I bite my lower lip, tasting the sweet waxiness of a lipstick color called Honey Buns. It quite literally tastes like beeswax and soft summer afternoons spent by the creek.
“Fucking tragic, isn’t it?” Vera asks, her shaved red hair buzzed into a series of designs, one of which just so happens to be a capital ‘S’. The way her makeup and nails are done reminds me of last year’s winter formal, when she got busted stealing a dress and ended up attending the dance in her ragged-ass PE uniform.
I force a tight smile.
“I’m going to make it right, I promise,” I tell Vera, standing in an empty half-circle near the front of the crowd. Nobody dares jostles me or touches me, not with my boys slinking through the gathered mourners, taking note of the attendees, looking for anyone who doesn’t belong. Of course, there are two very obvious standouts in this group: Sara Young and John Constantine.
They stand across from me, on the other side of a very deep hole, just past the gleaming surface of a casket that I fucked my boyfriend in. Some might call that disrespect, but I’m pretty sure Stacey Langford would approve.
“Hope you know what you’re doing,” Vera tells me, pale eyes following my train of thought to the uptight federal agents and their prying eyes. “Bringing pigs to a Prescott funeral.”
I let my attention shift from the VGTF officers and back to Vera.
“Sara, at least, isn’t a bad person. Some part of her genuinely wants to help. I’m just … letting her see a different side of Prescott.” I shrug my shoulders, like this is no big fucking deal. In reality, it’s a huge one. Because despite everything, despite all my bullshit and my bravado, I still want to believe that there’s good in the world and that Sara Young might—might—be a small part of that.
“So she doesn’t bust your boyfriends you mean?” Vera asks with a chuckle, taking a swig from a pink flask and then handing it over to me. I accept it, tossing the drink back and trying not to cringe at the harsh, bitter grating of cheap vodka. Shit, give me a lighter and I could breathe flames the way Hael did at the Halloween party. It was only three months ago, but it may as well have been a lifetime with everything that’s happened in-between.
“Something like that,” I agree as the boys find their way to me, as they always do, the dogs of war slipped loose and returning to their mistress as faithfully as if they’d been leashed. My mouth twitches, but I make sure to keep that thought to myself. They wouldn’t like to hear it.
“Coast is clear,” Aaron says, pausing beside me, his gaze drifting over to Vera. I bet he’s thinking about Mason Miller, and the plausibility of using Stacey’s girls to get access to that fucker. We could order them to do it. Shit, we could get most any girl in this neighborhood to play whore for us. But … it wouldn’t be fair. If Mason is badass enough to take Cal on, then no girl in Prescott would stand a chance.
No girl except for …
I pull a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of my pink leather Havoc jacket, slamming the bottom of it against the flat of my hand. Supposed to, like, pack the nicotine together back in the day before filters were invented. Now it’s just a ritualistic bunch of bullshit, but we all need to pretend we have our everyday spells and charms, like tapping your nails on the top of a soda can to get rid of the bubbles.
“I need to go after Mason,” I say, and Vera turns to look at me, raising a pierced brow. It’s on-fleek for real. Prescott royalty right here. “It has to be me.” I glance over at Aaron, but he’s already laughing.
“No.” That’s more a response I’d expect from Victor, but my childhood sweetheart seems content with taking on a bit of a sour tone. Vera snorts and shakes her head, but she’s smart enough not to say anything. “Are you kidding?” Aaron glances over to where Vic is standing, his eyes on the casket and not on me. When he sees Aaron look his way, he adjusts his attention over to me.
“What?”
“Bernie wants to dress up like a whore to go after Mason,” Aaron tells him, willing to put aside their rivalry in order to keep me safe. That’s cute, isn’t it? My boys can shirk their jealousy and come together to act like overprotective douchebags. Vic snorts and shakes his head sharply, crossing muscular arms over his chest. He’s wearing a shirt that says Mare’s Nest on it. I can only imagine he had it made at the local t-shirt silkscreen place as a joke.
The only person at this fucking funeral who’s wearing a suit is Oscar fucking Montauk.
“What a roomy casket,” the man in question remarks, curling his fingers over one of my shoulders. “And you are not parading around as an undercover hooker.”
“Like there’s anything wrong with that,” Vera shoots back, giving me a look from beneath heavily shadowed blue lids. Challenging me. That’s what she’s doing. You gonna let these boys run you, bitch? “All you need to get a private audience with Mason Miller is a wet pussy and a smile. You were the one that told me you had those things in spades.”
