“What happened to the boys that gave you your scars?” I ask mildly, because while Callum said Vic saved him, taught him how to seek revenge the right way … what is the right way? Castrating someone and carving the word Rapist into their face?

“They’ll never walk again,” Cal says, nodding his chin briefly before standing up. “They took my dreams away from me, so I took theirs, too.” He smiles again, and the sight of it gives me the chills.

“About the other day …” I start, because we can’t just forget that we almost had sex at the studio. I certainly can’t forget that out of all the boys, I chose to run to him. What the fuck does that even mean?

“It either means nothing,” Cal starts, shaking his head slightly. He reaches up to push his hood back, revealing that pretty blond hair of his. “Or it means everything. We don’t have to talk about it. Just decide what it is that you want.”

Callum turns away, flushes the paper towels down the toilet in the next stall over—likely to hide the evidence—and then disappears out the door.

I stay in the boys’ bathroom, crouched on the seat of the toilet in a locked stall, until lunch rolls around.

Nobody bothers me, and that’s just the way I like it.

There's not a goddamn student at Prescott High who isn't aware of our little war with the Charter Crew. I can feel their eyes following me as I walk down the halls, and it would be impossible to miss all of the money changing hands as students place their bets.

I just hope everyone who bets against us knows they’re placing their eggs in the wrong basket.

“This is not the senior year I signed up for,” Hael says, leaning back on the front steps as Callum sips a Pepsi, his hood flipped up over his blond hair again. The conversation stops as soon as I come out the door, taking a seat next to Oscar because, let's be honest, knowing that he hates me means we have the easiest relationship out of everyone here. We know what we want—and don't want—from one another.

He stares at me like I’m some sort of diseased slag, and I curl my lip his direction.

“This isn't the senior year I was expecting either,” I quip, giving Vic a sideways look. He laughs at me, making me bristle. How fucking dare he. After what he said to me the other night, I oughta dump his entire soda on his head and then curb stomp his balls. “My question is: what are we going to do about it? Vaughn is here, like nothing happened. That's as much a slap to our authority as Mitch and his buddies.”

I glance briefly at Callum, but he isn’t looking at me, and it’s quite clear from Victor’s lack of violent rage that he doesn’t know about Kali yet. Surprisingly enough, she hasn’t narked on me either. Likely, she won’t. It’d put her new crew at too much risk. The shitty part for me is, I will have to tell Vic at some point.

Just … maybe not right this second.

“So it's our authority, now is it?” Vic asks, and Aaron throws him a goddamn death glare.

“Lay off of her,” he growls, and the tension—and the testosterone—ramps up to dangerous levels. I probably shouldn't have gone after Aaron the way I did. It's turned an already messy situation into a filthy one. “Bernadette deserves better than that, after the way we've treated her.”

“After the way we've treated her?” Oscar echoes, the lenses of his glasses flashing as he lifts his gaze up from the surface of his iPad. Apparently, nobody's going to mention the one that I threw against the wall. “How, exactly, are we treating her, Aaron?”

“You know what I mean,” Aaron says, not looking at me. He's just staring across the street at the row of modest suburban houses. You can tell by the aged siding and the sagging roofs that even the homeowners who do care about their homes are limited by funds. Makes me think of the assholes in the Oak Park neighborhood with their luxury cars and soaring mansions, and I scowl. “The video. The thing with Kali. Everything.”

Aaron turns to look at me, his green-gold gaze cutting right through me as he furrows his brow. Are we going to talk about what happened on the couch? Are we going to talk about the fact that I said I still loved him? Looking at him right now, my heart breaks all over again, and I feel a lump forming in my throat. The day he broke up with me, I thought I would die. I truly and utterly believed that my broken heart would kill me. Somehow, I managed to patch it together and keep going, but the patchwork quilt of my soul is not the same as it was then. Aaron isn't the same either, not even remotely. I'm not even sure if it's possible for us to bridge the gap between us.

“I don't see the problem; you were shown the video. Is your problem then that you just weren't shown it sooner?” Oscar asks, his voice a derisive slight that I do my best to ignore. Kneeing him in the balls and wrapping my hands around his throat at Vic's house is one thing, but I can't do it here, especially not with things the way they are.

I lean back on the steps, basking in the sun like a snake. I don’t belong in the daylight, but every now and again I need to absorb a little light to keep me warm.

