If I go to the nurse's office, there'll be inquiries. I'm not about to bring the administration into this. Lord only knows how fucking corrupt they are.

Just around the corner, I bump into Vic.

He snatches me by the arm, and I hiss in pain, his fingers squeezing the sleeve of my hoodie until blood soaks through and coats his fingers in ruby red.

“What the fuck is this?” he snaps at me, drawing his hand back to look at the blood. With a clenching of my jaw, I turn away. “They wanted me; they made me their little toy.”

“What did Kali pay you guys to torture me?” I ask, looking back at him, my expression stern. “If I'm a Havoc Girl and not just some side piece for you guys, then I deserve to know.”

“Jesus Christ, Bernadette, did Kali do this?”

“Kali and Billie,” I admit, knowing there's no way to get out of this without telling him the truth. My eyes meet Vic's dark ones, and I swear, as black as they are, even more shadows race forward to crowd his stern gaze. “Plus nine other faceless idiots whose names I don’t know. Now tell me: what did she pay you?”

“Later. This isn't the time.” He pushes up the sleeve of my hoodie to examine the wound, his eyes narrowing. His smell surrounds me, almost cloying in its toxicity, and I can't help but remember our kiss on the jailhouse roof. What was it he said? “We need each other, you and me.”

My pulse begins to hum, and I swear, the whole universe hones down to a single, fine point, like we're resting on the tip of some dark god's ballpoint pen.

“This is deep,” he murmurs, swiping a thumb over the blood and making me cringe when a sharp, hot burst of pain shoots through me.

“I don't want to see the nurse,” I declare, and Vic knows why. He knows all about Principal Vaughn, and his naughty nurse. “But I'm not sure I can fake my way through class; it hurts too much.”

Shit, was that me being honest? I wonder, and Vic nods once, nice and sharp.

“Follow me,” he commands, pulling my sweatshirt sleeve down and stalking off across the now empty hall. At some point, the bell must've rung, and I just didn't hear it. There are a few security guards on campus, but not nearly enough. Our shitty ass public school doesn't have the funds it needs to keep this jailhouse running properly.

We make it outside to the courtyard without any issues, the chain-link fence with its barbed wire looming over us. A few kids look up, smoking cigarettes in the shadows, but at least they're not stupid enough to come at us the way Kali and Billie were.

Victor knows exactly where the hole in the fence is, shoving aside a dumpster and gesturing for me to step out before he does, pulling said dumpster back into place again before he takes off, expecting me to follow.

His bike is parked down the block, just out of sight of the security office. Not that it matters. I've seen how Havoc can manipulate the staff at Prescott.

We pause for a moment as Vic pulls out his phone, taps out a quick message, and then gestures for me to get on his bike. Even though my arm is throbbing like crazy, and I'm starting to feel dizzy from the blood loss, I climb on behind him, wrapping my arms around his taut waist.

This inescapable feeling settles over me like somehow, someway, this man is part of my goddamn destiny. Maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad one, I can't tell. But it's impossible for me to ignore it, the way my body reacts when I'm around him, the way my breath catches, my hands shake, my heart thunders.

Closing my eyes, I let the wind sweep over me as we zip through the streets of Springfield and end up at Vic's house. It's not exactly a safe haven, but kids like us, we have nowhere else to go. There is no perfect little nest for us to crawl into when we're afraid; we take what we can get.

Vic climbs off the bike, and I follow after him, into the dim interior of the shitty little house he shares with his father. It's much the same as it was last time I was in here, but with a few extra liquor bottles on the floor. He kicks them out of his way with a curse, moving into the bathroom and pulling out a first-aid kit from under the sink.

I wait warily in the dining room for Vic to come back.

“Sit,” he commands, pulling out a chair and indicating with his hand that I should sit in it. I do, but only because I'm starting to sway where I'm standing, and all I want is to close my eyes for a moment. “Tell me what happened, every detail.”

“Stopped in the bathroom to pee, ended up with Billie on one side and Kali on the other, seven of their minions crowded in next to the sinks. Kali taunted me for a bit, and then Billie whipped out a knife. Not much else to tell.”

“Taunted you how?” Vic asks, pushing my sweatshirt sleeve up my arm and smearing blood everywhere. He examines the wound for a moment, curses, and then gets to work with some antiseptic wipes. They sting so goddamn bad that I have to bite my lip to keep quiet.

I'm not letting Victor Channing know how much it hurts, no way.

“Kali claims you made her a similar deal to the one you gave me: her body for your cooperation in turning my entire shitty life inside out.” My voice quavers a bit as Vic pinches the edges of the wound, trying to get a read on how deep it is. He scoffs at me as he tosses the wipes aside, snatching up a curved needle and some thread.

My brows go up, but I'm determined not to show how afraid I suddenly am. Stitches? I've had stitches before, after the Thing punched me as hard as he could in the side of my face. There's a scar, just beneath my hairline. I was so young that the memory's blurred around the edges, but I remember it hurt like a bitch. And that was with numbing agents.

“Here,” Vic says, pulling a flask from the back pocket of his pants and passing it over to me. “Take a swig of whiskey and get ready to hurt.”

He kneels down beside me as I unscrew the flask, taking it in my left hand as I turn my gaze away and throw back a burning swig. The alcohol sears my throat going down at the same moment Vic shoves the needle into my skin.

“Fuck.” The word manages to slip past my carefully sealed lips as my eyes close against the pain. In and out, Vic pierces my skin over and over again, sealing me up, and cutting off the flow of blood. The flask is empty by the time he finishes, cutting off the end of the thread and tying a tight knot.

“We'll need to take these out in a week or two,” he says, his voice dark, his thoughts far away. I watch as he rises to his feet and heads into the kitchen to wash my blood from his hands.

“Are you going to tell me about Kali or not?” I ask, because I can't take the dark little demons inside my head. They know that Kali Rose is a liar. But yet, I can't get them to stop.

“Now isn't the time,” Vic says, and the deep, authoritative way that he speaks just infuriates me. He doesn't just get to decide the fate of the whole world like that. “I'm taking you back to school.”

“Not until you tell me about Kali,” I say, just as the skies open up and rain begins to pour from the clouds. Slowly, Vic glances over his shoulder at me, carefully drying his hands with a dishtowel. He tosses it into the sink, and then turns toward me, moving slowly across the ugly carpet.

“If I tell you that now isn't the time, then it isn't.” Vic's face is hard as he stares me down. “I thought we'd moved past this bullshit: what I say goes in Havoc. It's how we function, how we succeed. It's how we stay alive.”