Vic leans his big body against the doorjamb, the edge of his beautifully vindictive mouth curving up in the corner. I can vaguely hear Heather, Kara, and Ashley playing outside the closed sliding glass doors. The curtains are mostly drawn but every now and again, their shadows break apart the sunlight that’s peeping in.

“We’re going on the Oak Valley skiing retreat,” Victor tells me, and I laugh. In fact, I start laughing and then I just can’t seem to stop, doubling over and groaning as the healing skin on my side pulls. Still, I laugh for so hard and so long that I’ve got tears.

“Come again?” I ask, looking up at Vic as I dab away wetness from the corners of my eyes with the edge of the sheet. “Did you just say we were going on a skiing retreat?” The words feel funny coming out of my mouth, like they’re in a foreign language or something. “With Oak Valley Preparatory Academy?” I say the whole name of the school, just so the pretentious nature of the situation isn’t lost on anyone.

“The fuck?” Hael asks, turning his head to look at me and Vic. “Are you drunk or something?”

“Trinity invited me,” Victor replies smoothly, his mouth twisting into a bemused smile. I pretend like I don’t care, curling my fingers against the mattress, scraping claws to help me fight the intense primal flicker of my baser urges. Jealousy. Vic glances at me with his obsidian eyes, looking years older than eighteen, millennia wiser. “I want to see if I can’t figure out where she and Ophelia connect, why my mother would shove that girl in my face.” His smile dips slightly as he runs a hand up and down the inked length of his arm. A lion grins back at me, its sharp-toothed maw wide as it begins to roar. “James Barrasso is going on the trip, too, by the way—despite the fact that he doesn’t attend Oak Valley either. It’s just one big web here in Springfield.” Victor rolls his eyes and then pushes up off the door, pausing to point at me and Hael with a tattooed finger. “Pack. Snow. Now. We leave in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty?!” I choke out, scrambling from the bed as Hael wraps his arm around my waist and yanks me right back. He pins my mostly naked body under his very naked one. “You heard the boss, Hael.” But my chastisement does nothing to steal the grin from his lips.

“I can be done in five,” he purrs, licking the side of my face. But then his expression turns real serious, real fast. Maybe he’s thinking about Brittany? Wouldn’t surprise me. He’s been dealing with her calls all week, her crying, frantic, terrified phone calls. She’s back at home, obviously, but all is not right in her world. Now that she thinks Hael is on her side again, he has to field those calls while a snake of envy wraps itself around my throat. “But you’re right. I need time to pack some sex toys. We can continue this later.” His honey-almond eyes sparkle as he pushes up and away from me, just in time for Aaron to move into the room, his medical boot banging against the doorjamb.

“I want to talk to you about the girls,” he says, and I nod, leaving Hael to stand in the corner, naked and contemplating the nightstand drawer full of sex paraphernalia. I leave him where he is and find my hands on the sides of my lover’s face. Aaron leans into the touch, lifting his left hand up to take mine. Of all the boys, he looks the most like a wicked angel. His wavy chestnut hair is beyond adorable, but his muscles are hard, his tattoos a vibrant journey from childhood to … whatever this is. Hell, maybe, interspersed with bouts of heaven.

“I assume we have babysitting plans already in place?” I ask, and Aaron gives me a dark look.

“Not quite,” he says, pulling my hand down from his face and weaving our tattooed fingers together. I love that he gave me my HAVOC tattoo. Whenever I look at it, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll think of Aaron. “Victor wants to take the girls to Oak River today.”

I just stare back at him without blinking for a minute.

Nobody can protect Heather better than I can. Nobody. The thought comes to me unbidden. It feels true though. Thus far, it has been true. I don’t want to be separated from my little sister. Not now, not until she’s old enough to move out and start a life of her own. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? For us to be together.

No, the whole point of this is to keep her safe—regardless of how it makes you feel.

“Oak River …” There could be monsters hiding behind those walls. I know for a fact that there are—or at least were—monsters there. Donald Asher was only one of a million spoiled rich kids with the devil crouching on his shoulder. But just because I prefer the brutal honestly and bloodshed of Prescott to the sneaking deviance of the wealthy, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some advantages to Heather attending that school.

Everybody knows—whether they admit or not—that privilege starts early. The parents who can afford to send their kids to wealthy schools always say things like, I’m not putting my child at a disadvantage to make a point! if you confront them about equally funding public schools and sending their kid to one.

There’s a meme about it, with one of the main characters from the movie Mean Girls. Regina George is leaning forward, and she says something to the effect of, “So you agree then? You agree that private schools give the wealthy an advantage over the lower classes?” It ensures that the best and the brightest don’t always succeed. Because how can you if you have to work an extra job after school to help pay rent while someone else is given private violin lessons? The system does not ensure the smartest or most capable become doctors or scientists or politicians; it favors the rich.

So.

Will I send Heather to a private school the way so many wealthy people do? To give her an advantage that I know she’d never have if she worked her way through Springfield’s poverty-stricken school system?

Before I can answer that question—for myself or anyone else—Aaron gears himself up to say whatever it is that’s on his mind.

“Bernadette,” he begins, giving me a look that says I’m not going to like what he’s about to say. “We have our crew all over the city; you know that.” He pauses and glances away for a moment before turning his attention back to me. “Pamela was seen with Ophelia this morning.”

I just stare back at him, but my knees feel suddenly weak and I put a hand on the wall to brace myself.

“Okay,” I reply, because my stomach has already hollowed out and I feel sick to the point of vomiting. I don’t have custody over Heather. That’s one of the things that’s been bugging me, eating at my brain like a parasite. I might be emancipated, but my sister is not. Challenging Pamela through the court system won’t work either. Actually, it might make things worse. I have no idea what Neil’s brother or father might do if they find out about a legal battle. What if, now that Neil is gone, they get involved?

“We can get the girls into the school to start on Monday. Actually, they can move in today.” Aaron’s face is pinched. He looks like he wants to punch something. This is where we understand each other best, as sibling-parents who never wanted the job of raising little girls, who resent it, but who would give their lives to keep working that job forever.

“How?” I ask, because I already know what I’m going to say now. I have to agree to this. I have to. Because it isn’t about me and my wants. It’s about keeping the girls safe. Here, with us, might be the safest place in the world, but we can’t always be with them. And we can’t keep them locked up like they’re in prison.