The next morning starts out with me waking up in a puddle of blood.

The timing’s unfortunate because as I’m sitting up and throwing Aaron’s sheets aside, he walks in and sees me staring down at the violent mess of crimson I’ve made of his bed.

“What the fuck?” he blurts out, tattooed fingers curled around the doorjamb as he leans into the bedroom, like he needs the door to keep himself upright. In an instant, he’s moving toward me like I need saving, and I feel myself get seriously irritated.

Yep, it’s definitely that time of the goddamn month.

And right after I went to all that trouble to take the pregnancy tests.

“I’m on my period, Aaron,” I tell him dryly, watching as he comes to that realization on his own a split-second before the words leave my lips. “I get really heavy ones sometimes; it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, for your sheets it is. But not me.”

He hesitates about a foot away from the bed, still stuck in that strange limbo we’ve had between us for years. Are we something or not? Was it just a casual fuck … or not?

“Do you need help?” he asks, eyeing me with a morbid curiosity.

“I mean, you could shove this shit in the laundry?” I suggest, wondering if I’m taking whatever it is we’ve got going between us too far, too quick. Cute first-time boyfriend shit like shyly helping your girl with her period, we’re past that. I’m two years too far beyond getting a bouquet of tampons by a well-meaning high schooler. “This is weird, isn’t it? It’s freaking weird. Just … get out.”

Aaron surprises me by laughing. He buried a girl in the woods last night, has dark circles under his eyes … and he’s laughing. Guess he meant what he said about trying to find happiness wherever you can, whenever you can. I can see how and why he changed so quickly. The old Aaron probably vomited at the sight of his first body and fell into shock for days. That old Aaron would never survive this, would most definitely not be able to laugh.

“It’s no big deal, Bernie. I know what a period is; I’ll throw the stuff in the wash.”

I narrow my eyes on him, but now that I’ve asked for help, I decide I don’t want it. I’m going to have to run for that stupid toilet, blood running down my legs, dripping across the floor … The last thing I’d ever want is for any of the Havoc Boys—Aaron included—to see me in that state.

I’m Bernadette Blackbird, leather-wearing, face-smashing bitch from hell.

That’s the persona I want. This is too real for me. Honestly, it’s freaking me the fuck out. I’m pretty sure I have intimacy problems that I need to work through.

“Aaron, screw off,” I say, trying to keep my cool as much as possible. Anyone that tells you that women are irrational freaks on their period is probably a misogynistic douche, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy having blood all over me and cramps that hurt like a punch to the gut.

“Stop that crap. I’m here to help. Where did you put the tampons and shit you bought?” He crosses his arms over his chest, like he intends on standing there until I tell him.

“Downstairs,” I grind out and he nods, disappearing out the door while I scramble to get to the toilet. Unfortunately for me, Oscar is in the bathroom when I get there, and I groan. He’s brushing his teeth at the sink and pauses to look my direction with a face painted in abject boredom. When he sees the blood all over my crotch, his expression shifts slightly.

“I can see you need this more than I do,” he says calmly, spitting into the sink one last time before he quickly rinses it and puts his toothbrush in a case. I try not to judge, but who the hell takes the time to put their toothbrush in a snapping plastic case twice a day? It just isn’t worth the effort.

Oscar goes to skirt past me, but as he does, a strange thrill passes over me, and he pauses right beside me, our bodies jammed together in the doorframe.

He’s tall, much skinnier than Hael or Aaron or Vic, but with long, lean muscles that move viper-quick in an altercation. I’ve seen him fight before, when he curb stomped that kid outside the school. I’ve also used a stun gun on him and watched as he grabbed my arm and electrocuted me, too. I ended up on my back on the ground, twitching, as Oscar stood stoically over me.

He’s inhuman.

I move into the room and slam the door behind me. Seeing as the lock is broken, I don’t bother with it, climbing into the bathtub with all my clothes on and shivering as I wait for the water to warm up. Blood swirls down my thighs and stains the floor red. I can’t stop staring at it for some reason, my mind on Ivy Hightower’s perfect dead body.

Just like Pen’s.

Too perfect to really be dead, too perfect for any of that morbidity to be real. Because dead people—people like Danny Ensbrook—look ugly when they die. They smell, and they bloat, and they crawl.

Penelope just looked … asleep. Like Ivy.

“You stupid fucker,” I growl, closing my eyes under the spray of the water. I strip my clothes off and then stand there with my arms wrapped over my chest, thinking about the Thing. About my sister. About the note on her phone, and the pills on her bed.

But none of that really means she killed herself. Neil could’ve put a gun to her head and forced her to write the note, take the pills. Half of me wonders how I didn’t think of this before, and the other half of me is convinced that I must be a moron to come up with a story that’s so far-fetched.

I hear the door open and peak around the curtain as thick, wet fog swirls around the bathroom. Aaron puts the tampons and menstrual cups on the counter, along with a water bottle and some ibuprofen.

“You’re our first Havoc Girl,” he says, looking down at the items on the counter like he’s happy to see them there. This is getting intimate, and I’m not sure that I like it. “And our first period, so take it easy on us, okay?”

“Don’t act like sexist pricks, and I’ll do my best, okay? And tell Oscar I can still strangle him, bleeding out of the vagina or no.”

“I’ll make sure to deliver that message,” Aaron tells me, watching me for a moment before he steps out of the bathroom and closes the door behind him. My heart flip-flops strangely as I imagine him smiling on the other side of that door, happy to have his girlfriend back, happy to be a part of her life in the most intimate way possible.

Girlfriend … I still need to unpack that word.

After all, can I really be Vic’s fiancée and Aaron’s girlfriend and Hael’s … something, all in the same breath?

Once I get out of the shower and put my cup in—it’s the disposable kind you can still have sex with, so I’m happy about that—I wrap a towel around myself and head back to Aaron’s room to get dressed. I slept alone in there last night, but something about that felt off.

There’s no reason for me to sleep alone, not anymore. Aaron might’ve been in the woods, but Vic was at the house.

I check on the girls and find them immersed in a fierce game of Mario Kart together. I feel a bit like an asshole; I haven’t been giving Heather the attention she deserves. Let’s just get through this, and we can be together, I promise her. But I don’t interrupt their game to tell her that. Children are perceptive as hell. If I start acting weird and hugging her, kissing her forehead, murmuring strange shit, she’s going to know something is wrong.