“Those persnickety bitches are acting like they didn’t know about the hit,” Victor tells Oscar, looking at him instead of me. Oscar remains right where he is, pressed up against me, fingers splayed on my hip and against my right cheek. It’s like … we’re frozen in that wardrobe all over again, like he’s stuck here, glued to me against his will. I know we’re having a moment; I’d appreciate it more under different circumstances. “According to them, James organized this on his own. Trinity looked like she might shit herself when I told her that her brother—or is it fuckbuddy?—was dead.” Vic steps forward and snags another cigarette. Chain-smoking, like he always does when he’s nervous.
“James Barrasso, dead on arrival,” Oscar purrs out, and then he looks back at me like he’s having trouble catching his breath, too. Then, and I swear to god this wasn’t planned, I feel a warm trickle against my thigh and glance down to see a bit of red in the darkness, sneaking out from beneath Callum’s shorts that I borrowed. I have a habit of doing that, borrowing my men’s clothes.
Doesn’t it feel nice, to cover yourself in their scent? It’s primal, I guess, and I can be a primal bitch.
“What great timing,” I choke out as Oscar closes his eyes and releases me. “And yes, James Barrasso is dead; Maxwell is never going to let this go, not even if it was his crew’s fault to begin with.”
The blood hits the floor in a bright red splotch, visible even inside the darkened kitchen. Twilight cuts through the sliding glass door, its silver brilliance enough to cut through the frigid cold of a January evening.
“You can wash up,” Oscar tells me, opening his eyes to stare at me. “I promise that I won’t fuck you and leave this time.” He just keeps looking at me, and I turn away, ignoring Vic’s lingering stare as I head into the upstairs bathroom with a curse.
Of course I’d get my period today, of all days. As irregular as usual, as unpredictable. Is this a sign of how my powers work, huh? Like, they’re tied to the moon and blood and the irresistible power of being female?
I slam my hands on the countertop and stare at myself in the mirror for a moment.
Take control, Bernadette. Period blood is a sign of magic.
I stare at myself, at eyes the color of an evergreen forest, stuck forever in a shade of emerald. My skin is pale, like the flesh of a ghost who’s never met the sun. My cheeks are too pink, my stomach twisted up with cramps. Fuck, that hurts. I feel like … well, like I was kicked in the belly. And I was. Just a few hours ago.
With a groan, I flick the water on and splash my already clean face, trying to wash away the violent feeling of panic. “The last I saw of him, he was outside the school, chasing someone.” Chasing who? Why? Where?
If he’s anywhere near the school, Sara and her squadron of feds will ferret him out.
But I doubt it.
Because if Callum were alive and well, he’d have contacted us by now. That means that, wherever he is, he needs our help.
I clean myself up, put a disposable cup in—the kind you can keep in while you fuck—and then head back into the hallway. I pause at the sound of the front door and find myself poised at the top of the steps, waiting. Breathless. Come on, come on.
“Honey, I’m home,” Hael says, stepping inside and kicking the door closed behind him. He leans his shoulder against the coat closet door and swipes a hand down his face as I take the stairs two at a time and find myself breathing hard in front of him.
My fingers itch to touch him, but I wait, taking in his tousled red hair, oversized hoodie, and loose sweats. He, too, has changed from the clothes he wore to school this morning.
Hael smiles down at me, but it’s a tired smile for sure. We could all use some fucking sleep. Shit, we deserve to count sheep, smoke a little pot, and crash hard. But that isn’t happening until every member of our family is safe and accounted for.
“Good timing on those explosives,” I whisper, and Hael’s smile gets a little prettier, a little more real.
“We keep minor explosives in all our crew’s cars, didn’t you know? Have them park here and there—just in case.” He leans down and cups the side of my face, very gently rubbing the side of his stubbled cheek up against the smooth surface of my own. “You’re very welcome by the way.”
Hael holds the sweet chastity of that moment in a proverbial hand until I close my eyes and exhale sharply, releasing some of that frenetic energy inside of me. Only then does he turn and slide his hot mouth over mine, banding an arm around my waist and pulling me up against him so hard and so fast that my head spins.
My fingers dig into his bloodred hair as his tongue dives into my mouth, using sex the way he always has, as a weapon, as a shield, as a coping mechanism. I don’t mind. The only woman he’s going to be using it on from now on is yours truly. My own tongue challenges his, stealing the hot heat of his mouth and tasting the faintest sweetness of cherry cola.
