“What’s going on?” I ask as he takes a step toward me, his eyes focused above and behind me. When I glance back, I see something I really don’t like. That is, a group of men I don’t recognize making their way toward us.

My instincts flare, and that fight or flight fever kicks in. Like I said, mine’s messed up because it’s more like a fight or fight harder instinct, but it works for me.

“Trouble.” Oscar sets his iPad on the trunk of Hael’s car, and then carefully unbuttons his jacket, tossing it aside. His beautiful tattooed fingers flick open a few buttons, and he reaches inside his shirt, pulling out a gun, a revolver by the looks of it.

Without even blinking, he lifts it up and levels it on the newcomers.

“You should've taken off when you had the chance, gone to live with that grandmother of yours.”

Aaron’s words make me shiver, and I exhale to calm myself.

This is what buying into Havoc has earned me: violence and turmoil. They are a gang, after all, no matter how beautiful or dark or alluring they might be. No matter what they used to mean to me as a kid.

None of it matters to me now though. As long as I can reap my vengeance and save my sister first, nothing else is important.

“This is Havoc territory,” Oscar says, voice smooth and cool, almost businesslike. “What do you want?”

“Who the fuck are you? Some brat with his daddy’s firearm?” the man in the front asks, his grizzled gray beard belying the strength in those thick forearms of his. Forearms don’t seem important until you realize that the muscles there are what control grip strength.

Oscar smiles.

“Not exactly.” He disengages the safety and pulls the hammer back.

“You little punk,” the man snarls, and the group makes their way toward us. My heart is thundering like crazy, and sweat is dripping down the sides of my face. Any woman worth her weight in salt knows a group of men equals bad news.

It's just me and Oscar out here. Two against six. And who knows how many more of these guys are in the house?

“Take one more step forward, and I'll shoot you in the thigh as a warning. But only because I'm an understanding sort of fellow.”

The men don't slow down, as sure of these odds as I am.

Oscar doesn't seem to give two craps.

He pulls the trigger and hits the leader in the thigh, striding forward as blood and gunpowder color the night air. Within a few seconds, the tide has turned and the leader is in a crumpled heap on the ground, howling in pain. That, and Oscar's gun is pressed firmly against his temple.

“I asked you not to move, and you didn't listen,” he says, his voice this dark thread of fire that curls around me, blue flame dancing with menace. Sure, it's all metaphorical, but the fact that the guy's voice is powerful enough to make me see in poetry is pretty impressive. “Do it again, and I'll be forced to make a decision neither of us will enjoy.”

“You don't have the balls,” one of the other men snarls, and Oscar lifts his gray eyes up to stare at him.

“Don't I?”

A long, silent moment passes, the wind whistling down the dirty street. In this part of the city, nobody calls the cops over a gunshot. Better to let something bad happen to someone else than be labelled a snitch and bring something bad on you and yours.

“These kids are fucking crazy, I told you,” one of the other men says, grabbing his groaning, bleeding buddy under the arms. Several of the other men step in to help as Oscar stays where he is, gun held rock steady in one hand. “You tell Vic that his dad owes money to a lot of powerful people.”

“My patience is sadly running low,” Oscar says, cocking the hammer again for emphasis. “I'm going to count down from ten in my head.” He taps his temple with an inked finger. “And if you're not gone by the time I get to one, well …”

The men scramble to drag their friend away while several others come pouring out of the house, booking it down the road with limps and blood and black eyes.

Hael, Aaron, and Callum come out after them with Vic following behind.

He drags his father by the shirt and throws him into the dead grass, knocking over the plastic lawn chair we sat in together just days ago. My heart begins to beat, and I run my tongue over my lower lip without thinking.

“You piece of shit,” Vic snarls, putting his boot on his father's chest, his teeth gritted in anger, a muscle ticking in the side of his neck. “You brought that crap home with you. Are you insane?”

“That's my boy,” the man coughs, choking and sputtering under the weight of his son's shoe. “I knew you and your friends would be there for me. That's what family is for, right?”

Vic's entire face shuts down, and he removes his boot, crouching down next to his father with the darkest expression I've ever seen on another human being.

“Havoc does not exist to be your personal police. This is the first and last time we will come to your aid. Do you understand me, old man? The next time those men come looking for you, I'm handing you over with a ribbon tied around your fat neck.” He moves to stand up as his father rolls onto his side, face red with liquor, wearing a stained gray wifebeater and holey jeans. It's an outfit virtually identical to what Hael's got on, but where Hael is streaked with grease from being under the hood, Vic's dad is wet with sweat and blood and vomit.

My lip curls.

“Son, you have all that money comin' to you,” the old man starts, and Vic laughs. The sound is far from pleasant.

“You listen here.” He grabs his father's hair and lifts his head up in a way that makes the old drunk hack unpleasantly. “The only reason I hate Mom more than I hate you is because she ran off and left me here with you. You are scum. Worth less than the dirt beneath my boots. The only reason you're alive right now is because I have a moral code that's so rigid, even my desperate dislike for you can't break it.”

“Moral code?” Vic's father laughs, jerking away from his son's grip and scrambling backwards until he finds his feet. The other boys stand in a loose half-circle around him, watching, waiting, while Oscar cleans his gun with a handkerchief from his pocket, and tucks it into his shirt, carefully buttoning it up again. “I know what you and your buddies do. You steal and you fight, you smoke and you fuck. What makes you any different than me?”

“The fact that you don't know the answer to that question is part of the problem.” Victor stands back up and swipes some blood from his hands onto his jeans. None of it is his blood. He turns to the side to look at me and frowns, running his fingers through his dark hair. “Hael, Oscar, escort Bernadette home.”

My nostrils flare, and I try not to show my disappointment.

If Vic thinks sending me home is a boon, he's wrong.

It's a punishment.

The Thing isn't currently at the house, which is a positive, but if it were, I wouldn't go inside. I'd sleep in the woods out back, in the small pink tent my grandmother gave me when I was six. And I'd sleep there with a knife.

“You don't look so happy to be here,” Oscar says, leaning forward between the two seats, his bland, neutral, business-like smile back in place. But tonight, I saw deeper, into what truly makes him a part of Havoc.