“The girl they sent back, what did she have to say about what happened?” he asks, and Stacey smiles a sad, desperate, terrible sort of smile.

“My girl, she was scared. And I mean, this is a chick who came home to find her mother OD’d on the sofa. She’s been through a lot, and I’ve never seen her look the way she did.” Stacey exhales and sweeps her hands over her hair again. “When they questioned her, she blurted out the first thing she could think of.” She looks up at Vic in warning which is an interesting twist. Whatever she’s about to say, she thinks he might be upset about it. But also, she isn’t apologizing. “They asked who she worked for, and the only thing she could get out was Havoc.”

“That’ll be all,” Oscar snaps, his hand tightening on the edge of his iPad in just such a way that I’m worried he won’t be able to control his temper. “Leave. Now.”

Stacey nods, her eyes passing over Hael before turning back to me.

“Be careful out there, okay? Sometimes we have to learn the hard way that we’re not as invincible as we think we are.” She takes off in the direction of the exit, and her girls rise from their table like a flock of birds, trailing after her and leaving the boy with the grabby hands behind.

“Fuck,” Oscar says and Hael snorts, lifting up an unlit cigarette in agreement.

“Really, truly. This is the fucking pits. What do you want to do about it?” he asks, but Vic’s already a hundred miles away.

“Don’t go to Tom’s property again,” he says absently, and he must notice the look on my face because he adds, “even the VGTF doesn’t have the resources to search it properly, so let’s not give them an idea of where to look.”

“That’s all you have to say about that?” I ask incredulously, looking over at the empty table where the Charter Crew used to sit. There’s nobody there now, just a fucking ghost town. If I squint, I swear I can see Kali and Mitch, Ivy and Danny, Logan and Kyler and Timmy.

Billie sits by herself in the far corner of the room, her eyes red-rimmed and constantly straying over to where we sit. She meets my gaze and then turns away sharply, put in her fucking place the way Kali wouldn’t allow me to do.

Instead, she took her obstinance and her bullshit to the grave.

“This is bad, Victor,” Aaron says softly, but our fearless leader just shakes his head.

“I know it’s bad,” he replies, exhaling. “But we’re already at war with the GMP anyway. We’ll take extra precautions, hide some weapons around the perimeter of the school. Whatever Ophelia is up to, the GMP is part of it. I’m hoping they won’t move on us if we go forward with the annulment.” The look he gives me is one of a thousand apologies, a million pleas. I turn away and Callum rests a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“I’m going to have to tell Sara something,” I say, feeling my chest get tight. Everyone in this room is watching us. Maybe not directly, but they’re waiting, wondering what we’re going to do next. If I snitch to that cop, everyone here will know. But I have to steer her ship or she’s going to end up in murky waters.

“Don’t worry about Sara Young,” Vic says, gesturing at me with his finger, and then smiling in that way of his, the one that makes me so furious I could spit. “Just focus on getting through these next few weeks, okay?”

“Go fuck yourself,” I tell my husband as he smiles, steps forward, and then kisses me on the cheek. Just like I did to him that day at the garage. And just like that day, I feel dumbstruck the way he did. “Have fun on your date with Trinity.”

“Oh, I’m sure I will,” Vic says, still smiling. On top of everything else, he’s going to dinner at some fancy restaurant in Oak Park tonight with Trinity to discuss the details of our arrangement.

I ignore him as he leaves the room just before the bell rings.

“Stop punishing yourself and say something to him,” Aaron tells me as he stands up, looking down at me with an expression crafted of equal parts tenderness and violence. Only half of that look is intended for me. “Before I fucking kill him.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I quip, feeling my skin get tight and hot. A girl walks by, looking me up and down as she passes. She’s picked a terrible day to try her hand at climbing the Prescott High social ladder.

“Whore,” she whispers, and a few of her friends snicker. I let her go as I stand up and storm into the hall. But I’m in a terrible fucking mood.

And I need somebody to take it out on.

After school, I wait down the street and around the corner with Cal. When the mouthy bitch passes by, I step out from behind the hedge and hit her in the back of her knee with the patent leather heels on my feet. She crumples forward and crashes into the cement, skinning her hands and knees.

“What the fuck?” one of her friends chokes out before she sees me and Cal. That’s when the blood drains from her face and our eyes meet.

“That fucking hurt!” the girl on the ground wails, just before I nail her in the spine with my heel and push her into the sidewalk as she grunts and chokes in pain.

