“What the fuck, Vic?” I ask, backing up until my body is pressed against the fridge. I'm not afraid of him, far from it. I'm fighting the desire to throw myself at him, to tear his shirt off, to open his pants and free his cock. He can't know that I feel that way, not a chance in hell.

“But not me,” he repeats again, stopping to look me dead in the face. There's no sign of humor anywhere in his expression; this is not a joke. “I wanted you here. My love is selfish, Bernadette.”

“Love?” I ask, but Victor just smiles at me. You can only deny reality for so long without it coming back to bite you in the ass.

“I am selfish,” he says, exhaling and then moving forward. He pauses just two feet in front of me. “I could've let you go, but I wanted you here instead, wrapped up in Havoc. Wrapped up in me.” He turns and takes off toward the front door. I try to tell my feet to stay where they are, but I end up scrambling around the corner as he grabs the door handle and then pauses to glance over his shoulder. “So go ahead. Fuck Aaron if you want. I'm sure he'd be better for you than I am.” Victor opens the door and then pauses again, like he's just thought of something. “Better, maybe, but not like me. Nobody will love you the way I do, Bernadette Blackbird.”

Victor leaves out the front door, slamming it behind him.

I wait about three heartbeats before I turn and throw a punch at the wall. It cracks the drywall and leaves my knuckles a bleeding mess, but I don't care. It's better than what I really want to do right now: murder Victor fucking Channing.

“Did you mean what you said?” Aaron asks softly, surprising the hell out of me. Cradling my bloody hand to my chest, I turn around to look at him. He's sitting up now, his right shoulder still swaddled in a white bandage, his green-gold eyes hooded and dark with emotion. “That you love me?”

“Love isn't everything, Aaron,” I quip back, feeling wounded. “They all wanted that for you.” How dare he. How fucking dare he?! Victor pulled me into this mess because he wanted me? How messed-up is that?

I can’t decide if I want to kill him or fuck him right now. Best we just stay away from each other.

“It isn't nothing either,” he replies, exhaling sharply. His eyes drift to my hand, still cradled to my chest, still bleeding. “Are you okay?”

“I just punched a hole in your wall,” I respond dryly, sick at the idea of going back to school on Monday. Of seeing Kyler and Timmy, of knowing their brother is dead because of us. Because of Havoc. “What do you think?”

“I think,” Aaron starts, groaning as he moves to stand up. He barely makes it to his feet before he stumbles, going down to one knee beside the coffee table. If I still had a heart to break, the sight would shatter it. “We really need to talk.”

“No shit,” I murmur, moving over to him and helping him back onto the couch. He slumps into the cushion with a groan, letting his head fall back into the pillows. His eyes are closed, but his teeth are clenched. It's pretty obvious he doesn't like feeling so helpless, but he just needs to give his body time. He'll be back to being an asshole before the week is out. “You need to sit down. I'll … bring you tacos.” I start to turn away, but he curls his fingers around mine and squeezes them tight.

He may as well have wrapped that inked grip around my heart.

“Bernie,” he pleads, and the depth of emotion in his voice makes my heart stutter. I close my eyes against a surge of my own feelings; I'm just not ready to face them all yet. “Please, sit down.”

“The tortillas will get cold,” I argue, even though my hunger pangs have disappeared completely. How can I eat after what Victor just told me? He made me sign my life away in blood, but … he also just told me the other boys didn't want that for me. I'm so confused. What does Oscar care about me? Likely, he just wanted me gone, but Aaron … I look back at him, and our gazes lock. “I can't go to my grandmother's house, not now, not ever,” I tell him for the second time, just to make sure he’s really getting it. I got no response last time, none at all. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“I do,” Aaron chokes out, closing his eyes. He lets go of me, but I don't leave. I can't imagine being anywhere but here right now. This is where I'm meant to stand. “I know that, but I worry about you.”

“Really?” I ask, cocking a brow in a way that makes me think of Vic. I scowl, but Aaron's eyes are still closed, so at least he can't see me. “Could've fooled me. How do you show that worry, Aaron? By watching as your friends drag me off, by letting them lock me in a closet?”

“Bernadette,” he starts, dropping his chin to his chest. He drags both tattooed hands over his face. “There was no winning for me, you know that, right?” He drops his hands to his lap and looks back up at me, anger darkening his face. “I had two choices: lose my sisters and be a piece of shit not worthy of you … or I had to give you up so you could have a better life.”

A sick sad feeling shoots through me, taking over my body, infecting my bloodstream. I don't want to feel this way right now, drowning in empathy. I'm pissed. I have a right to be pissed.

“That's what I thought I was doing,” Aaron continues, leaning back and putting his left arm on the edge of the couch. The way he tilts his head and frowns at me, he's got the cocky asshole thing down pat. From here, it looks an awful lot like a defense mechanism. “I thought I was setting you free, Bernie. You don't need to be stuck in Springfield with a bunch of kids and a whole lot of baggage.”

“It's a little late for that now, isn't it?” I snap back, turning fully around to face him. “So maybe you stop with the bullshit and man up. I'm not going anywhere now; my fate is sealed in blood.”

“It doesn't have to be,” Aaron says, breathing hard, like maybe this is too much exertion for him. My eyes slide down his chest and stomach, admiring the deep grooves of his muscles. He's bulked up a lot. When we were in freshman year, he was just a skinny little thing. Skinny little thing with a big cock, but still. I frown. “We can talk to Vic; we can talk to Oscar. After graduation, you can walk away from all of this.”

I just stare at him.

“You castrated a boy because I asked you to. Callum killed a boy because he had to. All of that blood, it's on my hands, Aaron. There's nowhere else for me, so stop looking for a distant locale to drop me in, some fairy-tale of a life you wished I lived. Vic is right: I'm a nightmare. I exist in the night; my only light is the moon and the stars.”

“Stop that shit,” he snaps at me, acting like he's going to get up again. I move forward and push him back with a hand on his chest, shoving him back into the cushions. And then, for some reason entirely unknown to me, I straddle him, pinning his body to the couch with my own.

He looks at me like I've just gut punched him.

“You don't have to take what Vic says at face value,” Aaron pleads. Unlike Vic and Oscar, he's not above it. Underneath the pleading though, his hatred for Vic is just barely concealed. “You're not like this, Bernadette. You're not one of us.”

“Stop acting like I'm the girl you gave up years ago,” I growl back, curling my hands over his shoulders. I dig my nails into his skin, refusing to stop, even when he cringes. Underneath the heel of my left hand, there's a healing wound, but I don't care. My own shoulder twinges in pain. The bandage hidden beneath my borrowed tee is likely wet with blood, but I don't feel like leaving to change it right about now. “You're not the same boy either, and I will never, ever be the sweet little thing you abandoned when I needed you most.”