Vic pulls right up into the middle of all that shit on his Harley, knocking the kickstand into place with his foot and then lighting up a cigarette, all before ever turning off the engine. Hael is right behind us, driving his Camaro right up and over the curb to park in the lawn. There are tire tracks there in the grass, making it fairly obvious that this is where he always parks.

He steps out of the driver's side, looking like a devil with that red hair of his, his beautiful mouth turned down in a frown. Oscar isn't far behind him, hands crossed pleasantly over the end of one of the baseball bats from Halloween night, still studded with nails but blessedly free of bloodstains. Chills chase up my spine as I think of Danny, lying dead on the bloodied floor. Where did they take him? Where did they bury him? And how did they get back so quickly? Supposedly, there are no secrets in Havoc, but is that really something I want to know?

“Where the fuck is my brother?!” Kyler snarls, getting right up in Vic's face.

For his part, Victor doesn't react, continuing to smoke his cigarette as my eyes pan past Kyler to find Billie and Kali. The former has red-rimmed eyes like she's been up all night, but the latter … she just smirks at me when she sees me, sending my pulse racing. How dare she flaunt herself in front of me like that. How goddamn dare she. I wonder, not for the first time, if the baby she's carrying is my stepdad's.

Kali keeps smiling at me, but it isn't a nice smile. As they say, every rose has its thorns. But I'll be damned if I let Kali Rose make me bleed. One day, the world is going to realize that she’s a lowlife, scummy, thieving bitch.

“What are you doing here?” Vic asks calmly, smoking his cigarette like he has all the time in the world. The wind catches the gray ash from the end, sending it spiraling down the quiet street. It smells like bum piss and neglect over here in the Four Corners neighborhood. On my right, there's a row of shitty, rundown houses from the 1940s. On the other side, the railroad tracks. Other than South Prescott, this is considered one of the worst neighborhoods in Lane County.

That, and it's Hael's home.

The look on his face as he leans back against the Camaro, muscled arms crossed over a red wifebeater, is pure murder. It's one thing to start a gang war in Prescott, it's a whole other thing to bring that shit to his fucking house.

“We're making a stand,” Mitch says calmly, reaching out to put a hand on Kyler's shoulder. He pulls his friend away, leaving Kyler to pace and run his fingers through his dirty blond hair. “Tell us what you did with Danny.”

Vic laughs, the sound like rusty nails and forgotten dreams. Mitch grits his teeth, brown eyes narrowing on Havoc’s leader. Mitch gestures with his chin, and then glances up in the direction of the chain-link fence that cuts across Hael's driveway. Just a few seconds later, several thugs in clown masks appear, dragging a redheaded woman between them.

She's wearing an apron, her face covered in bruises. One pink heel is still clinging to her foot, the other is missing.

“What the actual fuck?!” Hael roars, and then everything just happens in a blur.

Dozens of boys appear from the bushes, wearing skeleton masks—just like they did on Halloween night. Guns are drawn, and in less than a minute, Vic, Mitch, and I are in the middle of a stand-off.

“Let her go,” Hael growls out, losing every ounce of his usual cool. There's a deep-seated fear behind his eyes, a long-held terror finally realized. Mitch's cronies toss the comatose woman down on the gravel driveway and leave her in a heap.

It doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together: that's gotta be Hael's mom.

“Ballsy,” Victor says, still smoking, acting like he doesn't give a fuck about any of this. I can read the bullshit in his tense shoulders, but the show he's putting on must be good enough for Mitch because fear flickers in his gaze for the briefest of seconds before he banishes it.

Vic swings a leg over the motorcycle and stands up, leaving me straddling the back. Without being asked, I get off, too, and head straight toward Hael's mother.

“Tell your bitch to back off,” Mitch snarls as one of the clown-masked assholes turns his weapon on me. I ignore him, kneeling down next to the woman and swiping some of her red hair back from her face.

“If you call my girl a bitch one more time, I will kill you, and I won't care who sees me do it.” Victor's gaze follows me for a moment before he turns back to Mitch. “You think you can waltz into my brother's home and assault his mother and there won't be consequences? I sure hope you know what you're up to, Mitch.”

Mitch laughs, but the sound is strained. He's playing the nonchalant act, too, but he's not nearly as good at it as Vic is. In fact, that's Mitch in a nutshell, isn't it? A less good Vic. A watered-down Vic. A charlatan. A fucking copycat. Call him an inspiration, if you will, but Havoc was here first. We were here first.

Do it first or do it best, but when somebody does it first and best, well, you're fucked.

Good choice for the Charter Crew, to choose those clown masks, because that's all they are. Imitations. Shadows.

Havoc, they're OG.

And I'm one of them.

“You think we knocked this bitch out?” Mitch asks incredulously, pointing over at Hael's mother. “We found her like this.” A smirk lights his lips as I glance back to watch the interaction between him and Vic, sitting down to pull Hael's mother into my lap. “Looks like her ol' man was knocking her around a bit.”

“Fuck,” Hael growls, the pain in his voice like broken glass. It cuts me to hear it, deeper than I ever could've expected. Even after seeing the video, even after knowing they kept it from me. Shit, Bernadette, you're getting soft. Only … I don't feel soft. Instead, I feel the opposite, like something inside of me is solidifying, turning my heart to stone.

I turn my eyes back to Mitch and frown.

The Charter Crew, what a joke.

In this world of sinners and saints, there is only one authority.

Havoc.

“What goes on with our families is none of your business,” Vic says as Mitch circles him. Victor doesn't even bother to follow him with his eyes, so unconcerned by his rival that he'll show his back to him. Pretty gutsy, if you ask me.

The woman in my lap stirs, murmuring in French as she struggles to sit up. I try to soothe her, smoothing back her hair with my fingers, but she shoves me away, pushing herself into a sitting position, red hair disheveled, pretty face mottled with bruises. She looks around the mess we've made of her neighborhood before her eyes settle on Hael.

“Qu'est ce qu'il se passe?” she whispers, brown eyes widening. One of her hands comes up to tangle around a cross hanging at her throat. “Ils ont fini par venir pour moi c'est ça?” I have no idea what she's saying. There aren't exactly a lot of foreign language classes at Prescott High. We have an English as a Second Language class for Spanish-speakers, but that's about as close as we get to culture in South Prescott.

“Calme toi Maman. Ça va bien se passer,” Hael pleads, taking a step closer to her, and even though the situation sucks, and I'm royally pissed at the Havoc Boys, I have to admit that it's hot when he speaks French like that. When one of Mitch's guys pulls back the hammer on his revolver, Hael stops in his tracks, scowling and cursing under his breath. “Nique ta mère, Mitch,” he murmurs, but nobody but Hael knows what that means so the insult is lost in translation. “Let her go back in the house, and we'll deal with this like real men.”