“No offense, Bernie,” Cal whispers huskily, shaking his head as he takes a seat in one of the metal folding chairs surrounding the grave. There are six of them, silently reserved for Havoc. No signage needed. Only an idiot would sit in one of those chairs. Like, for example, Sara and Constantine. I just sigh and cross my arms over my chest as they move the two end seats over to the knoll behind the casket. “But if I couldn’t beat Mason, you won’t be able to. It’s far too dangerous.”
“So, what was the plan then?” Vera counters, stepping up in front of me and blocking the view of Stacey’s casket. “You send one of my girls in and let her die in pursuit of your little gang war? That’s some bullshit right there.”
“She’s right,” I say as Hael whistles and lets his big body slump into the chair next to Cal. “I can’t expect a girl under my protection to take on a task that’s too dangerous for me.”
“Blackbird, listen to me,” Hael says, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. He stares at me in earnest from eyes the color of honey and almonds. “You got the jump on me at the after-party. That shit, it ain’t happening again.”
I take a step forward and then crouch down beside the hole where Stacey’s body will soon be buried.
Taking out Mason means dismantling the first brick that makes up the GMP. Then Maxwell. Ophelia. I grit my teeth as I reach out and grab a handful of dirt, tossing it into the hole and watching as the shadows of the earth swallow it up.
When I stand back up and turn, I see that the majority of the crowd is watching us while they wait for the service to begin. Luckily, when I glance over my shoulder at the two VGTF officers, I see them engaged in a whispered conversation.
I look back at the boys, all five of them staring at me like they can barely resist touching me, holding me, tucking me under their chin to keep safe. And shit if I don’t like it. In the same vein, it also pisses me off. It’s possible to be a bitchy forward-thinking feminist while enjoying a little straight male possession. Definitely not mutually exclusive concepts.
“I’m going after Mason,” I say, and Aaron frowns hard while Vic laughs.
“No, you are not,” he says as I turn to Vera, meeting her pale eyes with my emerald tinted ones.
“Ignore them. They’re just alpha-maleing around. You know how I can make contact with this prick?”
Vera glances toward the high priestess as the woman claps her hands to get the group’s attention. Pretty sure Stacey wasn’t religious at all but having a modern day witch preside over her funeral seems about right.
“There’s James Barrasso’s funeral,” Vera suggests, ignoring the men in my life. Stacey’s girls never did appreciate being ordered around by people with dicks. They’d much rather deal with other women. Can’t say I blame them.
“We know all about the funeral, thank you,” Oscar purrs, looking down his nose at Vera. “Hundreds of mourners, an open cemetery, private security. Complete waste of our time.”
“Oh, yeah?” Vera quips back, popping her hip in that uniquely tragic Prescott style. I love that she’s wearing a cropped pink shirt that says Hot Girl in forty-degree weather. That’s Fahrenheit, by the way. I don’t know shit about Celsius. This is urban America, yo, not fucking Europe or some shit. “Do you know about the reception Maxwell is having at Kay’s?”
“Reception?” Victor echoes, exchanging a look with Oscar. Swear to fuck, put the two of them together, and they think they know goddamn everything. “And where the fuck is Kay’s?”
Vera just laughs and shakes her head, focusing her attention on me.
“They all must have huge dicks for you to put up with that crap,” she tells me, confident enough in my hold of Havoc’s leashes to prevent any clapback from her snide commentary. “Kay’s—we usually call it KKKay’s because the GMP is racist AF—is a gang-owned strip club near West Burnside Street in Portland. Mason has already ordered a bunch of call girls to attend. He’ll do what he always does: pick a girl and take her upstairs to his bedroom. That’s how often he’s at the club, enough to have a private room.”
There must be something in my gaze that tells Vera I’m not about to back down from the boys and their overprotective stares. As soon as we get home, I’m restarting this argument, setting it on fire and refusing to leave until I’m on my way to playing undercover hooker.
“Listen …” she starts, exhaling sharply and reaching up to run a hand over her shaved head. “I’ve been thinking about this since you came to my auntie’s place. I want to help avenge Stacey. Letting you do it by yourself seems … cowardly somehow. But I’m also not willing to send in any of my girls. I’ll make you a deal: I’ll go if you go.”
“It’s a deal,” I say, reaching out a hand and then shivering as Victor slides his palm over mine, drawing my hand away from Vera’s outstretched one. She snaps her gum at him and narrows her eyes to slits.