“I hope it hurt,” I tell her, grinding my heel into her back as she screams. When she stops to take a breath, drool leaks over her lower lip and ruins her lipstick. She doesn’t steal the right kind then because it isn’t waterproof; it’s cheap. I step back and crouch down beside her as Kali Rose whispers in my ear.

“You’re not good enough, Bernie. Even after everything, you couldn’t do it. You couldn’t hurt me the way I deserved.” Kali laughs as I grab the girl by her hair and lift her head up so she can look at me with mascara running down her face. Callum just stands there and lights a cigarette while he watches me.

“The Charter Crew is gone,” I tell her as she sniffles. I recognize her as one of their nameless lackeys. “They are all dead. Do you want to die as well? Because if you’re that faithful, that loyal to your crew, then we can make that happen.”

“Please, please,” she whispers, sputtering and sniveling. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear to god. I swear, I swear, I swear on his name.” I shove her away from me and rise to my feet, accepting the cigarette that Cal hands me.

“She isn’t Kali,” he reminds me as I lift my eyes to his. I think mine are watering, but my makeup is legit as fuck. I only steal the best, sometimes only after checking reviews online.

“I know,” I whisper back as the girls help their friend to her feet and the trio takes off. “And I know what you said, that killing isn’t exactly a virtue, but I can’t shake her. Cal, she follows me everywhere.” I look past him to where Kali’s standing, but she’s only there in my mind. When I blink, she’s gone.

“You let her get inside your head,” he tells me, pouring the rest of his Pepsi over the small bloodstains on the pavement. The sugary syrup washes them away like they were never there. Doesn’t hurt that the sidewalk was already wet, that the sky looks like it might crack in half and drown the city. “You’re doubting yourself because of her. Because of people like Coraleigh. Or Trinity Jade.” He looks up at me and tries for a smile. It lands just right, turning his face into something very pretty for a moment there. “Us taking care of your list doesn’t change that. You have to exorcise your own demons.”

He takes out another cigarette, his hood pulled up as usual, blond hair covering his forehead.

“What about your demons?” I ask him, knowing that he’s still got them and that maybe he wants them there.

“I just feed mine to keep them quiet,” he tells me, lifting his head up as Sara Young’s Subaru drives past and she slows down when she sees me. I salute her with my cigarette, frowning as she continues on and leaves us in peace.

I’m dragging my feet here because I don’t want to go home and think about Victor going on a date with a rich girl.

“I still don’t trust Victor, I guess,” I say to Cal, standing there as the first bit of drizzle starts to fall from the sky. Doesn’t seem to bother him, so I pull my own hood up to protect my hair. I’m wearing my pink leather Havoc jacket over a hoodie, so no problems staying warm out here. “If I did, I might not be so …” I gesture loosely with my hand, making a fist and then opening it up again. “Cagey.”

“You should,” Cal assures me. “Because we all know just how to take care of you.” He moves up to stand beside me, cupping the side of my face with cool fingers. I lean into the touch and Callum smiles. “We’ve been doing it for years. Let us keep on doing it.”

“What’s going on with my mother?” I ask as Cal drops his hand to his side and then flicks his cigarette into a puddle. He chuckles at me and then turns away. I figure we came this way just to beat the crap out of that girl, but then Callum starts to back up into one of the yards, gesturing for me to follow after.

“Come in, Bernie,” he tells me, turning around and heading across the grass in his boots, shorts, and hoodie. When he pounds up the weathered front steps, I find myself drawn after him. My cigarette’s gone out, but I tuck the rest of it back in the pack for later. Can’t waste it, even if it tastes like shit the second time around.

I find Cal waiting at the top of the steps, the front door open in front of him. He gestures for me to go in, so I do, pausing in a small entryway and looking around at a house that seems frozen in time. There are pictures of Cal as a kid on every wall, but none from the last ten years or so. The place smells clean, but there’s this musty undertone that makes me think of dust and quiet places.

“Grandma!” he calls out, pausing at the bottom of the stairs, hands folded on the newel post. He waits for a moment and then calls again. Still, no answer comes. “I’ll be right back,” Cal throws over his shoulder, smiling at me as he heads up the stairs and leaves me alone in his grandmother’s house.

Holy shit, I think, stepping forward to examine one of the pictures. They seem to start around his first birthday and end sometime after his seventh. There’s a picture of that particular party, one where he’s got on a pair of black ballet slippers; I recognize it by the number seven candle stuck to the cake.