“I need the lock to keep them out,” she whispers, but at the time I don’t quite make the connection. Pamela turns away from her daughter, like she didn’t hear her in the first place. We both watch as she pounds down the stairs and out the front door, shoving the deadbolt into the trash at the edge of the curb.

I turn back to look at Penelope, but she doesn’t return my stare. I’ve disappointed her.

Pamela comes storming back into the house, heading straight up the stairs and shoving me with her shoulder. I end up stumbling, losing my balance and pinwheeling backward; my ears ring as my head hits the wall on the way down, my back screaming in agony as I find myself dizzy and disoriented at the bottom of the stairs.

I fell, that’s what happened. It takes me several seconds to make the connection.

I groan as I sit up and Pen yells, sprinting down the stairs after me.

She helps me up, but I can never forget the look on her face, the one that says that what I’ve always secretly hoped for—a change of heart from our mother—is never going to happen. Pamela has the power to get us away from here, away from her abusive husband, out of poverty. She could even keep stealing credit cards and robbing her rich friends. If she spent half of that money on housing and clothing and food for her kids, we’d be set.

That never happens.

I always intended to make up for that moment, when I should’ve stood up to my mother for Pen. After Pam slapped her, I should’ve shoved that bitch down the stairs. I should’ve killed Kali.

What if I get a third chance to make things right, and I fuck that up, too?

“You’re out of your element,” Kali says, smiling at me as she leans over the bed and looks down at me. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

And then she kisses me, and I wake up.

I have the dream again on both Saturday and Sunday night, waking up the next morning with an emotional hangover.

Fuck I hate Monday morning nightmares with a passion.

A serious fucking passion.

Sara Young surprises me on Monday with a map that leads right to Tom’s forested property. I’m so fucking tired that I can barely keep my eyes open as I lift my head up to see what she’s just laid out on the desk. As soon as I register what it is, the blood drains from my face and the room spins.

On the outside, I stay as stoic as possible.

“What is this?” I ask, yawning and letting the sleeves of the hoodie I’m wearing fall over my hands so Sara can’t see how hard they’re shaking. I’ve barely slept for three nights. And not because of the sex with Hael. Instead, it’s because I keep dreaming about Pamela and Penelope and ending that same dream with mocking remarks from Kali. And the more I dream about them, the sicker I feel on the inside.

“That’s what I came to ask you. It’s a map that Neil left in one of his jacket pockets. We found it when we searched his locker at the station.” Sara leaves the map where it is, a bad photocopy of a napkin with hasty scrawls on it. How could Neil have known about that place? I think, my mind scrambling as my body slumps in the chair, feigning boredom.

I spent the weekend riding Hael’s dick in too-tall heels. Today, I’m sitting here wondering how the fuck the Thing found Havoc’s hiding place. And what Sara Young is going to do about that.

“I followed the map out there, nice property. Seems to belong to a one Tom Muller. Does that name ring any bells?” Sara asks, and we both know she already knows the answer to that question.

“Victor’s mother’s boyfriend,” I say with a loose shrug. “What’s your point?”

I bet it was the night Neil killed Ivy; he probably followed the boys out there. I resist the urge to bite my thumbnail. Won’t help. I’ll just smear my lipstick everywhere. I’m already wearing a wrinkled hoodie, my blond and red hair loose and wavy over my shoulders. Not sure how Cal or Oscar would miss that, but what other explanation is there?

“I walked the property, but it’s several hundred acres.” Sara exhales and folds her hands together on the surface of the desk. “I should be honest with you, Bernadette.”

“Okay?” I start, my heart thundering. So what? Some street cop found a map to a forested property. Doesn’t mean shit. But it does. It means everything because that’s just the sort of place a person might bury a body that they don’t want found.

“I’m not with the Springfield Police Department. I’ve actually been working undercover for the VGTF.”

I stare right back at her, no reaction. Bullshit, I think, but the way Sara’s staring at me, I wonder if she isn’t telling the truth.

“You’re with the VGTF?” I repeat, thinking about the Violent Gang Task Force. It’s a division of the FBI, a division focused on—surprise, surprise—gangs like Havoc. But there’s no way. There’s no way Sara’s here because of Havoc.

