I don’t want to go back in there.

I glance over at the windows behind me, the matching ones for the neighboring duplex. The curtains are always drawn shut since the view from up here isn’t so stellar. Behind our house is the parking lot for a cabinet-making business. Sometimes, if you open the window on hot days, you can smell the fumes.

“Bernadette,” Cal says, very calmly, very slowly. “Come here.” He holds out a hand and I take it, scrambling into the window before I can lose my nerve. He yanks me to him, the bed wobbling beneath us. But we don’t fall. Callum keeps us standing, his hood sliding off his blond hair, leaving him bare for me. “You cannot let this place have power over you.”

“Are you going to tell me why you stalked me for years and I’m just now hearing about it?” I snap, using my anger to push aside the feeling of despair I feel at being in here again. This building is drenched in hate and pain. You could smudge it with sage, or bless it with holy water, and it would still smell like sulfur and ash.

“Breathe,” Cal whispers, voice thick and smoky. He closes his eyes and puts his hands on either side of my face. His fingers are cool against my skin, soothing me even if I feel like they shouldn’t. “It’s just a house. Houses don’t hold hate; people do. There’s nobody here but you and me. Just us.”

“Victor is going to flip when he finds out we came here alone,” I say, but my voice wavers and I’m so wound up that I bet you could tell if you were looking down at me from space. I’m lost in a dark orbit here, and I don’t like it.

“Breathe,” Cal repeats, holding me still, standing together on the bed I didn’t sleep in for years. I’m so tired. I’ve been so tired for so long. I exhale and close my eyes, pulling in a shuddering breath that smells like peaches and vanilla from the sprays and lotions still sitting on my abandoned desk. “You’re not alone, Bernadette. You never were. If you need to fall, let your knees go and I’ll catch you.”

“You can’t sweet-talk me during the middle of a robbery,” I murmur, but I’m feeling lightheaded anyway. “I’m your monster.” That’s what Callum told me. I can feel an edginess to him, this violent burning that’s on the brink at all times. It wouldn’t take much to set him off. Yet, I feel no danger standing here with him right now.

I open my eyes.

“I stalked you, Bernadette,” Cal says with a sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly. “There is no other way to put it. I can’t romanticize it or explain it. I’m sure it isn’t healthy.” He looks back up at me, but there’s no shame or regret in his gaze. None at all. “I’d do it all over again though, if given the chance. We are beautiful poison, not perfume.” He steps back and then climbs off the bed, looking up at me.

Nothing about my relationship with Havoc is what most people would consider healthy or normal.

I don’t care.

While I would discourage my sister from ever living a life like this, I’m throwing myself headlong into the dark.

I hop off the bed, looking around the room and trying to decide what it is that I want. Looking at it all now, it’s virtually meaningless. Things don’t matter, not at all. Be practical, Bernie, I tell myself, moving over to my closet and pulling out a dark blue Adidas duffel bag that used to belong to Penelope.

“Your room looks nothing like you,” Cal says, looking around as I pack underwear and bras, pictures and old journals. There’s an entire shoebox full of old poems under my dresser, pieces titled with macabre names like Suicidal Letters from a Stalker. There’s one about a girl named Penny who gets her leg cut off. I stare at the work for a moment and then shove it all into the bag.

I really don’t want to be here when Pam comes home. I’m not afraid of that bitch, but I also don’t want a confrontation in a dark, quiet house. What if I can’t control myself around her?

What if Cal can’t?

“Please,” Kali’s ghost says, staring at me with blood draining down the side of her face. She’s riddled with bullet holes from Aaron’s gun, but that doesn’t stop her from taunting me, even more so from beyond the grave than she did when she was alive. “You couldn’t kill me. You could never hurt your mom. You’re too soft and weak.”

I ignore her, moving out of the room and then pausing in front of the door that used to belong to Pen, the one that Pamela wouldn’t let her install a deadbolt on. When I open it, I see exercise equipment that belongs to the Thing.

“This was her room,” Cal says. It’s not a question; it’s a fact. He already knows. “Where are her things?”

“You mean the stuff that Pamela didn’t sell?” I quip, feeling my stomach bottom out. My sister was wiped from existence before the ink was dry on her death certificate. “In the attic.” Before we head up there though, using the hatch in the ceiling of the upstairs landing, I go into Pam’s room.

