I never fell out of love with him, that’s the truth. I just started hating him on top of it. We just made love … and then he hate-fucked me. It’s a dynamic that works. As Aaron steps back and I push up to a standing position, I wet my lips with my tongue.

He groans as he leans back against the wall, fixing his pants while he struggles to catch his breath. I love that, watching his tattooed chest rise and fall with each desperate inhale.

You’re so human, Aaron Fadler, I think, and I smile.

“Don’t lick your lips like that,” he tells me, disposing of the condom and washing his hands. I stay leaning against the counter next to him, watching him. “You’ll get me hard all over again, and the poor Prescott kids won’t get to piss for hours yet.”

“You really think you can go for hours?” I quip back with a grin. I feel weird right now, an emotion I don’t understand flickering inside of me. Since I don’t recognize it, and I don’t want to ruin the moment by trying to delve into it, I just push it aside. “That’s some serious bravado, Fadler. I’d like to see you prove it.”

He turns his head to look at me, a smug smirk taking over his lips. He might be the nicest of the Havoc Boys, but he’s still a boy and therefore, still an asshole.

“Mind if I do that sometime?” he asks, standing up and drying his hands off on his jeans. “Take you to bed and show you exactly how long I can go?”

I just smile back at him. Let him have that smug male sense of satisfaction. The kitty cat inside of me purrs and arches her back. I’ve taken three of the Havoc Boys to bed. I knew that I’d end up sleeping with them when I called out that word. Idiot that I am, I tried to lie to myself and pretend that it was all out of duty and obligation.

In reality, it was obsession.

Do the boys owe me retribution for their wrongs?

Sure.

But nothing is as sweet as salvation.

Someone like Kali or the Thing or Pamela, for that matter, will never be worthy of redemption. But the boys will. Are.

I bite my lip.

“Can we get a burger or something before we go home?” I ask, and Aaron laughs, reaching out to grab me by the hips and pull me close. It’s strange, I’ll admit, how easily we fall back into touching each other. He strokes my hair back, putting his face up against mine. The way Aaron touches me, I can sense it in him: he thinks we’re on a timeline, too. He’s going to touch me as much as he can because he doesn’t know when it might stop, when we might be separated again.

That’s how all the kids at Prescott High live, like we have no future at all.

That’s something I’d like to change, if I could.

Maybe one day.

“A burger, huh?” he asks, and just his breath against my ear makes my body spasm with need. My fingers dig into the skin of his bare back. We should probably find his shirt …

“Well, I’m hungry. You tired me out.” I sound like Bernadette, like the big bitch on campus, but … on the inside, I’m a kitten in his arms. Whereas Vic turns me into a lion and makes me want to roar, Aaron makes me purr like a baby.

“I suppose I can do that, treat you to a burger and fries. Honestly, our milkshakes are probably melted puddles by now, so I’ll guess we’ll have to order another round.” I nod, but for just a split-second there, I can’t speak.

Because I’ve just felt that flicker of emotion again, like a firefly trapped in my soul.

And, I’ve just figured out what it is: happiness.

Aaron makes me happy.

How weird is that?

Two and a half years earlier …

Aaron Fadler

What the fuck have I done?

I’m kneeling in the grass outside of Prescott High, my head bent over, crushed between my hands. I can’t listen to Bernadette scream, not without breaking down and pulling my gun on Victor. How can he be so cruel when he loves her so much? What the hell is wrong with him?

“Aaron, get up,” Vic commands, and I turn my head slowly to look at him, looming over me, staring down at me with dark eyes. He’s frowning at me, but I don’t care. I just gave up my motherfucking soulmate to save my sister and my cousin. The world isn’t fair; the world is cruel.

While that’s all true, I wasn’t supposed to add to Bernadette’s cruelty. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Giving her up to have a better life was one thing, but sabotaging her? Yes, Kali Rose-Kennedy called Havoc and asked us to destroy Bernie for a year. To be honest, I almost hit her, just clocked that smug bitch in the face.

But that’s not how Havoc works.

“This is probably for the best,” Oscar had mused, cocking his head to one side in thought. “Bernadette watches us too closely, peers too keenly. We have to put some space between us and her.”

“Why’s that?” Hael quipped back, frowning hard. “This whole thing is bullshit. Who is Kali Rose? Nobody. We have history with Bernadette.”

And he was right.

We do have history with Bernie. Since elementary school, we’ve tried to look out for her. Shit, we made a pact when we were thirteen to watch from afar but keep romance out of it.

They all wanted her then; they still do, but in a different way. Things have changed a lot since we were thirteen. Bernadette is curvy and beautiful, a young woman with determination and hope in her eyes. For the briefest of moments, she was mine. She was mine. Fucking mine.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Vic,” I tell him honestly. Seeing Bernie hauled out of Prescott, kicking and screaming? That killed me. I vomited all over the front steps.

Vic crouches down in front of me, still frowning, as unhappy as I am, but most definitely not as undecided as me. He’s never undecided about anything, that’s what makes him so scary. He’s the perfect leader; he oozes charisma. He also scares me a little, but I’ll never let him know that. I’d rather die.

“Aaron, when we let you date Bernadette before, we agreed it was because you could give her something that none of us could. Things have changed; you are tainted.”

Closing my eyes, I nod. He’s right. I know he’s right.

“This is going to be hard, the hardest thing we’ve ever done. But Bernadette is too attached to us, too attached to you. We have to let her go, Aaron. The life of a mobster’s wife is short and brutal.”

“I know,” I growl out, sitting up. Vic claps a hand over my shoulder and rises to his feet.

“You’re selfless, Aaron. You always have been.” I’m not sure if Vic’s trying to compliment me … or insult me. Either way, he’s wrong.

Homecoming night, Hael and I watch from the woods as Bernadette walks home in nothing but a bra and panties. Her eyes are hard, her fists are clenched, but she doesn’t cry.

When she gets home, I’m waiting for her. She doesn’t know we watched her along the way, that we kept her safe. All she knows is that I’m a monster. Still … when I approach her, putting my hands on her hips, she looks up into my face and I know.

We can put distance between us, but that connection we have … it can’t be severed. Whether her name is in the acronym or not, Bernadette will and always has been Havoc, one of the family. Mine.

“I hate you,” she tells me, her pale skin washed in moonlight as she shivers. “I fucking hate you.”