I finally came to the conclusion after I found one of Pen’s journals: it is.
It really, really is.
No matter what it is they did to me.
No matter what it is they do to me.
Two years earlier …
My feet are bare, and the ground hurts. There are sticks, thorns, and stones all over the place, but I can’t stop running. If I do, they’ll catch me, and I’m afraid to see what those dark grins and awful laughter lead to.
I know what monsters like to do in the dark, and I won’t let myself be taken by them, those awful, awful Havoc Boys.
They dragged me out of my bed in the dark, without waking my mother, my stepfather, or either of my sisters.
They told me to run.
So even though it’s pouring rain, I do it. I run, and I don’t stop until I can’t catch a breath, falling to my knees and soaking my pajama pants straight through. I tried to circle around and go back to the house, but two of them were waiting there for me.
I’m just lucky they didn’t see me.
Choking on my shuttered breaths, I rise to my feet and keep going, and I don’t stop until the rain lets up and the sun kisses the horizon. By then I’m so exhausted, I can barely keep my body upright.
This time, when I go back, they’re gone, but I know that’s not the end of this.
Not even close.
Somebody called out Havoc, somebody made a deal.
And this time, I’m the mark.
At school on Friday, Victor finally pulls me aside, grabbing me by the elbow and dragging me into the dark theater where Callum is trying on questionable looking masks. The places Vic’s fingers touch, they burn. The sensation makes me sick to my stomach.
“We have a price for you,” Vic says, circling around me like a shark. I can smell him, too, this pungent mix of bergamot, tobacco, amber, and musk. The stink of it makes me shiver and then bite down on my tongue to hide the reaction. God forbid I give Victor or the other Havoc Boys even an ounce of physical appreciation. They’re pretty, I’ll admit that. But they don’t need to know that I know that.
“Finally,” I spit, because that caustic, bitter nature of mine was learned, not gifted to me from birth. I never asked to be this way, this ornery, this angry, but I wasn’t given many choices. In order to keep myself and my sister safe, I adapted to the harsh world I was thrust into. “Like you said, no talking in circles, be direct and all that.”
“What happened to you?” Victor asks, tilting his head slightly to one side, his dark eyes even darker in the mysterious shadows of the theater. Prescott High hasn’t received proper funding in years, but Ms. Keating busts ass every fall to raise money for the arts programs. She thinks artistic endeavors can heal damaged souls. It’s a lofty ideal, but impractical at best. Nobody can save us, society’s throwaways. “You used to be so …” He reaches out and lifts a lock of my hair, tossing a dark smirk my direction. “Sweet.”
“You,” I say, without flinching, without hesitating. From a chair in the front row, Hael chuckles, playing with his phone, probably texting some girl. Out of them all, he’s the biggest whore, hands down. Oscar sits on the edge of the stage, legs crossed at the knee, working on his iPad again. “Now what’s my price?”
“Seven people, identities unknown,” Oscar says, his voice mellifluent and mellow, but dangerous as hell, like a fine bottle of brandy one could drown in. It’d be so easy to, with those sweet, smooth sips. Might kill you in the wrong dose, but it goes down easy. “One of whom I’m simply assuming is that cop father of yours.”
“He is not my father.” The words come out like the first snap of hoarfrost on the branches, unforgiving and merciless, destroying the sweetness of spring and summer in an instant. I’ve never been more adamant about anything in my life.
Vic watches me, unperturbed, as Callum pauses and slips a Phantom of the Opera mask over his face, snapping the elastic in the quiet space. Aaron isn’t here, his lack of presence as strong a statement as any words he might say if he were.
“Pardon me, that cop stepfather of yours,” Oscar continues as Vic watches me, dark and unyielding, a stone wall that can’t be breached. What makes this work, what makes Havoc an option for me, is that they’re neither black nor white, just this unrelenting sea of gray. Make a bargain, pay a price, reap the rewards. I know what’s expected of them, now I just need to find out what’s expected of me.
But I’ve already had this conversation with myself, and I know how far I’m willing to go: I’ll pay anything, do anything, to get what I want. What was left of me, of Bernadette Blackbird, died along with my sister, so my only recourse here is revenge. I’ll take it.
“But regardless of parentage, a cop is a cop,” Oscar continues, pushing his glasses up his nose with his middle finger. His lenses shimmer in what little light there is. “And that’s a big job, dealing with someone like that. I’ve spent all week calculating the risks, and there are many.”
