Huh.

Starry-eyed millennial bullshit.

I’m a realist, through and through. That crap doesn’t work on me. The world is not an endless feast of exploration, discovery, and joy. Not for me it isn’t.

“Well?” I ask, cocking a brow and leaning back in the chair. “You definitely didn’t call me in here to discuss my stellar grades, and all the scholarship opportunities coming my way, so what’s up?”

“Bernadette,” Ms. Keating says with a sigh, folding her dark-skinned hands together, her nails painted a cheery yellow this week. Her brown eyes bore into me, but I just stare straight back at her. She’s a good woman, but her cheery optimism and strong conviction would be better spent elsewhere, perhaps on younger kids who still have hope for the future. Those of us at Prescott … well, it’s just too late for us. Ms. Keating is wasting her time. “I’ve noticed you’ve started dating Victor Channing?”

It’s cute that she phrases her statement as a question when we both know she just caught him grinding all over me in the hallway.

With a sharp smile, I lift up my left hand and flash the ring.

“We’re engaged, haven’t you heard? The gossip mill at Prescott usually runs pretty hot.” I drop my hand again and shrug, just another blasé student the vice principal will have to deal with this week. I don’t want her paying anymore attention to me than that. “Is that what you brought me in here to talk about?” I lean forward, tapping my dark nails on the surface of her desk. The color I’ve painted them is called Lethal by Urban Decay. Pretty sure they discontinued the shade, but I have two full bottles, so that should last me a while.

“I’ve heard from other students what happened here during your sophomore year,” she says, and I feel my shoulders get tight. The expression on my face stays bored and uninterested. At least, I hope it does. “Those boys are bullies, Bernadette. In fact, I’d go so far as to say they’re a gang.”

I just stare back at her. She doesn’t just think they’re a gang, she knows, but she’s trying to be gentle with me. Why, I can’t possibly understand. “With Principal Vaughn missing, I’ve been asked to temporarily fill his position. Some of the things I found in his office were concerning …”

My heart begins to pound, but it’s too late. It’s too late for some well-meaning teacher to step in and try to undo all the hurt and damage and hate. I went to the administration for help; I still believed in the system. Well, guess what? The system fucked me. It’s over now. I’ve thrown the good girl towel in. What was it that Callum said? About surrendering to the dark? That it makes life easier?

“Whatever you found, it doesn’t matter,” I say, feeling the room shrink around me. It’s suffocating in here. Maybe I rather would be in PE?

“Bernadette, you approached Principal Vaughn with allegations of bullying, and he did nothing but bury your report. I found your statement in a file box under his desk, along with other items indicating … what do they call themselves?”

“Havoc,” I whisper, putting my hands on the knees of my leather pants and picking at the slick fabric with my nails. “The Havoc Boys.”

“Right, clever acronym. Havoc.” Ms. Keating sighs, and shakes her head for a moment, her colorful earrings swinging. “Well, the Havoc Boys are not, how should I put this, particularly savory characters. You can do so much better, Bernadette. You can be so much better.”

I stand up suddenly, the chair skidding on the old carpet beneath my heels.

“Is this the part where you give me a trophy for trying my best?” I say, cocking a brow and knowing I’m essentially spitting in the face of someone who’s been nothing but nice to me. But I’ve had people be ‘nice’ before, and then turn around and destroy my life, people like Principal Vaughn and Donald Asher, my foster brother, that social worker …

“Bernadette …” Ms. Keating starts as I begin to cough, hacking and choking and leaning on the edge of her desk in an Oscar-worthy performance. “Do you need some water?” she asks me, standing up and rubbing my back in a small circle with her hand. “I’ll get you some water.”

She grabs a plastic cup off a stack on the sideboard and pops into the hallway to fill it from the fountain. We hardly have anything as fancy as water bottles or coolers here at Prescott.

While Ms. Keating’s in the hall, I move around the edge of her desk and grab the box. The window’s open, and it’s big enough for me to slip right out of.

Before she’s even finished filling the cup, I’m sprinting down the length of the building and around the corner, heading toward the basketball courts and the hole in the fence. I manage to slip through unseen, but I don’t stop running until I’m standing next to Hael’s car.

Sitting down, I pull out one page after another in that box until I find my statement, scribbled in wavy pencil down a lined sheet of paper.

They’re making my life a living hell. I’m scared to come to school. I’m scared to go home.

I stare at it for a moment, but it’s too much, so I tuck it away and hit the rest of the box. I’m not the first student to have reported Havoc to the principal, but just like with my report, most of them have been filed away and forgotten. Prescott High’s lacking in funds, so I bet these are the only copies of the reports. There’s not going to be anything scanned into the computer system, or any complaints filed via an online system we don’t have. Like I said, we may as well be nineties kids over here.

Flipping through page after page of incident reports and complaints from students, I know there’s enough ammo in here for Ms. Keating to suspend or even expel one or all of the boys. There’s maybe enough info in here to press charges on some of them.

Victor Channing punched me in the face between first and second period for saying Bernadette Blackbird was hot.

I check the date on the complaint and see that it’s from … sophomore year.

“What the hell?” I ask, seeing that the complainant is a student that no longer attends Prescott. Mostly because Havoc chased him off. But why would Vic stand up for me during sophomore year? That’s the year they tortured me; it doesn’t make any sense.

Licking my lower lip, I shove the paper back in the box and stare at it.

This is a lot of ammo.

This … is a ticking time bomb set to go off against the boys I hated more than anyone else, the only people I couldn’t figure out a way to get revenge on. And here this box is, full of uncovered secrets. I bet Vaughn had the box in his office because he was getting ready to go after the boys again—Vic especially.

What would a Havoc Girl do though? I think, pushing the box away with my heel and trying to think. I could take this box, hold onto it and wait for the guys to finish my list up. Then I could nail them with it. At the very least, I might be able to get Vic kicked out of school, so he’d lose his inheritance—I don’t really expect him to give me a cut anyway.

I could run, and pawn the ring, and …

But no.

Blood in and blood out, right?

“When you’ve been lied to by everyone around you, when you have nothing else, you realize the one currency you can carry is truth. So a single word does have meaning. A promise does hold importance. And a pact is worth carrying to the grave.”