They slide up Cal’s chest and curl over his shoulders. He lets me do it, keeping his own hands to himself. His eyes shimmer though, like he’d much rather pull me into his lap.
“Do you feel any different?” he asks me, redirecting my groping fingers so that they’re woven with his, curved together and trembling. Callum levels his dark stare on me, his hoodie draped over my shoulders, so he can’t bury himself inside of it like he usually does. His blonde hair shimmers as we pass under orange streetlights, but his eyes are dark as pits. “Now that Kali’s dead, I mean.”
“I couldn’t kill her,” I admit, because I’m not sure if Aaron relayed that information or not. Oscar stiffens up in the driver’s seat, and I glance briefly at the back of his head. When he pauses at a stoplight, he very slowly turns his long neck to look at me. The red of the stoplight bathes his face in blood. “My hands were wrapped around her throat; she was going still. She …” I trail off, biting my thumbnail and tasting blood underneath. I can’t decide if it’s mine or not, but I suck it off anyway, feeling a bit like a vampire.
The sun ducks its hideous cloud-covered head below the horizon, but I ignore it. It isn’t time for sunlight anymore, thank fuck. I feel like if its yellow light were to touch my ashen skin right now, that I’d burst into flames.
Callum cups the side of my face, and I look back at him.
“You don’t have to be ashamed that you couldn’t take someone’s life; that’s a virtue.” Cal releases me as I suck in a sharp inhale of breath, finding his sweet, soapy scent marred with the grit of tobacco. I like it though, so I scoot a little closer. Callum stares at someone—Oscar, based on the direction of his gaze—and holds it for some time.
The light turns green, and off we go.
That night, I sleep in Aaron’s bed. I just have to, because that’s where I was last sleeping when he was missing. Now that I know where he is, I’ll wait here for him to come back.
In the morning, I find Hael singing Valerie Broussard in the kitchen. He even sways back and forth as he does it, flipping pancakes in a stainless-steel pan. They don’t even stick when he flips them without a spatula, just the motion of his hand against the pan’s handle.
“Where is Aaron?” I ask, because I’d thought he might climb into bed with me when he got back.
“Outside with Vic,” Hael says, looking me over appreciatively. I’m wearing one of Aaron’s t-shirts and his boxers which are already sagging down around my hips. I don’t need any fucking fabric touching my stitches, and I also really don’t need Heather to see my wounds and start asking questions. “Giving him the rundown on what happened, I think.”
Hael bites his lower lip and looks up at me, brown eyes mirthful and open. It’s all bullshit, that expression. There’s so much more going on behind that pretty face than he wants to admit. He pretends like life is just one, big joke, a party with sex and drugs and alcohol. In reality, he hates it. And himself, probably. I remember what he said, about wanting to be a superhero.
I gingerly lower myself onto one of the stools with a groan, putting my elbows on the counter and my head in my hands. Not only is my side killing me, but I’ve got a fucking migraine from the bullet that grazed my skull. Ding dong, the bitch is dead. So why don’t I feel more excited about that prospect?
Oh, right. Because I’m an adult—have been for years—and have to think about the consequences to everything.
“Like how you told yourself all night that you were dreaming of bloodshed, and then bitched out at the last second? You are pathetic, Bernadette.” Kali’s ghost is still there, at the edge of my vision, a flickering hallucination sent to torment me from beyond the grave.
“Kali …?” I start and Hael barks out a sharp laugh.
“Visiting Tom,” he says not-so-cryptically, and then pauses when Oscar comes in the back door.
We stare at each other for a moment.
“We’re attending the gala for Victor’s mother next Sunday,” Oscar says succinctly. “You’ll need a new dress for that.” He pauses and narrows his gray eyes on me. “Seeing as you ruined the other with your disobedience.”
I just stare right back at him, unyielding.
“We’re attending that stupid fucking thing?” I ask, but I knew we were going to. We have to. We’re adjusting the game here. We’re not playing against novices; this is the big league. “You know as well as I do that the cheap piece of shit I wore on Snow Day wouldn’t pass the security booth at a party like that. Stop being a fucking twat and just say it.”
“Say what?” Oscar challenges, cocking a dark brow at me. His nose is slashed across the middle, slightly swollen on the sides, the skin purpled. It makes him disturbing to look at, so perfect in the mouth and eyes, so beautifully destroyed in the nose.
