Oscar pauses to look up from the iPad as all eyes turn to Hael. He's still slumped over, leaving his triple-meat burger and cheese fries cooling on the table. Nobody talks, but voices drift across the railroad tracks from the Fuller High hangout. We cut class early to have time to talk this out; guess we aren't the only ones who skipped out on sixth period today.

I watch them, in their pre-ripped department store jeans and Lululemon leggings, and wonder what life is like when you're just … normal. And no, it's not just a setting on a dryer. It's a reality. Either you blend in, or you stick out. And we, we most certainly stick out, like broken graves in a green lawn.

Hael finally lifts his head up as I glance back at him, his jaw tight, his eyes flinty.

“August twenty-ninth?” he asks, like that's not a date he wants to hear. “Fuck my life.”

“You screw her on the twenty-ninth or what?” Vic snaps, lifting his own head back up and leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees. The way he looks at Hael, well, I don't envy the guy. “Speak up. I'm not exactly thrilled with you. On top of everything else, we now have to deal with this shit. The load's getting a little heavy, Hael.”

“Don't you think I fucking know that?” he snaps back, his skin ashen as he rubs at his face again. His stubble is just starting to come through, and it's a much redder color than I expected. Just yesterday, I was admiring how clean-shaven he was. Just one day of thinking about Brittany, and he’s stopped that routine entirely. “If you're starting to wonder if I might be getting psyched about this whole 'raising a baby with Brittany thing', then you clearly don't know me for shit.” He pauses, working his jaw as his eyes flick back in the direction of the Fuller High kids. “Late August, Brittany stole the keys to her dad's lake house. We spent a weekend up there. I don't know if it was the twenty-ninth or not. Thing is, she didn’t cheat on me until after we got back from that trip. So far as I know anyway.”

Oscar checks something on his iPad and makes a hiss of disapproval.

“You were at the lake house on the twenty-ninth, most definitely,” Oscar agrees, frowning as Vic sighs and grabs his cherry soda, flipping the plastic top off and using a flask of whiskey from his pocket to spike it.

“Alright, fine, you fucked her on the twenty-ninth or thereabouts. Keep going, Oscar. I haven't heard the tail end of this but just yet.” Vic swigs his whiskey-laced soda, and then offers the cup up to me. I just glare back at him until he scowls and takes it away again. We are not friends, not today. I'm still pissed, and we have yet to actually talk about my feelings in detail.

“Did you use a condom?” Aaron asks, which, apparently, is the wrong thing to say to Hael right now. He stands up and grabs his own milkshake, throwing it as hard as he can against the side of an old train car. It sits in the grass nearby, all its wheels missing save for one that's being eaten by rust. The side is covered in graffiti and now, strawberry milkshake.

It doesn’t need explaining that the graffiti tagged on that car says HAVOC.

“Of course I used a condom!” Hael roars, and I'm surprised to see so much emotion from him. Gone is the cocky swagger, and the cocksure smirk. He looks like any other member of Havoc now, just a tortured, tattooed asshole with a chip on his shoulder. “Keep going, let's just roll through the possibilities.” He snaps his fingers to get Oscar to keep going.

Oscar sits there with the iPad on his lap and gives Hael such a withering look that he finally sits down again, lifting a hand in an indication that Oscar should continue.

“We give her what she wants on the stipulation that she takes a DNA test at the earliest opportunity, and we require her honesty beforehand, to see if there's any other possible father.”

“There's no way,” Hael says, but almost like he's pleading, wishing he could change the past with a snap of his fingers. “It was just us at the lake house, and we were there for an entire weekend.”

“Four days to be exact,” Oscar corrects, and I wonder, if he's keeping such good track of everything, is he monitoring my fucking menstrual cycles, too? Dick. “But Brittany is—excuse the language—a whore. Likely, there are other candidates for her child's father.”

“So we give her what she wants on a trial basis, and we schedule a DNA test?” Vic asks, like he's mulling this over. “If the baby is Hael's?”

Hael makes a noise of protest but doesn't say anything.

“We tell her to kill Kali,” Callum says, speaking up for the first time. He's eating his fries one by one, carefully pushing the length of each one between his full lips. His voice is as deep and dark as usual, like black velvet and forgotten promises. “Pretty little white girl like her, she'd get away with it. Then we'd have Kali off our backs, but a smaller body count to our own names.”

“What is your body count by the way?” I ask, leaning back against the table and propping my elbow on the surface. “Because I'd love to know. You're all acting like …” I trail off for a moment and shrug again. “Like the other night wasn't the first time.”

