“You wait here.”

“No fucking way. He hurt her,” Penn spits out, his fists already balled. Gabe losing his job is not enough for me. Not by a long shot. I want him to lose everything else, too, including his ability to sit down for the next couple of years.

“You can get into trouble,” I warn him, but my heart’s not in it. If someone hurt Mel, I’d probably kill them, too.

“Oh, and you can’t?”

Trent’s shoulders shake with a conceited laugh next to me.

“Why?” Penn challenges.

“Prichard’s got too much to lose. He can’t touch us.”

“Can anyone?” Penn wonders aloud, just as Trent’s door opens from the other side. Dean whistles for him to get outside, swinging my baseball bat and parking it over his shoulder.

“Maybe God,” I answer curtly.

“Even that’s debatable.” Dean snickers. “God, I missed the days of good ole shenanigans. Out, Rexroth. Lover boy.” He whistles to Penn. “Make sure you’re good and quiet unless you want your football dream to flush down the toilet.”

Prichard, who is oblivious to our parked vehicles a mere few feet from him because our lights are off, comes out of his house, flinging two suitcases into the trunk of his running car. I get out of the car and round it with Vicious, Dean, and Trent following close by.

Every muscle and bone in my body is lit and hot with adrenaline as I tap his shoulder from behind. His body turns rigid, hard like stone. He turns around, and his face whitens, his car lights illuminating the fear on his ugly-ass face.

“Good evening, Mr. Prichard.” I smile like the fucking royalty I am in this town. Too important to touch, too golden to lose control. Dean swings the baseball bat behind me as though he is warming up.

Prichard is shaking his head violently.

“Oh, no. No, no, no. I’ve already talked to your wife. We settled things. We…”

“You didn’t settle anything with me,” I clip. Mel told me what she did after she did it, and although I wanted to kill her, I could understand where she was coming from, too. “Us letting you off the hook is only because we don’t want Daria to suffer.” I erase the distance between us, smiling devilishly. My eyes are dead. My muscles loose. “Now it’s time to pay.”

Vicious slaps the trunk of the Alfa Romeo shut at the same time I push Gabe on the back of his car, bending him over in one, rough movement. Dean hands me the baseball bat, chuckling.

“And if we find out you went to another godforsaken town and tried to rekindle your career…” Dean pushes down Prichard’s pants and briefs in one go, exposing the milky-white ass of a middle-aged man. Bright as the goddamn moon.

“Help! Help! Help!” Prichard is bawling like a baby.

Even through his pussy cries, I can hear the leaves crunching under Penn’s shoes as he advances toward us. He can’t keep himself out of this. Good. I wouldn’t let an asshole who can sit by and let something like this happen to Daria touch her.

Penn is by my side now, shoulder to shoulder. I don’t say shit because Prichard can’t know he’s here. He’s not as protected as we are.

“Heeeelp,” Prichard drawls, his face still slammed against the cold surface of his trunk, his cheek smeared all over it.

“Shut up,” I bite out metallically, ripping his sports jacket from his body and balling it in my fist. I shove it into his mouth until he gags and chokes on it.

Vicious plasters his hand over Prichard’s back and looks at me, smiling serenely.

“Say a few Hail Marys, you sick son of a bitch. Maybe it’ll slow down your perverted ass on its way to hell.”

I strike Gabe with the baseball bat across the ass, using every ounce of power and muscle in my body. The hit is so hard, the sound rings in our ears and we take a few seconds to let it die down.

The second hit is even stronger as though I found my footing. I think about everything my daughter has been through these past six months.

About her mother, whom I love more than life itself, who insists on saving everything that’s broken, and in doing so, had a hand in breaking our daughter.

I think about how I can’t stand to look at the eighteen-year-old girl who lives with me because she tarnished my princess.

I think about her twin brother, who is too in love with my daughter to give her up, whether he knows it or not.

On my third strike, Gabe spits out his jacket, yelping to the sky like a lone wolf.

After eighteen strikes, one for every birthday my daughter has celebrated, I pass the bat to Vicious, but it’s Penn who puts his hand on my arm and takes it without asking for permission.

I shake my head, motioning for him not to say a word. It’s too dangerous.

He opens his mouth, talking to Gabe Prichard, but staring at me.

“Thank your lucky stars that I’m not alone because if we were, you’d be dead by now,” the boy says with no trace of emotion in his voice.

“Penn? Penn Scully?” Prichard chokes.

Penn swings the bat, hitting him so hard I actually wince. Prichard faints on his trunk.

By the time we drive back home, Prichard is bleeding and can’t make out shapes, let alone faces. Before we leave, we tuck a copy of Mel’s recording into his jacket’s pocket to make sure he knows not to mess with us. Especially with Penn.

Prichard will take this, like what he did to Daria, to his grave.

“Just gonna grab my shit from Camilo.” I fling my backpack over my shoulder and let Mel kiss my cheek. It’s almost midnight, and it looks like we’re going to eat in the middle of the night, but that’s because the Followhills all understood why Jaime and I had to leave to take care of business before Prichard skipped town.

Mel is chopping vegetables as lasagna bakes in the oven, giving me her stay-safe pleading eyes. Forever the multitasker. Bailey is beside her, squeezing lemons into iced tea. Via is outside, sitting on a lounger by the pool, hugging her knees together. The undercurrent in the house has changed. Via is no longer the prized, newly found miracle. She was dragged down to the status of a mortal.

“Do you need help?” Mel wipes away at her nose with her sleeve while cutting onions. “Packing, I mean.”

“Only if Daria is offering.”

I’ve officially lost my privilege to go up the stairs and ask her myself. Jaime throws me threatening looks when I even look at the stairs leading up to the second floor, and Daria doesn’t seem to be coming downstairs any time before her flight. I wonder if he realizes I’ll have to go up there when I go to bed tonight.

“Jaime can help you.”

“He can carry his half-empty duffel bag on his own.” Jaime is flipping channels, obviously not done holding a grudge.

“I’ll be back before dinner.” I grab my keys and snatch a garlic bread roll on my way to the car. Out of habit, or maybe because I’m not done quite torturing myself, I twist my head to see if Daria is watching me through the window. No dice. Her bedroom light is off through the curtain. Mentally, she checked out of here long before she got on the plane.

As I drive to Camilo’s, I try to call him to make sure he knows I’m stopping by.

He is not answering, and I’m growing irritated. I gave him a direct order to get his ass as far as possible from the snake pit. If I manage to keep my fists to myself when Gus shits systematically through everything I know and love, so can he.