There aren’t a lot of ways for me to win in this game.

Kali looks back at me with a tight smile on her pink painted lips.

“Afterward, I want Ophelia to give you to me,” she says, and I have to seriously use every ounce of willpower I have to keep from making a face. Give me to you? I’ve only ever belonged to Bernadette; Ophelia has no power to gift me to you in any way. “I don’t know if she will though. We’ll see, I guess.”

Kali stops talking as the sound of a door opening and closing echoes through the house. There’s the heavy sound of footsteps and then Mitch Charter is standing in the doorway to the bedroom, dark hair shaved close to his skull, jaw working in frustration. As soon as he sees me, his eyes bulge out of his fucking head.

“What the hell?” he asks, storming over to stand beside Kali. “Where the fuck did he come from?”

“I found him in the woods after he tried to escape,” Kali purrs, and my body ripples with goose bumps. Mitch is looking down at me like he’d every much enjoy skinning me alive.

“You cocksucking piece of shit,” he growls, looking me up and down like he’s trying to decide what to cut first. “That blond psychopath of yours killed four of my boys and blew Timmy to kingdom motherfucking come. Not to mention, my car is trashed. Nice try though. You fuckers messed up.” Mitch starts to smile as he takes a step closer to me, ignoring the way Kali’s body tenses up.

He pauses at the sound of more footsteps, and Ophelia and Tom enter the room next. The former doesn’t look pleased to see Mitch here.

“Mitch Charter,” she says, opening a sparkly handbag that matches her blue dress.

“Yeah?” he asks, turning around to look at Victor’s mother. Guess we were right when we figured Ophelia was responsible for all of the shit with the Charter Crew.

“I’m sorry to say, but I’m going to have to let you go.” Ophelia rummages around in her bag as Mitch gapes at her.

“The fuck? I’ve been working my ass off for—” He doesn’t get to finish that sentence because Ophelia pulls a small caliber handgun fitted with a silencer from her bag and shoots Mitch in the forehead. Nobody in that room seems surprised as blood flecks Ophelia’s pale face, and Mitch’s body slumps to the floor.

There’s no exit wound since the bullet is so small. Some people think that makes a weapon less effective. Not necessarily true. If the bullet is small enough, it just bounces around inside of you and fucks you up good. Looks like that’s what just happened to Mitch.

Kali doesn’t seem at all bothered to see her boyfriend lying dead on the floor at her feet. Even Tom looks bored by the situation.

“Get this cleaned up,” Ophelia orders, putting the gun away, and then gesturing at Mitch’s body with her purse. There isn’t a ton of blood, but it is leaking from his head to stain the rustic wood floor planks. “I have a dinner party tonight, so I won’t be here. I assume you’re staying?” She removes a white handkerchief from her bag and then dabs at the blood on her face, wiping it clean.

“I’d like to attend the dance,” Kali hazards, shrugging her shoulders. “But somebody has to watch Aaron.”

“You don’t need to go to the dance,” Ophelia corrects, adjusting her attention to me. “If you’re right about Aaron, then we no longer have any use for Bernadette.” She turns to leave, as if the conversation is over, but Kali stands up, following a few steps before Ophelia glances back at her with an annoyed expression on her pretty face. Tom just follows along like the pet dog he so very clearly is.

“We can still kill her,” Kali argues, gesturing with her pink acrylics. “Double down, make sure you get the money.” Ophelia doesn’t seem convinced, nor does she look like she wants to have an argument with someone she considers an underling.

“My darling, listen up. When you get older, you’ll understand that the quickest route between two points is a straight line. I don’t need to kill that girl and have my son start hunting me in the dark. I’ll do it, if I have to, but I like your idea of using Aaron instead. Let’s stick with the plan, shall we?” She turns away, ignoring Kali’s protests, and I hear the creaking of stairs shortly after, followed by the front door. Somewhere outside, an engine turns over and the sound of tires on gravel drifts up and over to me.

Mitch is still lying on the floor, bleeding everywhere, while Kali stares after Ophelia with a deep-set frown on her face. She looks back down at Mitch and sighs.

“God, this fucking sucks,” she grumbles, bending down to grab his arm. In heels and booty-shorts, Kali starts to drag the dead boy toward the door and into the hallway. A few short minutes later, and I can hear the awful sound of something tumbling down the stairs.

Son of a bitch.

This is not looking good for me, not at all.

I close my eyes and test out the bindings on my arms and legs, but there’s no give, none at all.

If I’m going to get out of here, I’m going to have to use Kali’s obsession with me to do it.

Hael Harbin

Bernadette looks positively miserable as she steps into the living room in the flouncy pink cocktail dress we stole from downtown Fuller. The top part is made of lace, and it’s almost entirely see-through save for some sparkly appliques over the pale mounds of her breasts.

If circumstances were any different, I’d probably be creaming my pants right about now.

As things stand … I sort of just want to kill somebody. Preferably Vic’s mom. What a psychopath she’s turning out to be. He’s convinced that she has Aaron, and honestly, at this point, I don’t see who else possibly could.

If the Charter Crew had him, we would’ve either received his corpse on our doorstep in the morning, or else they’d have called us to, at the very least, gloat, if not just torture us with the sound of his screams.

So there’s something bigger at play here.

Ophelia motherfucking Mars.

“Blackbird,” I whisper, because I can’t stand to see her upset. It kills me. I don’t like seeing women upset, period. After all the horrible things my father’s done to my mother, I just can’t take it. Add in the fact that I am crazy, head-over-heels, stuck in the clouds in love with this chick, and her sadness just consumes me. She sighs, holding her black high heels in one hand and sitting down on the bottom step to put them on. “This is a good thing, right? If Ophelia has Aaron, then he’s still alive.”

“We don’t know for sure that she has him,” she says, sliding her feet into the strappy black shoes and buckling them on. “And if she does, I don’t see what going to the winter formal is going to do to help with that.”

I kneel down beside her in the outfit she picked out for me: black slacks, a pair of boots, and a black button-down with white skull and crossbones cufflinks. We all have the same outfit. It’s kinda sad, considering Aaron’s is still lying on his bed upstairs, but I can’t start thinking like a nihilist here.

My hand cups the side of her face, and she closes her eyes, leaning into my touch.

“We need to go and show everyone we’re still here, that we’re not worried, that nothing bad is happening. You know how Prescott is; they’re like sharks. One drop of blood and they go into a feeding frenzy. Once we’re there, we can look for Kali or Mitch; we can see if I managed to toast anyone with my little car bomb.” I force a grin, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. Doesn’t matter because Bernie’s are still closed. “If one of them has Aaron or knows anything about his disappearance, we’ll find out.”