“You know,” I start, tilting my head to one side as I watch students shrink and cower past us. They might bet against us, but they know better than to show open defiance. Unless they’re willing to join the Charter Crew and fight the war, they’re nothing but peons. “Once Victor and I are married—”

“Oh, so you have decided to grace me with your hand in marriage then? After the other night, I wasn’t sure you were still interested.” Vic’s dark voice reeks of butthurt, but you know, it’s not my fault if he feels emotionally raped by my words. I offered him an olive branch, and he essentially spit in my face.

I ignore him.

“Once we’re married,” I start again, raising my voice and turning my attention on Oscar. “You aren’t going to speak to me like that anymore.”

“How so?” Oscar asks, carefully setting the iPad aside and leveling his gray gaze on me. He obviously isn’t afraid of me. Either he can learn to respect me, or I’ll show him the true meaning of fear. “You think marrying Victor gives you some sort of status upgrade? Don’t fool yourself.”

I laugh, letting my head fall back, sunshine caressing my throat. I’ve bared it to this group of dangerous assholes, like a wolf who isn’t afraid to let her inferiors sniff her neck. I’m not afraid. Let them try to bite me and see what happens.

“Marrying Victor does give me a status upgrade,” I say, turning to look at the man in question. It’s impossible not to look at Aaron, too, seeing as he’s sitting on Vic’s other side, looking at me in just such a way that I wonder if today he might actually speak up, fight for me the way I’ve been craving since moment one. But, I guess not today, Satan. “Doesn’t it, Vic?” I ask, quirking a brow. He shifts uncomfortably on the step for a moment, turning his obsidian gaze to the street and narrowing his eyes.

I have his balls in a vise, and he doesn’t even know it.

Actually, the only reason that I know that is because he has my heart in one. I want to please him so badly and yet, I hate myself for it. I’m sure Victor feels the same way about me. That, at least, levels the playing field.

“You might be king of Havoc, but if you think I’m going to marry you and keep this crappy omega status you’ve granted me, you have another thing coming.”

Hael grins and offers me up a high five. I hesitate for a second, but decide to slap my palm against his in solidarity. He ends up yanking me down the steps and into his lap instead, putting his lips up against my ear.

“If Vic doesn’t want you to be his queen, I might have an opening you could fill?” Hael pauses for a second, frowning, and then flashes a shit-eating smile that makes my stomach flip. “Actually, it’s the other way around, isn’t it? You’re the one with an opening that needs filling.”

“Knock that shit off,” Vic snaps, watching us together. His dark eyes take me and Hael in with no small amount of jealousy. While it’s obvious that Victor doesn’t like what happened between me and Aaron yesterday either, it’s clear that finding Hael watching us pissed him off even more. And yet another thing I have to tell him: me and Cal at the studio. Fantastic. I’m sure that’ll go over about as well as a hurricane in Florida. “I’m not having this conversation here. We can talk about it later.” Victor lights up a cigarette, saluting one of the on-campus police officers who turns a blind eye to his disobedience, leaving me with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. How many cops does Havoc own? More or less than Neil?

I turn in Hael’s lap, straddling him and weaving my hands together behind his neck, his red hair tickling my fingers. It’s bloodred, so clearly a dye job, but after seeing his mother, it’s likely that he really is a ginger underneath.

His honey-brown eyes look down into mine, sharp fragments of pain hidden behind those vibrant irises. He’s still shaken from the incident on Saturday, and obviously there’s still something going on between him and his father. All the smiles, the braying laughter, the flirting, it’s a front for an entire firestorm of pain.

“I won’t let Oscar treat me like shit,” I tell Hael, stroking an ebony fingernail down the side of his smooth face. He never lets his stubble get the better of him, not like Vic or Aaron. Told ya, he’s the southside version of the popular boy—vibrant, charismatic, gregarious. If only he lived a different life, Hael could be something special. “But if Vic won’t stand up for me, will you?” I ask, glancing over at Aaron.

Callum watches us from the shadows of his hood, sipping on his Pepsi. It’s not uncharacteristic for him to be so quiet, but after what happened at the Halloween party, I’m seriously worried. I’ll admit, I’m struggling with all of the revelations.

The video.

The information about my Havoc price.

The fact that Vic told me they tortured me to put distance between us.