“I know that,” I tell him, and that’s not a lie. I just … want more.

“Is Cal the only one here?” Aaron asks, staring at me blearily and wearing a pair of pj pants with World of Warcraft characters on them. Makes him seem thirteen instead of seventeen and a half. Like, he’s still an innocent boy and not a man who shot a girl to death for me a few weeks ago.

“Nobody else is here yet,” I tell him as he scoots back and heads into the kitchen. He still has the medical boot on his leg and the cast on his arm, but overall, he looks much better, like he’s finally recovering.

Physically, that is. His emotional state is a bit … all over the place. I still miss him every day like he’s gone, like I’ve got this permanent bit of PTSD to remind me how deep I am into this fucking shit.

“Need to know if I should get the babysitter tonight,” Aaron murmurs sleepily, pausing as the sliding glass door opens and Vic steps in, smelling like smoke. So … he came in the back gate to smoke a cigarette before coming inside.

I stare at him and he stares right back.

“Get the babysitter,” he commands before turning a look on Cal that brings this dark tension to life in the air between them. I would not like to see the two of them fight. It’d be like a hyena versus a crocodile. Fuck if I know which one would win. They’re terrible and awful and, looking at them like this, I can’t goddamn believe my luck.

They’re my lovers now, not my enemies. Not like they made me believe in sophomore year. At least now I know I had every reason and every right to be as afraid as I was. If I’d been anyone else, they probably would’ve just killed me and buried me on Tom’s property.

Anyway, Vic is most definitely looking at Cal like he knows we fucked. He turns back to me.

“What are we doing?” I ask, and Vic sighs, moving closer and handing me an invitation written on some fancy ass paper, the kind they make for fun at the rich elementary school I didn’t go to, the kind they send home with the kids that smells like vanilla and roses, all tied into a fancy journal as a Mother’s Day present. “What the fuck is this?”

“It’s an invitation to a murder mystery party,” Vic says, snorting and swiping his hand over the lower half of his face. “Fucking hell,” he murmurs as I scrunch up my brow and look up at him.

“The fuck is that?” I ask as Aaron makes a sound of annoyance from the direction of the fridge.

“Have you ever seen the fifties movie, The House on Haunted Hill?” he asks, and I shake my head.

“I’ve seen the shitty nineties remake,” I offer, but Aaron just smiles at me.

“It’s like, a live play where everyone at the party is a character. You get a character sheet, and you try to solve the mystery. That is, who at the party is a murderer.” Goose bumps ripple across my skin as I blink stupidly in Aaron’s direction, looking back down at the incredibly cheesy but probably expensive paper invitation. “I mean, the murderer,” Aaron corrects. “In the group. It’s a rich, white people thing.”

“This is fucking dumb,” I tell Vic, letting Callum have the invitation when he grabs for it. “You know that, right? This is just asking for trouble, Victor.”

“How so?” he asks, tucking his inked hands into his pants pockets. “We were invited by Trinity. Guess who else is going to be there?”

“This sounds like fun,” Cal agrees, his smile made of pretty nightmares. When he looks up, it’s obvious he’s on Vic’s side.

“Only because you’re a psychopath,” I tell him, and he laughs. “This isn’t fun. This is trouble not-so-subtly disguised as a party.”

“James Barrasso will be there,” Vic says with a nod as Aaron steps up to the peninsula and leans against it, shirtless and too pretty for the harsh morning light. “I don’t need to tell you what a valuable opportunity this is.”

“You’re going to this thinking it’s the perfect cover to start shit. That’s what everybody else is thinking, too. I don’t like this. What does Oscar think?” I cross my arms over my chest in an attempt to hide the hardened points of my nipples from showing through my borrowed t-shirt. Doesn’t work. All it does is draw more attention from my boys.

“What does Oscar think about what?” the man in question asks, coming in the front door with Hael on his heels. I show him the invitation right away, and he plucks it from my fingers like they’re poisoned, like he’d rather not touch me. He sighs and hands it back as soon as he sees what it is. “We’re going.”

“This is fucking stupid,” I say, letting Hael take the invitation next. He looks at it for a moment and then cocks an eyebrow.

“A murder mystery party, huh?” he asks, shaking his head like he’s as perplexed as I am. “Fuck me, rich people are weird.”

“And you’re an idiot,” I tell Vic, pointing at him first and then Oscar next. “Both of you.”

But they’re not.

And if they want to go to this party, I have to go, too. Not just because I know how fucking smart and crafty they both are, but because we’re Havoc. Even if it were a mistake, we’d be making it together.

Mr. Darkwood gives me an F on the poem because he found one of the notes I wrote him about the word ebon. He hates being wrong, so he punishes me with a terrible grade. I spend the rest of the class imagining what it would feel like to wrap my hands around his throat. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with people? Why can’t they just say sorry, I was wrong and move the fuck on. It doesn’t have to be a production either way.

After school, we get dressed for the party at Aaron’s house, and I decide to be a total asshole and wear a black hoodie dress that says Ouija across the front with a picture of a spirit board on the back. It’s got a planchet necklace that I always pair with it, one that I made with the piece that came from an old version of the game that I stole from the thrift store.

I’m sure it’s nothing like what anyone else might be wearing to the party.

“This is a party for teenagers?” I ask, because sometimes I forget that we are, in fact, all still teenagers. I mean, technically speaking. In actual years. In experience, I’m a crone. No, no, I’m a corpse buried in a shallow hole. I finger the planchet necklace as Oscar turns to look at me, gray eyes so empty I just know the look is intended to make me back off.

“It is,” he says, narrowing his eyes briefly for a moment. “I think it’s supposed to be Trinity’s birthday party.”

I curl my lip in disgust.

Trinity.

That’s the name of a book villain if I’ve ever heard one. Actually, if I read it in a book, I’d call bullshit and laugh. Instead, I get to deal with the nightmare of that girl in person, the girl who didn’t even scream when I slammed the heel of my hand into her nose and made her bleed.

“She doesn’t want a Ferrari cake and an episode of My Super Sweet Sixteen?” I ask, and Oscar almost smiles. I can tell because his poisonous line of a mouth, like the long blade of a rapier, twitches slightly. “How about her own private island and a gold tampon to shove up her designer cunt?”

“Bitter much?” Oscar asks me as I continue to play with the necklace. If Trinity were a villain in a book then I guess I’d be the motherfucking witch, the one who lights the planchet necklace around her throat up with power and summons demons from another world.