I smirk at him, taking another drag on the joint.

“Curious about it?” I quip, raising an eyebrow, but Oscar just smiles at me like a shark who’s scented blood.

“Not particularly. I’d rather eat razor blades. What are you doing here anyway, Bernadette?”

“Seeking vengeance, finding justice,” I reply with a smooth smile, wondering how I’d have felt if Havoc really had come back at me with some bullshit price. They can’t have known how deeply the thorn of want had embedded itself in my heart, how desperately I wanted to be one of them.

On the inside, underneath all of my ramblings about revenge for Pen and safety for Heather, am I just as selfish as the rest of the world?

“Boring,” Oscar replies, standing up from the chair and loosening his tie. “And here I was actually starting to wonder if you were more interesting than that.” He pauses next to me, leans down, and captures the joint between two inked fingers. “Now, let’s go find your foster brother, shall we?” He flicks the joint into the ashtray and then disappears inside, leaving me to stare down at the smoking ruins with wide eyes.

My foster brother, Eric Kushner. Name number six on my list.

Well, fuck.

Eric Kushner lives in a builder’s grade McMansion on a quiet street. His is, surprisingly, the prettiest house on the cul-de-sac. It's a three-story white colonial with a red door and spiral-cut boxwoods that frame the large porch. He's even added to the charming ambiance of his all-American house by putting a bulb with a flickering flame in his outdoor light, making it look like a gas lantern.

When I first saw it, at age eleven, I was impressed.

It looked like such a nice place. When I walked in and smelled the lemon and sugar scent from the freshly baked cookies, I thought it smelled like a nice place, too. My foster father, a man named Todd Kushner, seemed like a nice guy, too. He was relatively young, only sixteen years older than his eldest son, and an investment banker to boot.

The Kushner Family was my first experience with the foster care system, and it was everything I'd dreamed it would be. I'd fantasized about what life would be like when I escaped my mother, when I finally had a real home with people who loved me, who wouldn't hit me, who'd buy me pretty dresses and fancy toys.

For about two weeks, the Kushners were everything I'd dreamed they could be. At first, I was disappointed that there was no mother figure here for me and Pen and Heather. But Eric and Todd, they were as nice as could be.

Until … they weren't.

Bile rises in my throat as I stand on the sidewalk, looking up at the five-thousand square foot house with a sense of dread. I barely escaped this place; Heather barely escaped this place. I don't think about Penelope, not right now.

“What are we doing here?” I ask as Oscar strides up the front walk like he owns the place. He gestures for me to follow him, pausing on the front porch and waiting for me to join him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the key in my hand goes to this house. Swallowing past the memories, I reach out and unlock it. When I hesitate, Oscar opens the door for me and gestures with his hand to indicate I should follow him in.

I glance toward my right, finding a blond woman standing on her front lawn, one hand over her eyes as she shields them from the sun, watching me. Her kids tumble around her feet, one on a plastic tricycle, the other waving around a hose. If I stand here for too long, she'll call security on us.

I smile, resist the urge to flip her off, and then stroll casually after Oscar, like I belong here. After all, I used to be a part of this family, too. From my mother's clawed grip to the Kushners’ depravity to the insanity that is Havoc, it's no wonder why Vic referred to me as a beautiful nightmare. I've never been allowed to dream, after all.

Oscar closes and locks the door behind me. Not that it matters, considering we parked right in the driveway on Victor’s Harley. It's so fucking flashy, impossible to miss. I had no idea Oscar knew how to drive a bike, but I guess he’s just full of surprises, isn’t he?

“Someone in the neighborhood is going to tell the Kushners we were here,” I say, trying to resist the shiver of revulsion that comes over me as I stand in that palace of lies, as I think about Eric, pulling me onto his lap, his breath hot and stale against my ear. I was okay sitting there, at first, not like I was with the Thing. I wasn't afraid to sit with Eric; I was excited. He might've been a decade older than me, but he was my new brother, right?

“Does that feel good, Bernadette?” He'd asked, sliding his hand up my leg. I can't forget that moment, no matter how hard I try. I was wearing tights under my new dress, all gussied-up for a school play that both Eric and Todd had attended, sitting in the front row and filming me with their phones, beaming as proudly as the other parents in the audience. That's the part I can't forget, the way Eric smiled at me when I was performing, how happy I was. That, and the skim of his palm along my tights. “Would you like it if I touched you just a little bit higher?”

My hands curl into fists as Oscar takes in the place's mettle, making notes on his iPad. I'm just assuming he has all his work tied to the cloud. We haven't talked about the iPad I threw into the mirror, or the fact that I'm certain he still has access to that horrible video. How many times has he watched it? I decide I don't want to know the answer to that question.

“I'm counting on the neighborhood telling them,” Oscar says, smiling sharply. His glasses flash as he turns to look at me. “What are they going to say? Two kids on a motorcycle walked into the house and then left, but yet nothing was disturbed?” He pauses for a moment, like he's thinking. “Well, I suppose you could steal a few small things, just for fun.”

I narrow my eyes as Oscar continues down the hall, toward the gym and the bathroom that functions as a changing room for the outdoor pool. My nostrils flare. Pen and I had so much fun swimming out there. It didn't occur to me that Eric was filming us in our bathing suits for any reason other than posterity's sake.

Hah.

And at age eleven, I'd thought I was hardened to the world, that my experience with my father's suicide, and my mother's abuse, the Thing's rage … I thought those things had taught me to see evil. How wrong I was.

I wait for Oscar, standing in the open kitchen/living room area with the faint smell of Eric's stupid Straight to Heaven cologne wafting in the air around us. The smell of it—like dark rum and patchouli—makes me sick, churning old memories that are better left buried.

When Oscar comes back and heads for the stairs, he pauses with one, elegant, inked hand waiting on the banister. As he glances down at me, I can see the challenge burning in his eyes.

“Coming with?” he quips, and then he continues on up the stairs, like he truly doesn't expect me to follow, like he thinks I'll chicken out. Guess he doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does.

With a long exhale, I start up the stairs, pausing on the landing, my eyes focused on the door to the room that used to be mine.

One night, after weeks of discomfort, where Eric touched and cuddled me in ways just this side of inappropriate, he came into my room at night. He laid down beside me and pulled my nightgown over my shoulder, pressing his lips to my skin. I woke up right away, my body freezing up as his hand slipped down between my legs.