“A problem?” I ask, peering at him like the nutcase he is. “We just had sex, you half-wit fucker. You’re not going to write me out of my own story.” Oscar pretends not to hear me, but the muscles in his back tense up. That’s enough for me, knowing I’ve rankled him in some way.

I refocus on Callum, taking his hand as he helps me out the window and onto the gentle pitch of the roof. We’re still holding hands as he walks me around to face the east side of the house and the rising orange ball of the sun.

We sit down, side by side, our arms pressed close together.

For a while, neither of us says a damn thing.

“You know,” he starts, removing a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his hoodie and lighting one up before offering it to me; I take it. “When I told you, at the dance studio, that we do whatever is best for Havoc …” Callum trails off, slipping another cigarette between his fairy-tale lips and lighting up. It’s odd, to see such a beautiful boy with smoke billowing from his mouth. That mouth, it should be kissing your forehead, telling you everything is okay, saying I love you. That’s how Callum was built from birth, to be someone special. He still is, but his energy now is dark and muddled; the only thing he’s certain of—besides the rising sun—is that pain is a constant.

“What about that?” I ask, edging closer to him. By all rights, I should move further away. But each day … no, no, each minute, each second that I spend with the Havoc Boys, the more I’m drawn into the deep, dark well from which they call came.

We’re forged from the same primal soul, me and these boys.

I take a drag on my cigarette, lifting a brow as Cal pulls a Pepsi out of his hoodie pocket. He cracks the top and takes a sip. This, too, he offers me, and I accept, just so I can press my lips to the same spot he did. An indirect kiss. My mouth tingles as I hand the can back.

“You know that I meant you, too, right?” he asks, still staring into the sun. It’s getting a bit bright for me, so I glance away, but Callum manages to hold its fiery stare for much longer. “Because you’re a part of Havoc. It might not have been official until recently, but it was always true.”

I say nothing, staring down at the shorts I stole from Aaron’s dresser. I’m addicted to wearing his clothes apparently. Even when I know I have my own things in a duffel bag on the floor, I want something of his. Paired with Cal’s hoodie, I feel safer than I ever have in my entire goddamn life.

Yes, Havoc kills people, but they kill people for me. To protect me. To protect my sister.

“Somehow,” I start, smoking my cigarette with no small amount of pleasure. Sure, it might kill me one day, but the slow murder of nicotine is delicious. Sorry, but it’s true. Just … don’t start. That’s what I always tell Heather. Don’t start. Don’t get mixed up in something that could kill you. Don’t fall in love with five boys on an elementary school playground. “I knew that was what you meant.”

Callum chuckles, and I’m just so done with trying to find metaphors to describe his perfectly imperfect voice that I lean over and kiss him. It’s a sloppy, weird kiss, and it makes me feel my age, but it also makes my mouth sparkle and glitter.

Jesus.

Flushing, I turn back to the sunrise. Doesn’t mean I miss Cal’s saucy smile out of the corner of my eye. He reaches up to rub a hand over the scars on his neck.

“You should know, we thought about killing your stepdad years ago, even before we found the video.” Callum says that as easily as one might mention how they like their eggs for breakfast. I stare at him, but he just smokes his cigarette and sips his Pepsi, taking his time before he answers me. “Hael tried to do it for real once, but back then, we had nothing. We were nothing.” Cal snickers, eyes crinkling up with a genuine sense of emotion. “We became something for you, Bernadette. Havoc is a blade; wield it.”

“Hael tried to … kill Neil?” I clarify, blinking at him. Cal nods, his blond hair turning gold in the light of the rising sun. Even though mornings make me sad—because they always remind me of Pen and the way she used to say rise and shine when she’d wake me up—I can at least take a moment to say this is shaping up to be one of my bests. I’m here, and not with Pamela and the Thing. I’m here with Callum freaking Park.

“Not my story to tell,” Cal explains, glancing my way. His eyes are as blue as the sky behind his head. My breath catches, and I find myself looking away. I can’t believe I screwed Oscar before Callum. What a dick move. In any hand, in any game, Callum beats Oscar. “You should ask him though; bet he’d love to tell it.” I think about that, about Hael Harbin facing off against Neil Pence for me. My lips twitch against the beginnings of a smile. “We might’ve let Hael do it—helped him do it, actually—but the world was stacked against us.” Cal keeps watching me, like he’s trying to gauge my reaction. “We didn’t want Neil’s murder pinned on you. That, and someone would have to go to jail. That would mean never seeing you again. We were all too selfish to let you go.” Cal stops smoking, ashes his cigarette on the brown roof tiles, and then flicks the butt into the netherworld. “I won’t make that same mistake again, Bernie.” He looks out toward the other suburban houses that surround Aaron’s, their backyards all butt-fucked up against each other. Not that I can complain. Still better than the sandbox-sized dump they call a backyard that Pamela has back in South Prescott.

“Please don’t talk like that,” I say as he laughs at me, giving my scrunched up face a curious onceover with that beautiful blue gaze of his. Birds twitter in the trees around us, singing songs that are more cheerful than any living creature has a right to be. “If I were reading a book, I’d peg you as the sacrificial type, the first one to die.”

“Foreshadowing?” Cal jokes, but it’s not funny to me. I don’t want any heroic bullshit moves ruining what we’re building here. And what, exactly, are we building here, Bernie? I ask myself, but I’m not ready to answer that question, so I don’t bother.

“We haven’t slept together yet, so … it’d make narrative sense for you to be killed off.” My voice cracks a bit on the words because the thought of losing a Havoc Boy when I’ve only just gotten them … that kills me.

“Yet,” Cal purrs in his husky voice, expelling the sunlight from my aura and replacing it with star-studded darkness. I shimmy even closer to him. “There’s no rush, Bernadette. Just enjoy yourself. I don’t date, and I haven’t slept with anyone since school started.” He keeps smiling, but his eyes are far away and full of wicked whimsy.

“Victor acts like there’s a rush,” I say, wondering if Oscar or Hael is listening in on our conversation. They can if they want; I don’t give a shit. The shower was on when I came up the stairs, so I figure Aaron is naked, and wet, and his soapy hands are trailing down his inked body …

“There isn’t,” Cal tells me, voice firm and maybe just a little bit scary. “Vic is good at what he does. He created Havoc; he owns it. He’s fair, and he’s smart, and his fuse is long, but he’s also an asshole. Don’t listen to him. Sooner or later, he’ll understand.”