arm up, a ragged sob tearing from my lips that I’m just glad nobody’s around to hear.

I bend my right leg as much as I can, straining my fingers for my bootlace. With another sob, I drop back onto the bed, soaked in sweat and bleeding at the wrist. I’ve really done it, truly and utterly fucked my arm up. And still, my gunshot wound isn’t fully healed either. I’m going to end up scarred and in constant pain like Callum.

Still, small price to pay to get out of this mess.

I try again. And again. And again. Just when I’m starting to think that the goddamn shoelace is out of my reach, my throbbing fingers snag it, and I’m able to grab hold. Fortunately for me, the style at Prescott High is to wear your bootlaces undone. I’ve done it for years. The tongue of this pair is particularly loose, the shoes well-worn, the leather pliable and broken from use. I get the lace in my hand and then collapse again to rest, staring up at the black and white buffalo plaid canopy above my head.

Get out of here, start running, don’t stop until you find Havoc.

My right arm is shaking so badly that I can barely lift it to my lips, using my teeth to pull the metal end of the aglet off to reveal the small square-shaped key inside. Oscar found these things online almost two years ago, and we’ve been wearing them in our shoes ever since.

Never thought I’d really have to use them though.

It takes me three attempts to get the key into the lock on the handcuff, but then there’s this blessed release and I’m groaning as the pressure on my joints finally releases, and I collapse into the bed with my upper body free.