At least she's handling this situation and not Principal Vaughn, the asshole who shouldn't rightfully still be around.

Constantine turns to our vice principal and nods once.

“I understand, and you're right.” He turns back to me, still smiling. Still fucking smiling. “Thank you so much for your cooperation, Bernadette. We'll be in touch.”

I shove up from my seat and head into the hallway. Only then do I let my hands shake.

“How did it go?”

A familiar voice stops me where I am, and I turn to find Oscar waiting in the shadows. Even with my instincts on full alert as they always are, I missed him standing there. His glasses catch the light, but that's the only part of him that I can see from here.

I try not to let that icy little shiver trace down my spine, but it happens anyway.

“You are one, creepy psycho, you know that?” I ask, my heart racing as he steps out from between the two banks of lockers, dressed in his usual black suit and white dress shirt, complete with bloodred tie.

“What did the cop want?” he asks casually, but there's something decidedly not casual in his expression as he looks me over, like he still doesn't trust me.

I'm not sure that anything has ever pissed me off more.

“He wanted to know where we buried Danny's body,” I say with a smile, and Oscar frowns at me. I take a few steps closer to him, reaching up to adjust his tie. He slaps my hand away at the last moment, smiling down at me to soften the blow, to make it seem like he truly doesn't care if I touch him or not. He does. “I told them I'd check in with you guys, grab the murder weapon from Hael's trunk, and then we'd all reconvene at the party house.”

Oscar just stares at me, his eyes like cold fog beneath the freakishly clean lenses of his glasses. His ink is intense, crawling out from beneath his shirt and taking over his neck. He's got two demonic hands wrapped around his throat with reaching claws, a fitting bit of décor considering our prior interactions. I try not to think about him shirtless in the bathroom, stitching up the wound on my arm, but I fail miserably.

“Do you think that's funny?” he asks me, and I smirk.

“Actually, I do. You know what's even funnier though?” I reach up for his tie again, and this time, he lets me touch it, lets me run my fingers down the smooth silk. “You. Stop looking for a reason to distrust me; you're not going to find one.”

“What if I could get you an out?” Oscar asks, reaching down to pry my fingers off his tie. His are covered in tattoos, as if some cosmic artist dipped them into a can of paint. They're long and wicked, the hands of a devil. I imagine Oscar could cast some black voodoo magic shit if he wanted to, stir up demons and spirits with those hands of his.

“An out from what?” I ask, tucking my hands into the pockets of my old blue jeans to pretend like they're not tingling, like I can't feel every single place he just touched me. “A princess dress, for a princess.” Oscar's childhood voice rings in my ears, and I can just see him, his skin bereft of ink, his tiny hands wielding round-tipped scissors. “You better not mean an out from Havoc.”

His smile turns into an evil smirk, twisting his face into something inhumanly beautiful, but equal parts terrifying.

“What if I told you we'd complete your list, that we'd let you stay with us for the rest of the year, but that you could walk away at graduation? How would you like that? You could even take your cut of Vic's inheritance with you.”

My eyes narrow to slits, and I'm so goddamn pissed right now, I feel like I could hit Oscar right here in the hallway and not give a shit what that looks like to the rest of the student body. Maybe if I hit him in the balls hard enough, they'd jam up his throat and stop him from spewing asinine crap.

“What was it that Vic said to Donald?” I ask, musing on that for a minute. I snap my fingers like the memory's just come to me. “Ah, that's right.” I step close to Oscar, tugging on his tie. He lets me do it, but he curls his long fingers around my wrist and squeezes, meeting my glare with one of his own. “Do you think I give a shit about money? Do you think that's what motivates me?”

“Perhaps not,” Oscar purrs, leaning down to put his lips near my ear. “I think it's dick that motivates you.”

I laugh at him. How can I do anything else? His response warrants little more.

“You think dick is hard to get?” I scoff, shaking my head and shivering when Oscar's breath feathers against my ear. “I've been fighting against dick my whole life. You are aware that all I have to do is walk up to basically any guy I want and ask if he's down to fuck, and he'll say yes. And that's not because I'm exceptionally beautiful or anything; that's just the way the world works.”

“Mm.” Oscar stands back up, cocking his head slightly to one side before reaching up with his middle finger to push his glasses up his nose. “Let me correct myself: I meant very specific cocks, when I made that statement. For example, Victor Channing's dick.”

“What about my dick?” Vic asks, appearing on my right side like a shadow in the night. I shiver, and then add a mental reminder to myself to ask them all how they do it, how they walk around in broad daylight without being seen. That's a skill I could see coming in pretty fucking handy.

“Oscar and I were just having a little chat,” I say, keeping my focus on his gray eyes. He's tensed up a bit, now that Vic is standing beside us, like maybe he's a tad nervous I'll tell Havoc's leader what he just said. There's a good chance that Oscar hasn't voiced this idea to our boss. After what Vic told me last week, about how his love was selfish, I don't see him letting me go so easily. “He thinks I'm addicted to your cock.”

Vic grunts a laugh, tucking his inked fingers into the pockets of his jeans as he gives his friend a long, studying sort of look.

“What do you care if she is?” he asks, a dangerous edge to his voice.

“I don't,” Oscar replies smoothly, turning back to me. I could tattle on his ass right now, tell Vic that he questioned me about my interactions with the cop, as if I would ever tell a pig anything. Victor warned him about questioning me, back when I found the box. He most definitely wouldn't be pleased to hear about this. But then, I'm no snitch. Instead, I just smile at Oscar, letting him know that our little secret can stay between us. “It was simply an observation.”

“Well, observe your ass back to class. With cops crawling the campus, we have to be on our best behavior.” Vic turns back to me, his stare like glass, sharp enough to cut. “How did it go in there?” he asks me, and I shrug. “I'm guessing you didn't play the good little girl, now did you?”

“I don't trust the police,” I say, thinking of the Thing. Sure, some cops are good guys. So are some criminals. They steal to feed their family, or they beat the shit out of a guy that molested their daughter. They still go to prison. But just as the oxymoron good criminals serves, so does bad cops. There is true evil in Neil Pence. Combine that with unchecked power, a badge, and a firearm, and it spells trouble. “He acted like the Ensbrooks were mourning their long, lost son.” I roll my eyes dramatically, a la Regina George in Mean Girls. “As if those heroin junkies even know that they have sons, let alone that one is actually missing.”