“That you were worried about me, so you’re angry now that I’m alive and okay enough to be angry with.” I tap my nails on the counter. Before I came downstairs, I spent a half hour scrubbing dried blood out from underneath them. Can’t wait to hear about the gang members the boys killed at the party. That should be fun, a gang war—a real gang war. And against a racist, big-time criminal circuit while worrying about biology tests and English papers on the side. We’re just a barrel of laughs over here in south Prescott. “Just admit it and stop making a fool out of yourself.”
Oscar laughs at me, and both Hael and I jump. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard him let out anything more raucous than a gentle, mocking chuckle.
“You want me to confess my undying love?” Oscar asks, coming over to the counter and splaying his long fingers atop it. I stare at them and look up at him, at that sharp and perfect face, the face of an aristocrat. He might be poor now, but there must be some blue, blue blood in his veins. He looks it.
“That would be nice, yes, thank you,” I tell him, leaning back on the stool and groaning. I cross my arms over my chest and fucking wait. Our gazes lock, energy cracks between us, a rend in the universe made of wills and bullshit. “I’m waiting.”
“Then you are to wait, though waiting so be hell,” Oscar purrs, looking over the top rim of his glasses at me. He’s quoting Shakespeare again, some sonnet with a number instead of a name, I think. I do actually pay attention in some of my classes, thank you very much.
“Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well,” I retort, finishing the last line of the poem. He just stares at me then, this wicked smile frozen on his face. I’ve surprised him, and he hates it. “What? Can’t handle someone playing at your level?” I quip, but then the sliding door opens, and Oscar lifts his attention from me, looking over my shoulder at Victor and Aaron as they come in.
Swear to god, when I turn, it’s in slow motion.
“Bernie,” Aaron breathes, my name a desperate sizzling promise, and I find myself scrambling out of my chair and cursing. I throw myself into his arms and he grunts. He’s wearing a cast on his right hand, a black medical boot—basically like a cast made of hard plastic and Velcro straps—on his leg. Broken fibula or … something. “Oh, baby,” he purrs, nuzzling his head against mine. “Fuck.”
We hold each other like two people who know they’re running out of chances to make things work, who realize that tomorrow is not promised to anyone. My fingertips dig into his back, and he holds me so hard that I can’t breathe.
“Jesus Christ,” Victor says with a long sigh, storming past us. This is going to take some getting used to, showing them both how I feel without pissing the other off. Right now, though, Vic has to take a back seat. He just has to. I thought Aaron might be lost forever.
“She didn’t touch you, did she?” I ask as he lays the fingers of his left hand on my cheek, staring down into my eyes with his green-gold ones, like spring with bits of fall flecked through. Even though it’s winter in reality, I smell sandalwood and rose when I close my eyes.
“She tried,” he says, which reminds me that he also said that last night. “She couldn’t get me hard.” I open my eyes just as he grins at me. It’s not a pretty smile though; it’s a tired, wary one. “I wouldn’t get it up.”
“Who knew your impotence would come in handy someday?” Hael jokes, but I feel for Aaron. He’s gotten to experience something that most men don’t understand: the fear of carnal torture. I put my hands on his chest and lean into him.
“I can’t fucking believe her,” I whisper, because rape is next-level fucked-up. Murder has all sorts of possible justifications, but rape? I’ve got nothing. “I guess I should be grateful for her weird obsession or you might already be dead.”
“Ophelia was going to use him against us,” Victor says, playing with a shotgun. I see that there truly is no rest for the motherfucking wicked. He lifts his obsidian eyes to mine. His ebon eyes. Ebon, ebon, ebon. Take that, Mr. Darkwood, you fuck-nut, it really is a word. “We’re lucky she’s running out of money; she’s a snake.” Vic loads two shells in and pushes the barrel back into place. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Like I was hit with a Mack truck,” I say, looking back at Callum as he slips in the front door. “Or one of Cal’s bats.” He smiles at me and then very carefully lowers his hood. It’s a purposeful movement, one that draws my eyes along with it.
“Same difference,” he whispers, and then he laughs. It’s a very pretty laugh, too. Like a tease. Like, Cal could’ve been different if his life had been different. Being an asshole isn’t stamped into his DNA the way it is with Victor. “Good thing Kali’s an idiot.” He nods his head in Victor’s direction. “The cop just drove by again.”
Vic nods, like he already knows what’s going on.
“Not Sara?” I groan, but Vic gives me a look that tells me all I need to know. “Motherfucker.” I’m supposed to stop by her house sometime soon. She might already know I was in the hospital; she might already know Kali is missing. Not good.