I steal her best jewelry, the stuff she’s so proud of pinching from Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus, from the rich women she hangs out with in Oak River Heights or Oak Park. I take it all, even though it means nothing to me.

It will, however, destroy her when she finds out it’s missing.

Callum helps me, making a systematic sweep of the room like the career criminal he so very clearly is. Doesn’t matter to me though. Just like he had no shame in his eyes when he talked about sitting outside my window, I feel none at taking things that don’t belong to me. Corporate thievery happens every day and people let it go because it’s legal, and it’s much harder to see. This isn’t any more or less honorable than raising the price on a lifesaving medical device like an Epi pen to rake in extra cash.

Actually, I lied: this has heaps more honor in it.

“Let’s clean her out,” I decide after Cal dumps an armload of valuables into another bag. We hit the downstairs next, and I’m surprised when Cal fiddles around with a wooden shelf installed on the wall near the front door. It opens up to reveal two pistols and plenty of ammo. “Holy shit,” I breathe as Cal takes that, too, filling his bag to the brim.

Finally, we’re standing at the top of the stairs and looking into the dark rectangle above my head where the last of my sister’s earthly possessions await.

I don’t want to go up there, but I know that I’m going to.

Taking a deep breath, I curl my hand around the first rung and force my shaking body up the ladder and into the dark. There isn’t enough room to stand, not even really enough to sit. Everything that’s stored up here is stacked around the edges of the opening, surrounded by insulation and mousetraps with tiny skeletons in them.

There’s just one box of Pen’s stuff in here, just one single box. Last time I checked, there were fifteen. Where are the others? Where are all of my sister’s fucking things? The last box is wedged against the wall, almost lost in shadows. Someone came up here to clear my sister’s things, but they missed this one, lost behind an open box with bits of plastic Christmas tree sticking out. There’s a pile of electronics still in the boxes, clearly stolen and ready for resale.

I grab Penelope’s box and pass it down to Callum. It says Old Homework and Assignments on the side of it, but I know it’s hers because I recognize the handwriting. She hid some of her most important things in this box, tucked onto the top shelf of her closet. She wrote that on the side to dissuade my mother and the step-monster from going through it.

Cal takes the box and I hop down, my hands curling and uncurling with violent thoughts.

“Her things are gone,” I tell him, wondering when the attic was cleared out. Last time I checked on her stuff, about six months ago, it was all there. Did this happen after I moved out? Before? When the Thing was still alive?

There’s a sound from outside, but not from the front yard. It’s coming from the back, like footsteps on the rotten old porch that takes up what little crumb of a backyard this place has. Cal and I exchange a look and he slips over to the window in Penelope’s old room, looking out.

The frown that takes over his mouth scares me a little.

“Cops,” he tells me, glancing back in my direction. “Sara Young, to be specific.”

“Shit,” I breathe, feeling my heartrate pick up. This is unexpected. “How do we get out?” I ask, looking at Pen’s box and the two bags of crap we’ve packed. It’s going to be hard to sneak this shit out without anyone seeing. I was planning on walking out the front door …

Callum watches me with an infinite well of dark, placid patience. It’s like, he could sit there forever, just to hear what I have to say.

“Let’s go out the front,” I say when I hear a loud knock at the door. It’s harsh, unforgiving; it demands to be let in. “I have every reason to be here, and it isn’t like Pamela can report her stolen things as, well, stolen.” I shrug and Cal smiles.

“That was going to be my suggestion as well,” he says, moving away from the wall and coming to stand beside me. The air between us feels charged, like the molecules are dripping with desperation. I lift my hand up and Cal does the same, pressing his palm to mine, letting our fingertips touch. “We should hide this bag”—he points at the one full of jewelry and other stolen items—“in the attic for now.”

He moves away suddenly, before I can fully appreciate the moment, and scales the ladder with the heavy bag like it’s nothing. Then he drops down, closes it all up, and thumps down the stairs loud enough to alert every officer to our presence. An intentional move, and a good one. Don’t want to spook the cops and end up shot.

I follow after him, so that by the time he opens the door to the third pounding knock, I’m standing beside him and looking out at Sara Young.

She’s standing there with Detective Constantine and a bunch of uniformed officers.

“Bernadette,” she says, the faintest hint of bewilderment in her voice. “I’m surprised to see you here. I thought you’d moved out?” She exchanges a look with Constantine, or at least, she tries to. He won’t look at her. He’s too busy frowning down at me.