“I'm not.” I grab my backpack and sleeping bag as Hael gets out of the car and comes around to … open my door. What the fuck? I give him a skeptical sort of look as I climb out, like one might eye a used car salesman.

He wants something from me.

But, you know, in a way, he's much worse than a used car salesman because I know what a salesman wants. I have no idea what's going through Hael's mind.

“What?” he asks, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “We take care of our own, Blackbird. Relax. I was just trying to be a gentleman.”

“Well, don't,” I snap, scooting around him, and giving the big, tattooed car freak a wide berth. “I'm not used to it, and it doesn't suit you.”

He laughs at me. Shit, he's always laughing.

“Good point. Catch ya later, Bernie.”

Hael climbs back in the car and he and Oscar take off, leaving me alone in my own personal hell. Staring up at the dilapidated duplex in front of me, I sigh and head for the front door.

Hopefully, Pamela is asleep.

But then I walk in and find her sitting on the couch, waiting for me. It's always bad when she's paying attention to me. I prefer the months of severe neglect, hands down.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asks me, standing up and giving my frock a confused look. It's definitely not my usual daywear, that's for sure.

“What do you care?” I ask, and then the hair on the back of my neck stands on end at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. I'd recognize that car anywhere: it belongs to the Thing. My skin gets tight suddenly, like I'm trapped inside of it with nowhere to go.

Maybe Aaron was right, maybe you should've cut to Nantucket and run? Maybe none of this is worth it? How much more suffering will you have to endure to achieve your ends, Bernadette?

But I'm so damaged, and so broken. I don't even know what happiness looks like anymore. Heather, though, her smile is like a radiant beam of sunshine. She gets it, the meaning of life. I just have to stop the world from snatching it away.

The front door opens and there it is. I refuse to give it any sort of gendered pronoun, or a non-binary pronoun like they. It is an it, and it’s not even dignified enough for that.

The Thing. The Monster. The Creep. The Devil.

My throat gets tight, and I find it suddenly hard to breathe.

“The hell are you wearing?” he asks, his laughter this slime that coats my skin and poisons me. I want to gouge my ears out with a needle, just to make it stop. Just so I never have to hear that sound again. “You look like one of the old bitches at the bingo hall.”

Neil Pence aka the Thing aka my stepfather moves toward me and reaches down to cup my ass. My reflexes are sharp now, honed, not those of the little girl he abused for so many years.

I throw my elbow into his stomach, and he grunts, doubling over in pain as my mother gapes at us.

“Don't you hit your father!” she shouts, taking his side as she clutches at her pearls. Always taking his side.

She didn’t believe Pen when my sister asked for help. She’s part of the reason Penelope is dead. My eyes narrow to slits, and venom spews from between my lips.

“This freak is not my father,” I shout back, hands shaking. The temptation to grab a knife from the kitchen and plunge it through his chest calls to me. I've thought about it before, almost obsessively.

But … I've been trapped all my life, one way or another.

Caged.

The last thing I want is to end up in prison and leave Heather alone with this bitch we call Mom.

Havoc, Havoc, Havoc. I’ve got Havoc now, and it’ll all be worth it: the sex, the fake marriage, the violence. All of it.

“Don't you talk to me like that, you little bitch,” the Thing growls, coming for me the way he's done since … well, since before I can even remember. The Thing has been beating me bloody since three months after my father died. Pretty sure he was having an affair with my mother sometime before that.

At least he’s never raped me. He’s tried, plenty of times. But I wasn't letting that happen to me. No fucking way. We've been battling ever since.

I'm a different person now though. A completely different person.

My right fist flies out and cracks Neil in the face before he can grab me by the hair the way he's always done, throw me against the wall, break my nose.

This time, I'm breaking his, even if I land in juvie for a few days. He might be a cop, but I’m still seventeen, and I know he likes playing with me too much to leave me there for long.

But at the last second, I pull back.

If I hit him, and I end up in juvie, then what happens to Heather? What will Heather do without me to protect her? The way I should’ve protected Pen all along. Sure, she was my older sister, but we could’ve stood together against the Thing, had each other’s backs.

Instead, she suffered in silence, and now she’s gone.

Mom didn’t believe her when she asked for help, and neither did that cunt from social services. They called her a liar. They said she was making it up to get attention.

My throat closes up, but I pull my fist back. My need for revenge in that moment is superseded by my need to protect my little sister, the Thing’s biological daughter, the one person on this earth that he should love unconditionally.

The first person he’ll abuse if he gets the chance.

Neil snarls with rage, and keeps coming, like a dump truck. His massive body slams into mine, but I expect it; I'm used to it. I roll with the momentum, finding my feet near the kitchen entrance. I scrabble up, panting, getting ready for round two when the front door comes flying open and Hael and Oscar appear.

The former moves into the room like a well-oiled machine, grabbing my stepdad by the throat and shoving him up against the wall while my mother screams.

“Bernadette,” Oscar greets, picking up my backpack from the floor. He leaves my sleeping bag where it is. “Pardon us, ma'am.” He gives my mother a look that's one part polite propriety, two parts cold, unyielding hell, then pushes his black glasses up with an inked middle finger.

“You like beating up girls, huh?” Hael purrs, his face awfully close to Neil’s. Pretty sure the Thing has stopped breathing; his face looks purple in the dull yellow light from the living room lamp. “Well, this works out for both of us then because I like beating on guys who beat up girls.”

Hael releases the creature to a heap on the floor, and turns back to look at me, his brown eyes scanning my body like he's looking for injuries.

“You okay there, Bernie?” he asks, and I nod, panting still from the adrenaline. Half of me is excited to see the Havoc Boys here, but the other half is wondering why Kyler Ensbrook got the snot beat out of him for looking at my tits when my stepfather has been doing his damnedest to sexually assault me for years, and he gets thrown against a wall? That's it?

He’s a cop, Bernie, give it time. Havoc is more subtle than that, and you know it. They can beat up Kyler Ensbrook and walk away, but they can’t fuck with the Thing unless they’ve got a plan in place.

I shake out my hands and stride past him, right out the front door.

“We’re pressing charges!” my mother screams, but I ignore her. She just might, has before when I've run away. I don't care.