“Too many,” Vic scoffs, shaking his head and running his tattooed fingers through his dark hair. He surveys me, a girl he’s known since we started attending the same elementary school ten years ago. We were never friends, per se, but I remember when I first transferred from the fancy Montessori school downtown, and the other kids picked on me for being snobby (maybe I was, I don’t remember). Victor stood up for me once. He pushed a kid down the slide for pulling my pigtails.
I haven’t forgotten.
I also haven’t forgotten that when I was fifteen years old, he locked me in a closet for a week with nothing but bottled water, granola bars, and a bucket. All because Kali Rose-Kennedy asked him to. That bitch. I’ve always wondered what I did to make her hate me.
“Why do you do it anyway?” I ask, feeling Vic’s hot gaze sweep over me like a summer storm. His attention, it burns as hot as his fingers on my arm. When he looks at me, I can barely breathe. There’s a fine line between hate and lust, isn’t there? I’m sure I feel equal parts of both when he stares at me with his heavily lidded eyes, long lashes, and hard mouth. This is a man built of sin and heartache. He’s as broken as I am. “The whole Havoc thing? I’ve never understood it. You’re not beholden to anyone, so why tell the whole world that you are? That one word can command you?”
“Have you ever been lied to, Bernadette?” Victor asks me, his voice dark and deep and full of shadows. He doesn’t move, but there’s a charge in the air that says he could destroy my carefully crafted façade before I could even think to try and stop him.
“What do you think?” I snort back, adjusting my leather jacket and noticing that his eyes don’t move from mine like most guys. Even with a high neckline, I’ve noticed that most men only see what they want to see, and oftentimes, it’s breasts that they’re interested in, covered up or no. Victor keeps his attention on my face, destroying me with that hard gaze of his.
“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.” He steps back from me, his boots loud against the polished floors of the stage. “Do you want to hear the price or not? It’s not too late for you to back out and run, you know that, right?”
I nod, resolute in my determination. My heart thunders in my chest, waiting, anticipating. Sweat drips down my back. Hael makes a sound, and Callum lifts up the mask, but nobody moves.
Vic maintains that ironclad control over my gaze.
“If we take this job, you become ours.” His words hang in the quiet air, almost like a threat, almost like he’s warning me away before we even get started. But he underestimates how deep my determination goes. A slight smile works its way across his lips as the door at the end of the room opens and a troupe of theater geeks—or as close to theater geeks as we get at Prescott High goes—steps in. “Get the fuck out,” Victor says, not bothering to raise his voice or even glance their way. “We’re busy in here.”
There’s absolutely no hesitation from the group as they scramble to obey Victor’s command.
I open my mouth to make some snarky-ass comment, but the words won’t come. Instead, I clamp my lips shut and squeeze my hands into fists at my sides. If I make my palms bleed by squeezing too hard, nobody has to know.
“If we take this job,” Vic repeats, taking a step closer to me, so close that the toes of his boots kiss mine. He touches a finger to my chin and then trails it along the length of my jaw. I’m trembling now, whether in rage or desperate, needy ardor, I’m not sure. Does it matter? “You become one of us, a Havoc Girl.”
I swallow hard.
“Now who’s talking in circles?” I manage to get out, wishing he’d stop touching me, knowing that if I take this deal, he never will. Vic’s smirk deepens, and he leans in, hovering his mouth over mine.
“You’ll do what I say when I say it,” he continues, and I feel myself bristling. I hate being told what to do, hate it with a passion. I’ve been ordered around my whole life, by one person or another, and I haven’t exactly ended up on a bed of roses. “In all areas.” Vic slides his fingers into my hair, and I jerk away. The small act of protest makes him chuckle. “If you want this, you'll be our plaything. You’ll be our accomplice. Bernadette, if you want this, it’s blood in, and blood out. Do you understand that?”
“I—” I start to answer, but Victor cuts me off with a look, all hard lines and dark shadows.
“No. I don’t want an answer yet. Take a few days to think about it, Bernadette. Decide if your life is worth your revenge.” He steps back, and I hear Hael make a noise of protest from the front row.
“For fucking real, Vic? Make her answer now.” Hael stands up and starts toward the stage, but a slow, menacing look from Victor stops him cold, and he curses, backing up with his palms raised.