I groan in pain as another horrible cramp takes over and Hael pulls back just enough to look at me. “Sorry, started my period just now,” I murmur as he stands up straight and puts a hand on the top of my head. He leaves his other arm around my waist, smelling like coconuts and hope.
“Don’t apologize for being a woman, ‘kay?” He glances over at Vic as he comes out of the kitchen, pausing to stand beside Oscar. The simple movement is also a blatant command: tell me everything. Now. “Aaron should be right behind me. He was with Constantine last I asked.”
Hael rolls his eyes and then releases me, the loss of his warmth a palpable thing that makes me feel twitchy. So I put my arms around his waist and press my cheek against the hardness of his chest. There’s no resistance in him when he shudders, exhales, and then strokes his fingers through my hair.
“Aaron,” I whisper, and the word sounds like a promise, an entire lifetime of connection and need in two syllables. Aaron is okay. He’s safe. I already know what it feels like to lose him. Once, I lost him to Havoc. Then, I very nearly lost him to Kali.
I can’t survive that again.
No, it’s Havoc or bust at this point. Nobody ever said our relationships were healthy or normal, but there’s something deliciously decadent about obsession. Even when you know you shouldn’t want it, even when you know it’s wrong. That’s part of the fun, taking a sip of a poison that, one day, could very well kill you.
Then again, we all die eventually. I’d rather go down engulfed in black flame, my head filled with the dizzying venom of true love, and my body sated and stroked by five glorious men with inked bodies and dark hearts that beat only for me.
“Good,” Vic says finally, pausing as his phone buzzes. He takes it from his pocket and checks the screen. “Pizzas are here.”
“Oh, thank god,” Hael groans, still holding me against him. If I close my eyes, I can hear his heart thundering. On the outside, he’s the same cool, cocky man-whore he always was. On the inside, he’s nervous. As he should be. Today was nothing short of a fucked-up clusterfuck of epic fucking proportions with an extra dose of fuckity fuck-fuck-fuck for good measure. “I’m starving.” He looks down at me and then back over at Vic and Oscar. “Where’s Cal?”
I pull away from Hael because with one simple question, it’s like he’s thrown a bucket of ice water over me. Cursing under my breath, I grab the loaded pistol sitting on the decorative side table nearby, keeping it hidden as I check the peephole and then open the door.
Because there are cops outside, I make sure to hold it behind my back as I search the neighborhood for threats. Fortunately, all I find is a stack of pizza boxes, a plastic bag filled with two-liters of soda, and the delivery guy halfway down the driveway as he heads back to his car. That coronavirus thing that happened all those years ago, it spurred some interesting changes. No-contact delivery being one adaptation that I’m glad the world has decided to stick with.
I take the stack and bring it inside, setting it down on the table. It all feels unbelievably … normal. Like, what the hell just happened today?
“Sara Young doesn’t seem to know where Callum is either,” is how Vic eventually replies, as careful with his words as he always is. “So, he isn’t lying dead in the morgue with James Barrasso. And he isn’t down at the station answering a bunch of stupid-ass questions. He also hasn’t called the house.” Vic gestures absently at the home phone sitting nearby, the one that Havoc keeps around in case of emergency. Like, say, if the feds were to take all our goddamn phones. “Our crew is combing the streets, but there’s no sign of him.”
“I’m working on it now,” Oscar says, his iPad parked his lap. I’m not surprised that he still has it. We’re very careful with what we do and say on our phones, but Oscar is not careful with that damn iPad. It’s the hub of everything we do. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s in love with it. A lesser woman would be jealous. “Tracking his phone, that is.”
Hael brings over the bag with the sodas in it and sets it beside the mountain of pizza boxes. One thing about dating five teenage guys is that they eat and eat and fucking eat. Like, it’s a constant stream of them putting shit in their fucking mouths. That is, except for Oscar. I rarely see him eat anything at all.
And it’s always Cal who eats the most. Cal who always has a snack. Cal who purposely doesn’t eat at school, his lunch tray laden with Pepsi cans and cigarettes so that everyone who attends Prescott will think he’s a monster that feasts only on blood.
“How long will that take?” I ask, clutching my belly as I sink down into a chair at the table. My cramps this time are kicking my fucking ass—almost as bad as the GMP did outside the school. Everything hurts; I could seriously use a hot tub or at the very least, a warm bath.
Oscar lifts his silver eyes to mine, like two full moons in the damaged face of a broken aristocrat.
“About two seconds,” he says, turning the iPad around so I can see the screen. “His phone is about three blocks from the school.”