Ms. Keating smiles at me, but it’s a tight smile. I don’t think anything of it, seeing as five of her students were dragged away in handcuffs today.

Stepping forward, I grab the back of one of the chairs in front of her desk, intending to slip into it. I’m distracted by the door opening behind me, and my eyes flick back to see my stepfather, dressed in his uniform and smiling like a reptile.

No.

“Hello Bernadette,” he says, blocking me from the door with his body, hand resting casually on his belt, just a few inches from his gun. Ms. Keating doesn’t look at him with any sort of fondness either, like maybe she can sense how evil he is beneath his average Joe exterior.

“What is he doing here?” I ask her, recognizing that I have at least one ally in this room. My eyes find the locked windows behind Ms. Keating’s desk, and I curse myself for ruining her trust enough that it’s actually handicapping me now. Talk about karma.

“Bernie, sweetie,” Neil says, making my skin crawl as his eyes undress me right there in the VP’s office. He doesn’t care who’s watching because he knows he can get away with it regardless. I hate him. I hate him. I fucking hate him. “You’re not exempt from this little raid today. Actually, the only reason you weren’t dragged out and embarrassed in front of your peers is because I stepped in. I do have to take you to the station though.” He pulls a pair of metal cuffs off of his belt, and my mind goes white with panic.

If he gets me in those cuffs, in his car, I am dead.

I am raped and killed.

I am buried with Pen.

Heather is ruined.

A shudder ripples through me, and I turn back to Keating with every ounce of panic I feel in my blood showing on my face. She notices right away and rises to her feet.

“Please don’t let him take me,” I tell her, slipping my phone from my pocket. I use the speed dial for Aaron’s phone and let it ring. Even if he can’t answer me now, if he sees this later, he’ll know.

“If you’re ever in trouble, Bernie, you just call us. You don’t have to say anything, you just let it ring.”

The Thing steps forward, lightning quick, his reflexes honed in dark alleys and seedy bars. I’m ready for him, spinning to intercept his blow, but he isn’t going for my face like usual. Instead, he smacks my hand and sends my phone flying. It hits the ground with an awful crack as I dart into the corner between Ms. Keating’s bookshelf and the row of windows behind her desk.

Not a great place to make a stand; I’m essentially trapped here, but I have nowhere else to go.

“Mr. Pence,” Ms. Keating says, her voice alarmed, a true fear working its way into her gaze. She knows what she sees here: a black woman and a teenage girl, trapped in a small office with a white male cop. Who is she supposed to call if things go wrong? And yet, I watch her stand up for me anyway. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave and return with either a warrant, or a partner, or preferably both.”

Neil tucks his thumbs into his belt for a moment, nodding his head like he might actually listen to her. But then his elbow flies out and he cracks Ms. Keating in the face. She groans and stumbles back, but even as I move to help her, I know I can’t do shit.

The Thing levels his weapon on Ms. Keating, holding the barrel even with her head as blood streams down her face and she sags back against the windows. At least she’s still conscious. I know firsthand how bad an elbow to the face can hurt. Neil’s, in particular. My eyes dart his way.

“Put the cuffs on,” Neil commands, tossing them onto the floor at my feet. He smiles at me in that way of his, like a gator on the hunt. He’s scented blood, and he sure as shit isn’t going to stop until he tastes meat. “Or I’ll kill this—” I close my eyes against his words, against the rush of emotion. Neil calls Ms. Keating the worst things you can call a person—a cunt, a whore, the n-word—and then he pistol-whips her in the goddamn face. “Now, Bernadette,” he snaps, and my eyes fly open just as Ms. Keating slides to the floor, still moaning, still trying to stand up.

I know my stepfather; this isn’t false bravado.

He feels untouchable.

He feels like he can kill us both and get away with it.

There’s a second there where I weigh my chances of escaping, where I wonder if I could really sacrifice someone like Ms. Keating to save my own ass. I’ve tried in the past to be a good person, but all I got in return was pain. I had to change to meet the challenge of the world, become something different.

But I will not let myself sink to my stepfather’s level.

Ms. Keating has shown me kindness when nobody else would, given me chance after chance after chance to prove myself.

If she dies here because of me, then I’ll find myself sinking through the muck to Neil’s level. That, that would be my true rock bottom.

I clasp the cuff on my right wrist, heart pounding. By putting these cuffs on, I put myself at the mercy of Neil. I put myself in the trust of the Havoc Boys.

“That’s a good girl,” Neil purrs as I hook the other side, now bound before him. But not helpless. Never that. He lowers the gun, but at the last second, turns and starts beating Ms. Keating in the face with it. When I charge him, he swings out and whips me across the cheek, making me bleed and see stars. “Let’s go.”

Neil leaves Ms. Keating choking on her own blood and then gestures me toward the door with his gun. If I don’t leave willingly, it’s likely that he’ll shoot me in the leg, rape me over the desk, and then kill me.

It’d be easy to blame it on someone else: one of Havoc’s crew, Mitch’s people, self-defense.

But I know the step-thing like I know the back of my hand.

He feeds on pain and suffering. He wants me to know that he’s won. And he wants to play with me first.

Neil opens the door and gestures me into the hall, marching me past the lockers and toward the front door. Since it’s a Friday, and this is South motherfucking Prescott, there are no students hanging around. They’ve all bailed for Hael’s birthday party, knowing that he won’t be able to attend, but loving the idea of gossip.

This is literally my worst nightmare.

Or rather, I thought it was until I come around the corner and find Kali waiting for me.

“Baby!” she squeals, running forward and throwing her arms around Neil’s neck. She nuzzles the side of his face and then turns to look at me, like she’s studying a wolf caught in a farmer’s trap. I give her nothing. I won’t cry or scream or even curse her out, because that’d give them both pleasure, and I’d rather die than see either of them smile. “How the mighty have fallen,” Kali quips with a roll of her eyes. She tosses her green and black hair over one shoulder and then comes to stand in front of me. “You only think you’re better than me because you’re weak,” she says, and this time, I have to laugh.

I mean, come on.

“Weak?” I query, cocking my head to one side as Principal Vaughn slinks from his office like the rat he is, bloodied fingers bandaged, his hand in a sling to keep the severed stumps from jostling. He’s sweating profusely, and honestly looks on the verge of passing out. “Kali, honey, if you thought you were in trouble before, you’ve just dug your own grave.”

She sneers at me and then reaches out to backhand me across the face. I’m proud to say that I take the blow without stumbling, lifting my head up to look at her with blood running into my mouth.