“It wasn't,” Vic says, and my stomach drops. He turns back to Oscar. “Keep going. I'm not happy with any of this; it feels like we're getting screwed either way.”

“If the baby is his, then we have her kill Kali. If it's not, Hael walks free and clear, but”—Oscar holds up a finger and smirks like the sociopath he so very clearly is—“she also has to sic her father and his task force of pigs on the Charter Crew.”

Goose bumps rise on my arms, and I find myself grinning, even though I simultaneously want to punch Oscar in the nuts.

“Either way, it's a win,” Oscar explains, folding the cover on his iPad and setting it aside. He isn't eating anything—in fact, I've never actually seen him eat before, not once—but he does have a cup of crushed ice next to him. Casually, he picks it up and places a single cube on his tongue, crushing it with his teeth as I stare at him. “I like the odds on this one, to be honest with you. Besides, it isn't like Hael would abandon his child anyway, so we may as well get something out of it.”

“Although if it is his kid, we'll need to figure out a way to get rid of Brittany,” Victor muses, just casually pondering the fate of some random teen like he wouldn't lose a minute of sleep over separating a mother from her child.

I always knew they were monsters, nice to see that I wasn't just running from shadows.

Everyone falls quiet for a moment, me sucking on my milkshake, Vic downing his booze-laden cola. Callum eats his French fries in silence while Hael sulks and Oscar crunches ice. Brittany arrives just fifteen minutes later, right on time.

Today, she's wearing a pretty yellow dress with an empire waist. It hides her growing baby bump admirably well.

“Hael,” she says, looking right at him and refusing to acknowledge the rest of us.

“Sit and let’s talk, Brittany,” Vic says, and I get chills all over as I remember him saying the same thing to me as he kicked out a chair from under the library table. Alright, Bernie, sit and talk. “Let's discuss price.”

“This better be something fair,” Brittany whines, moving over to sit next to Hael. He scowls, but doesn't move, clearly resigned to his fate. Our eyes meet across the narrow space, and I feel a tug inside of me. It's one-part jealousy and two-parts regret. If we'd been able to reconcile our differences just a little bit sooner, then he wouldn't have slept with Brittany, and maybe she wouldn't be pregnant.

“Are you questioning us?” Vic asks, looking at her in just such a way that most people would probably piss themselves. Giving credit where credit's due, Brittany just shifts slightly and looks away, refusing to make eye contact with anyone—even me. “Here's the deal: you're asking a lot. You're asking for a man's lifetime commitment.”

“But it's his kid!” Brittany blurts, whirling around to look at Vic and then cowering back slightly. “If he didn't want to make a lifetime commitment, he shouldn't have slept with me.”

Hael just folds his arms over his chest and refuses to look in her direction, leaving the interaction up to Vic and Oscar. Aaron and Callum are quiet, too, and I can't decide if that's just because they don't like Brittany or if there's something more to it. Aaron is still hurting from his GSW, I know that, and Callum … he's probably hurting on the inside, even if he won't admit it.

“We want you to get a DNA test as soon as possible,” Victor says, nodding his head in Oscar's direction.

“I can get you in for an appointment at the Northwest Pregnancy Project in late November.” He looks up from his screen to find Brittany staring at him. She has goose bumps all over her arms as she swings her attention over to me. I'm honestly surprised—but pleased—to see her shudder in horror. A grin spreads across my lips as I lean back, resting my elbows on the surface of the table. The pink demon tattoo on my chest catches the sunlight, and Brittany fixes her gaze on it. Probably safer to look at my tits than my face. If I were her, I'd avoid pissing me off if at all possible.

Bernadette Blackbird has a very short temper.

“So for the next few weeks,” Vic says, lifting up two fingers, “you'll have Hael as a partner, regardless. He will speak to your father with you; we will kick the shit out of whoever it is you want beaten up. You can even go on a fucking date together tonight.” Vic ignores me as I narrow my eyes, turning my glare onto him. Some part of me recognizes that he's doing this shit on purpose.

He's jealous of Hael, no doubt about it. My eyes end up sliding over to Aaron's, and something unspoken passes between us. We need time to talk, just me and him, whether Vic likes it or not.

“Okay …” Brittany starts, putting her hand on her belly. “So then what's my price?”

“If the baby is Hael's, we're going to give you one of two options,” Victor says with a smile. “One, you take on a very special mission and you get to keep Hael for yourself. For now though, we'll keep that mission a secret. If the time comes, and the DNA test agrees with your assessment, we'll re-evaluate things. You can take that deal, or you can choose option two.” Vic’s smile turns into a feral grin. “That is, you let Hael go and never speak to him again. In that case, you can either keep the baby for yourself or give it to us to raise.”