“Every action has consequences, Bernadette. Everything. If we’d turned that video in, Neil would’ve buried it. His brother, that fancy ass DA, he would’ve buried it. Or what about his father? He’s a circuit court judge. Even if—and that’s a big if—someone took it seriously, what sort of time would he be looking at? I hate to tell you this, Bernie, but our world is fucked. It’s fucked up and broken and ugly as hell.” Victor steps toward me again, but this time, I don’t pull away. How can I? He has me in orbit, and I despise him for that, too. “People don’t care about girls who get raped.”
My throat starts to close up, and white splotches flicker across my vision. I am this close to passing out. Screw the tacos, I guess. No way in hell I’m cooking tonight.
“People don’t, but we do,” Vic corrects, his words commanding me to look his way. But I won’t. If I can at least withhold this one thing from him, then maybe I’ll feel better. “And we’re going to get Neil, but these things take time. If we turn the video in, eyes will turn his way. We need as many of them to look away as we can, before we act. Do you believe me when I tell you that we’ll get him?”
“Hey, I called out Havoc. Make a deal, pay a price.” I start to move away, and Vic comes after me. The look I throw him must change his mind about grabbing me. “Do not touch me, Victor Channing.” Hurt flashes across his face, rapidly replaced with a scowl and a snarl that I just don’t have the time for today. “And don’t talk to me for the rest of the night.”
I storm across the street, across the front lawn and past Oscar, and into the house.
Aaron is sitting on the couch when I come in. He glances back at me, his gaze snagging on mine and holding me captive.
“I’m sorry about the video, Bernadette,” he says, closing his eyes briefly. When he opens them back up, he looks about as devastated as I feel. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
I just stare at him, sitting there with a bandage on his shoulder, and I think about the way he tried to defend me last night. Not just against Mitch and his crew, but against the Thing. Even when he was suffering from severe blood loss, even when he might’ve died.
I say nothing, turning away and finding myself face-to-face with Hael.
He seems to understand that I’m not ready to talk, stepping aside and holding out a hand to usher me past, like a proper gentleman.
I head up the steps, check in on the girls, and then lock myself in Aaron’s room for the rest of the night.
None of the Havoc Boys bother me.
Good for them.
Because I’m not ready to talk, not even fucking close.
Two years earlier …
By the time I get home from school, I’m exhausted, mentally and physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. The Havoc Boys own Prescott High and right now, they own me, too. I can’t take one step, can’t speak one single word, without them breathing down my neck.
Today, they took my lunch away and made me run laps around the track until I collapsed in the hot heat of the afternoon, waking up in the nurse’s office.
“Hello, Bernadette,” Nurse Whitney said, smiling at me like she had a secret she just couldn’t wait to tell. “Are you feeling better?” I sat up, shrugging and then reaching a hand up to press against my throbbing head. “Once you’ve got yourself together, Principal Vaughn wants to speak to you in his office.”
I shudder as I close the front door behind me, closing my eyes against the memory. I’d thought at first that the principal might want to talk to me about Havoc. Oh, how wrong I was about that. Touching my hand to my thigh, I can still feel the slimy trail of Vaughn’s fingers as he caressed my bare leg.
“Fucking pervert,” I murmur, pushing up off the door. “Penelope!” I call out, noticing her backpack on the floor near the front door. I can’t think about Havoc, or creepy Principal Vaughn, not here. Because this place is as much of a battleground as school—if not more so. “Pen!” I call again, popping into the kitchen for a glass of water. I’m starving, but there’s no food here, and I’m not likely to get any tonight.
Sometimes, the Thing will take us all out for a surprise dinner, but it’s rare, and I’ve noticed that Penelope always looks so empty on those nights. Besides, just sitting at a table with that monster is torture. Frankly, I’d rather starve.
When I don’t hear anything from my sister, I head upstairs.
Pen’s door is locked when I try the handle, but I figure she’s just listening to music and head into the room I share with Heather. Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I clutch the glass of water in my hands and play a game I’m well-familiar with, one where I try to see if I can cry without making a sound, and if I can keep my tears from filling the glass.
I’ll always regret that, sitting there and crying while Pen was dying.
The logical part of me knows that she was dead long before that, because she never went to school that day. I was just too busy running from Havoc to notice.
