I’m rewarded with a small white house with red awnings on the windows and porch. It has that well-kept vintage look, even though it’s pretty obvious that the homeowners don’t have a ton of money. I mean, they wouldn’t live in the very heart of South Prescott if they did.

Oscar sweeps up the front walk and then removes a key from the pocket of his suit jacket, unlocking the door and then holding both it and the screen door open with his back. He gestures me in and, with my curiosity riding high, I do.

“Is that you, Oscar?” a voice calls from the kitchen, and I notice him shift me a look of warning.

“It’s me,” he confirms, shutting the door and locking it. It smells like fried potatoes and green onions in here. “I brought a guest with me.”

A woman comes out of the kitchen, smiling at me and holding a soda in her right hand. She has on tight jeans and a loose black tank top. I’d peg her in her early thirties. She looks a bit young to be Oscar’s mother, but then I do know girls who got knocked-up at fourteen and fifteen, so I guess anything’s possible. Then again, I also know for a fact that Oscar’s parents are both dead.

“Bernadette, this is my foster mother, Rebecca,” Oscar says, his gray eyes shifting from her to me. “Bernadette and I fuck on occasion.”

“Oh, stop that,” she chastises, smirking. “You’re his girlfriend then.” She looks positively gleeful at the idea. Rebecca takes a sip of her soda and chuckles, curly hair frothing around her shoulders, makeup well-done and very distinctly South Prescott. We like heavy lips and heavy eyes—day or night. Black or at least very dark liner, falsies, little to no blush. Classic.

“We’ll be in my room if you need anything. Please do your best to knock.” Oscar moves down the hall and I follow after.

“I’m making potato pancakes, in case you want any,” she calls out, her question clearly directed at Oscar’s rapidly retreating back. She smiles at me again. “You can call me Becca. If you need anything, just holler.” She disappears back into the kitchen as I move down the hall and out a back door to a small deck. There seems to be an addition on the side of the garage that has its own entrance. When I step inside, I find Oscar Montauk’s bedroom.

This is fucking weird.

The space is small with jewel-toned purple walls and a double bed with black blankets and sheets. There are a few obscure paintings on the wall, like maybe Oscar did them himself or something. Other than that, I see a dresser with some personal items atop it and a bookshelf crammed full of thrillers and true crime novels, and that’s it.

In short, the room tells me virtually nothing.

Oscar slams the door shut behind me, cutting off all of the natural light; every window in that room has its blinds down and curtains pulled tightly shut. It takes me a minute for my eyes to adjust, but Oscar seems to know exactly what he’s doing, crouching down and pulling a clear bin out from under his bed.

“Why are we here?” I ask, slightly confused. This is the Peters’ place? This is where Alyssa’s been staying? How did Oscar come to live here? I know his parents passed away, and that there was some scandal to it, but a lot of the information about the case was never made public. I remember the time it happened though, the way his face changed and never went back. I want to say we were around thirteen at the time.

“I have a meeting with Coraleigh today,” he says, pulling the top off the bin and tossing it onto the surface of his immaculately kept desk. “Ophelia is putting pressure on her to deflect to her side; she says she can protect her. I want to make sure she understands that isn’t the case.”

Oscar withdraws a long length of pale pink rope from the bin and then twists it around his hands, testing out its strength. He smiles. He said he was a master of knots; I can only wonder what his plans are for that. Will he hang Leigh up like we did Donald? Or something worse?

“Why even bother coming to school at all?” I ask, since neither of us even made it to first period.

“To see you, obviously,” he says, completely deadpan. It could be a joke, sure, but almost … not? I can’t decide either way. I lean my back against Oscar’s door, biting my lower lip as I try to puzzle him out, when he turns over his shoulder to look at me, the rope still wound around his long, inked fingers.

“Come here, Bernadette,” he commands. Oscar turns toward me and my heart jumps in my chest. I can't decide if I should be turned on or if I should run.

“What?” I ask, looking at the rope in his hands. I'm so shocked by the seemingly sudden turn of events that it takes me a hell of a lot longer to figure out that the pink rope in his hands is for me and not for Leigh. I take a small step away from him, putting my back against his bedroom door. “I thought you said you had a meeting with Leigh?”

“It's a flexible meeting,” Oscar continues, turning around and snapping the silky looking rope in his tattooed hands. “And you seem hell-bent on chasing me to the ends of the earth, so here we are. Are you afraid of me?”

Those words of his … they are very clearly a challenge.

I look back at him, holding that rope in his hands, knowing what he did to Donald, knowing what he did to the Kushners. There wasn't even a hint of regret in his eyes when he pulled the trigger on his revolver. Oscar Montauk does not operate under the same moral rules as the rest of society. Then again, neither do I.

Trust, Bernie, I tell myself, pressing my fingertips into the door for leverage. You said you'd trust the Havoc Boys. What's so different about this? If I want Oscar, then I have to accept him with every broken piece of his soul, the way he has to do for me.

“I'm not afraid of you,” I tell him, and he narrows his gray eyes on me. It's obvious that he didn't expect such an answer. “Should I be?” I cock my head to one side, remembering the feel of his fingers on my throat. There was violence in his touch, sure, but it was restrained and well-leashed, and clearly not directed at me. Despite his reaction toward me, I could tell that the only person he was angry with was himself. Instead, it was passion I felt in his fingers when he touched me. Passion that he's obviously terrified to embrace. “I am not human,” he said.

Fucker.

He has no idea how human his face was on the night we spent together. No goddamn clue. I wet my lips, tasting the waxy texture of my lipstick.

“We should message Vic to let him know we aren't coming back to school,” I say, and Oscar clenches his teeth.

“Already done,” he says, but not like he truly expected me to stay. “Shall I tell him we're about to fuck, too?”

I swallow the tight lump in my throat.

“We don't owe Victor an explanation anymore,” I say, feeling this flicker inside my chest. This is the way things were always supposed to be. Not Oscar being a dick obviously, but … me and the boys. They have always been mine. Always. “What are you planning on doing with that rope?” I nod my chin in the direction of it as Oscar scowls.

This is going to be a shitstorm. He has more intimacy issues than me and Hael and Aaron and Callum combined. Oddly enough, I don't think Victor has those sorts of problems. He's always seemed more than willing to admit his feelings to me.

“Punish you,” Oscar says simply, like this is the obvious response. “Now, get naked and get on the bed on your knees; put your back to me.” My eyes are just now adjusting to the semi-darkness of the room, and I have no problem seeing his face. Seeing and reading it are two different problems, however. Oscar's motivations remain carefully packed away and hidden from the world.