“Where are you taking her?” Vaughn simpers as he moves over to stand beside Neil. My stepfather is studying me curiously, eyes glinting with possibilities. This is his greatest dream come true, a chance to break that wild mare in that he’s always wanted. Crush my spirits, take what’s left of me, rape me into an early grave the way he did to Penelope.

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” he says, scowling as he looks the principal up and down, like even Neil finds him pathetic and weak. “I’m just gonna take her to pay a visit to her sister.” Neil moves over to give Kali a kiss as Vaughn watches me with fear in his eyes. The thing is, when he glances at Neil, I get the idea that he isn’t the one that he’s afraid of.

“Call an ambulance for Ms. Keating,” I whisper, just before Neil shoves me from behind and Kali’s laughter fills the hallway. Scott doesn’t respond to me, stepping back and watching as I leave Prescott High with my worst nightmare holding me hostage.

Kali watches as Neil puts me into the back of his squad car, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him in a way that makes my stomach churn. Well, I don’t know if the baby she’s carrying is his, but it very well might be. I wonder if Mitch knows, and then file the information away to use against him later.

I could scream, but then, I’m a girl in cuffs and Neil is a cop. Who would care? Who would try to help me?

Nobody.

Until the Havoc boys come, I have to save myself.

Glancing out the window at the brick walls of Prescott High, I wonder where the rest of the Havoc Crew is.

Or … I do until I see a skeleton mask lying on the sidewalk beside a spatter of blood.

Charter Crew.

My jaw clenches as I turn back around to watch Neil climb into the driver’s seat.

“You ready, Bernadette?” he asks me.

I might not be, but I can tell from his voice that he’s been waiting for this moment for years.

I’m sure he plans on savoring every wicked, awful moment.

The Thing drives me almost an hour outside of town to the cemetery where Penelope is buried. I could bike that route with my eyes closed I’ve been there so many times. Resting my head against the window, I listen to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me” by Tiny Tim, a 1968 nightmare of a song that makes my bones hurt.

It’s featured in plenty of horror movies because it’s scary as shit, like a maudlin clown with a knife. It’s always been Neil’s favorite song. It sets the tone for the afternoon as he winds up a quiet blacktop road toward the parking lot of Our Lady of Mercy cemetery. My father was Catholic, so we have a family burial plot here.

The nicest thing Pamela ever did for Pen was to bury her here beside our dad.

Probably because it was pre-paid so therefore, in her eyes, free.

Neil parks the car, humming the words to the song under his breath as he loads his pistol with a fresh magazine, bobbing his head in time with the music.

This primal sense of survival takes over me as I exhale, sitting in the back of his cop car, fully aware that he could kill me at any moment.

That’s not what he’s here for though, not yet. If I died now then he’d never get to stick it to me, show me he was boss, punish me for all my years of resistance. Nah, it wouldn’t be near as fun. I’m sure he intends on raping me, too.

I swallow back my fear, letting that icy lump crash into my stomach as I let my alpha female side take over.

Fight, Bernie, always.

The boys will come for me. I just need to buy them time. That’s my job right now.

Neil climbs out of the car and then opens my door, gesturing with his gun to indicate that I get out. For a moment, he just studies me, but then his lips curve up into an insidious smile.

“We’re going to play a game together, Bernadette,” he tells me as I lick dried blood from my lip, staring back at him as I wait for the rules of this nightmare. Memories flicker in my mind, but I push them back. Not going there, not right now. The Thing makes a show of checking his gun to ensure that the safety is off. “You remember when we used to play hide ‘n’ seek when you were a kid?”

I do.

And I wish I didn’t.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are …”

Neil used to force Pen and me to play with him, chasing us through the dark as we scrabbled like rats to avoid him. If he found us, it usually wasn’t good. He was always drunk back then, and he’d knock us around a bit, just for fun.

“I’m going to give you a fifteen second head start,” Neil tells me, tapping the butt of his gun against his palm. “But if I find you …” he trails off and then aims his weapon at the angel statue above Penelope’s grave. My eyes widen and my breath quickens, but I can’t do anything but watch as he pulls the trigger and blows off her head. Bits of marble that look like skull fragments explode across the grass as I take off running, weaving between tombstones and around mausoleums.

I need to find somewhere to hide, I think, eyes darting around the cemetery as the sun dips low in the sky and the birds call out their final songs from the trees around us. The Thing is laughing, the sound echoing across the freshly-mowed grass as he counts down from fifteen.

“Twelve,” he continues, his voice a maniac growl. He’s planned this all perfectly, lying in wait on his belly and watching with eyes above the swampy water for us to venture too close to the watering hole. See, Neil isn’t about showy moves like dumping a kids’ corpse in a trunk. He just crawls around on curved claws until an opportunity arises.

Just like it has today.

And this, this is why he’s always been so goddamn dangerous.

“Eleven.”

I keep running, being careful not to trip. I need every second I can get to put space between me and him. But the issue with this graveyard is that it’s carved from the woods and surrounded by a cast-iron fence that’d be very difficult to climb in handcuffs.

I have to find a way to get the jump on Neil, I realize as his countdown ends, and I swing behind a statue of the archangel Michael. He’s the defender of justice, right? Seems a fitting place to stand as I struggle to control my breathing, to stay quiet, to channel the cat-like silence of the Havoc Boys.

If you don’t get him, Bernie, he’ll get you. Be proactive, not reactive.

“Ready or not, here I come!” Neil calls out as I close my eyes to block out the graveyard, focusing on his footsteps and the clinking of the keys at his belt. “Bernadette …” he oozes, working his way toward the woods.

I imagine he’ll keep a close eye on the exit and the fence, assuming that I’ll try to make a run for it. Instead, I’m going to do the opposite and head into the thick of the graveyard, using the tombstones to hide.

“You know how good your sister’s pussy felt?” he asks, causing my eyes to fly open with angry tears. I grit my teeth to keep from crying out. Hearing him say that … it’s like torture, pure torture. He knows it, too, and like a hunter with a dog, he’s trying to flush me out. “The last night that I fucked her was the last night she was alive. Did you know that, Bernie? Did you?”

A gunshot explodes into the quiet, sending a flock of songbirds into the sky, their voices high with fear. I use the moment to peek around the corner of the mausoleum, spotting Neil just forty feet from me. He’s just knocked the head off of another statue, leaving destruction and disrespect in his wake.