After a while, I set the water glass aside and use one of the bobby pins from my hair to pick Pen’s lock. It shouldn’t be so easy, like it isn’t fair she doesn’t have any privacy. I’ve seen her get in throw down brawls with our mom over having a deadbolt, but poor Pen’s never had her wish granted.
The knob gives a satisfying click, and I push the door in.
Pen is sleeping on the bed, wrapped up in her blankets, like it’s not the middle of the day with bright sunshine streaming in through the window. Her room smells strange, not like it usually does, like bleach and the sweet lilac scent of our laundry detergent. She cleans it constantly, scrubs every surface, washes her sheets three times a week.
I’ve always thought it a strange tic, for someone who keeps such a messy backpack and locker.
I wrinkle my nose, ignoring the sounds of children playing in the backyard of our neighbor’s duplex. Despite the smell, I don’t rush to Penelope’s side. Maybe something in me knew that that day, everything would change for me.
Because I wasn’t born Bernadette the bitch, the badass, the leather-wearing cynic with a fondness for sarcasm and a mean right hook. I used to cry over little things. Big things, too, obviously, but little things constantly. The world held promise before that day, like I could find a future waiting in the stars for me, no matter how distant or dim it might seem.
I sit down at Penelope’s desk. She’s left her phone plugged in, and when I touch it, I find that it’s unlocked. Definitely unusual for her. She craves privacy, wherever she can get it. There’s a note there, open and written with a discarded stylus.
“I’m so sorry, Bernadette. Out of everyone, you and Heather are the ones I owe the world to. But I can’t take it anymore. When I try to run, he chases. When I tell the truth, she calls me a liar. I can only take so many dark showers, stay awake so many nights. No matter what they say to you, always remember that I loved you both.”
I lift my head up from the phone screen to stare at the blanket mound on the bed.
Slowly, carefully, I set Pen’s phone aside and stand up.
This isn’t what you think it is, Bernie, I tell myself, my hands shaking as I stand there in a pink plaid skirt and a white cardigan, twisting my fingers together and doing my best to keep breathing. My head feels disconnected, and my heart thunders like a mad thing.
“Penelope?” I ask, but there’s no answer.
Closing my eyes, I try to listen for the sound of her breathing, but the fucking kids outside are too loud. Storming over to the window, I lean out and shout down at them to shut the hell up before I slam it closed. Spinning around, I close my eyes and perch my ass on the windowsill.
For several more minutes, I just sit there. Because the longer I do, the longer I can pretend that everything is okay. Like, if I don’t check her, then I can’t find anything wrong, and if I can’t find anything wrong, then she’ll be alright.
Finally, I open my eyes and look down to see her face, still and waxy and perfect. Trapped forever in a single state, draped in youthful skin and silken hair.
I choke on my own saliva as I fall to my knees in front of her.
I don’t have to touch my sister to know that she’s dead.
“Hey, Penny?” I whisper, calling her by a name that I haven’t used since Dad died. “Where did you go?” Reaching out, I pull the blankets back and find her clutching one of her stuffed animals, dressed in her favorite pj’s. There’s a bottle of Pamela’s pills on the nightstand, but I hardly register that. I just remember sitting there and watching her chest, waiting for that rhythmic rise and fall, that predictable constant.
It never comes.
After a while, I climb into bed beside her, looking into her face, committing it to memory.
I don’t remember crying, but when I finally get up the courage to grab Pen’s phone and dial 911, I look back to see the sheets soaked where I rested my head.
“My big sister was murdered,” is what I tell the operator on the end of the line.
Despite their findings to the contrary, I know better.
Penelope might’ve taken those pills, but she didn’t want to die.
Someone drove her to it, and I know exactly who that person was.
I still do.
And I’m willing to sell my soul to the devil to watch him suffer. That’s how important his pain is to me; I need to see him bleed.
Two and a half years later, I find my chance in Havoc.
The next morning, I wake up on Aaron’s bed, wrapped in his scent, decimated by memories. My eyes find this spot on the door where we accidentally dented it with my head. Yep, my fucking head. Aaron and I tumbled against the door in a frenzy, hands tearing at each other's clothes, adrenaline pumping through our bodies.
Youthful rage and desire, all mixed into one. I stand up and put my fingers against the dent before opening the door, fully expecting to find Vic looming over me, staring down at me with those crow-black eyes of his. Instead, I find an empty hall, the distant giggles of the girls drifting to me from a cracked door at the other end.