“I’m not here for your gang,” she tells me, as if she can read my mind. There’s something patronizing in her tone that tells me she considers us kids. All of us. At least for now. She has no fucking clue. What is it about people over the age of twenty-one? It’s as if your brain snaps and you can’t remember what it’s like to be young and angry and desperate. Being in high school doesn’t preclude us from anything—not even murder. “I came here to investigate your stepdad, actually, right from the moment I was assigned as his partner.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, sinking into the sweatshirt to make myself seem smaller. I cannot let Sara Young get a read on me at fucking all.

“Because I think you know what he used this land for. I want you to tell me what you know. We want to end this investigation, but we’re still missing answers to key questions.” I just stare back at her because we both know we’re bullshitting one another here. “Do you know where Neil is, Bernadette?”

“This is seriously like the fiftieth time you’ve asked me that,” I snap at her, wishing I could just get up and run, find the boys, figure out a plan. Cal might be right: we might have to kill Sara. “My answer hasn’t changed. Can I please fucking go now?”

“If you remember anything,” she continues as I rise from the chair, nice and slow. Like I’m about to explode if I don’t get the hell out of here. “Let me know. I’m aware of the captain’s issues with your boyfriend, something to do with a jilted daughter.” She gives me a look. “We could maybe help with those charges.”

I say nothing, thinking of Hael as I rode him in those heels the other night.

I feel irrationally upset as I stare back at the woman in front of me.

“You lied to me, and now you want me to be your snitch?” I clarify, but she’s shaking her head, refuting the words I haven’t even finished saying. “And all that to get rid of some trumped-up charges created by an overcontrolling father who just can’t accept that his daughter’s not a little girl anymore?” I laugh as I back away toward the door. I make sure to keep the long sleeve of the hoodie over my hand as I reach for the doorknob, so Sara won’t see me shake. “You’re going to have to try harder than that,” I say, and then I leave, slamming the door behind me.

Ms. Keating sees me as I’m going, but she must be able to tell I’m in a mood because she leaves me alone.

I ignore her and head straight for Hael’s basic biology class. I passed the same course my freshman year, and I know for a fact he needs this one to graduate. But he’s in this class not because he’s stupid, but because when I throw open the door to look for him, he’s staring at his phone and he’s nowhere in this realm, torn away by the realities of our situation. Hael is just so … Havoc. He doesn’t live for anything else. It isn’t like Victor with his inheritance, or Oscar shooting for valedictorian. Hael has no reason to be here, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he just walked off campus one day and never came back.

“Come here,” I tell him, and he looks up at the sound of my voice. Nobody in the class dares complain about my interruption, and we ignore the teacher when he sputters at the two of us to take our asses to the principal’s office. No point in doing that. Vaughn is too scared of Havoc to do anything but heel like a trained dog.

“What’s wrong?” Hael asks as he steps into the hallway, so close to me that the toes of our shoes touch. That’s when I know we’re soul mates for sure. He sees me upset, and then he gets upset for me. I like that. We’re connected in ways that transcend physical touch; this goes bone-deep.

“Sara is in the VGTF,” I blurt, because I’m having trouble keeping this information to myself. I had to tell someone. Hael meets my gaze and then nods, like he isn’t worried. None of them ever are, not really. Well, that’s not true, is it? They get worried; they just try really hard to hide it. “And she knows where Tom’s property is. She followed Neil there at some point.”

“The fuck?” Hael asks, like he can’t imagine how the hell that could’ve happened. His face falls as he makes the same connection as I did. “Ivy,” he says, and I nod. “Shit, we were in a rush that night. If he’d been waiting around the block or something, he might’ve been able to tail us.”

We’re standing in a dark zone, so there are most definitely no cameras here—and even if there were, they take shit video with no sound—but I keep my eyes peeled for Sara or Constantine. I would not put it past them to resort to something as basic as eavesdropping.

“And you came to me first?” Hael asks, seemingly pleased by the idea. I give him a look. “What? I’m just excited, Blackbird.” He grins, but I can tell he’s worried, too. There’s the slightest edge to his smile, like a stained-glass window with a single broken pane. “Okay, okay, we can deal with this. Look, it’s almost lunch. We’ll get some food, and we’ll figure this out together.”

I nod, but I feel uneasy, like I’m just starting to see the beginning of this puzzle being put together. Once I’ve got a full view of the image it creates, I might not like what I find.