No … not fear, terror.

He’s terrified. Because he recognizes me as soon as he sees me. That much, I’m sure of.

When he spins around, desperately grabbing at the handle of his car, Callum is just there, crouching on the roof like a spider.

“Hello Eric,” he says, and then he grabs the back of Eric’s head and smashes his face into the side of the Mercedes, leaving him to crumple onto the ground in a heap.

I walk slowly over to my perpetrator as the other Havoc Boys come out the front door, slow and casual and fully confident in me and Cal to handle the situation.

“Let’s get him inside, shall we?” Oscar asks, slipping out of his jacket and rolling up the sleeves of his white button-down. His gray eyes meet mine, and I can tell that we’re about to take a step forward together. Not sure what that step will entail, but it’s coming.

And quick.

I asked the Havoc Boys to show me all their secrets.

Guess that’s why that old adage exists: be careful what you wish for.

Eric is on the floor bleeding, his eyes wide as he stares across the narrow space between him and his father. Between the two of them, he’s the most clearly fucked-up, his skin bloody and raw, his fingers broken, his shins smashed with a baseball bat.

I haven’t moved from my spot near the door, letting the boys do the work. This is, after all, my request. My reward. Eric molested my sister, tried to molest me. He rapes little girls. I feel nothing for him, nothing at all.

“How many girls have you raped and killed, hmm?” Oscar asks, bending low and digging the barrel of his revolver into the front of Eric’s skull. “I’m sure you don’t know an exact number, but guess what?” Eric whimpers, closing his eyes as blood runs down the side of his face and into them. I hope it stings like hell. “I do. I’m very good with numbers, Mr. Kushner. I fucking love numbers.” Oscar grinds the weapon in until Eric lets out a scream, moving his arm back just enough to shut the man up. “Numbers don’t lie, but people do. In totality, Mr. Kushner, I’ve estimated that you’ve murdered thirteen underage girls.”

Oscar rises to his feet suddenly, moving the gun away from Eric and over to his father. Eric lets out a whimper of relief, but Todd begins to weep silently.

“I don’t think he’s killed anyone,” Oscar continues, gray eyes darkening to a near-black pitch behind his blood-spattered glasses. He gestures in Todd’s direction as the other boys look on in silence, letting the man I’d sort of written off as Havoc’s, uh, IT guy, elevate this shit to another level. “But he knows what you do, and he lets you do it.”

“He’s my son!” Todd screams, thrashing in his bindings. “I’d do anything for him.” He probably thinks he sounds strong as he struggles, eyes focused on his only child. He doesn’t. He sounds weak, and my stomach churns.

I’m still in the process of contemplating the whole scenario when Oscar lowers the weapon, so that it’s pointing directly at Todd’s head … and fires off a single round. The sound of it makes me jump, like a car backfiring in an enclosed parking garage. My ears are ringing so badly that it takes me a good two minutes to realize that Eric is screaming.

Havoc has just shot and killed Todd Kushner.

On the inside, my spirit writhes a bit. I don’t know how to process any of this.

After Don and Scott, I didn’t think … But then, I remember Oscar’s risk assessment. Three percent. Good odds for a killing.

Aaron sidles closer to me, putting his arm around my waist and dragging me close. His scent is so strong that when I bury myself against his chest for a moment, all I breathe in is rose and sandalwood. The sharp copper scent of blood disappears for the briefest of instances, but then I look up and see the body and time starts up all over again.

“Anything else you’d like to say Eric before I shoot him in the face?” Oscar asks mildly, unmoved by the situation. At least, on the outside. On the inside, a little boy with broken glasses and round-tipped scissors is screaming.

I stare at him for a moment before I push away from Aaron and move over to stand beside Eric. Crouching down, I reach out and swipe hair away from his bloodied forehead.

“Please,” he sobs, shaking, his hands bound behind his back, his ankles lashed together. “I don’t like to hurt people. I just have needs that can’t be met any other way.” I smile, but there’s no mirth in the expression. My fingers find the scar above Eric’s eye, where I hit him with the metal truck.

“You changed my life for the worst, Eric. Foster care was my escape, away from my mother, from my rapist stepfather. You stole that chance from me, from us.” Closing my eyes, I imagine a different world, one where Pen and Heather and I found a loving home, somewhere safe, and we all made it to adulthood without the marks of monsters on our skin.

I open my eyes.

I’m surrounded by my monsters now, but at least I hold the leash of some very pretty ones.

Shit, but did you really think they were just going to execute the Kushners? I didn’t. This is next level. There must really be some sweetness left in me somewhere because it still hurts, in a weird way. If murder only sparked joy in me, I’d be worried. But also, I feel no regret.

“Please, please, Bernadette. Please. I’m sorry. I won’t do it anymore. I’ll stop. I’ll stop.” Eric is sobbing now, snot running out of his nose and over his lips. His spittle is foamy; he’s definitely hurting. Also … he must sense that he’s not walking out of here, right? Like I said, monsters always know to look for other monsters.

“Did you see what I did to your house?” I ask him and he nods, almost eagerly, like he thinks that admitting to this will please me. “Did it scare you?” He nods again, and I smile, standing up and moving back to stand next to Aaron again.

Oscar doesn’t ask me any questions, just steps forward and points his revolver at Eric again.

“No, please!” Eric screams, his voice shattering the still air.

Even though I’m expecting it, even though I want it, I still jump when Oscar pulls the trigger.

Two years earlier …

Oscar Montauk

It’s not as if I enjoy doing violent things. No, it’s that violent things are necessary. You can’t create order without a little chaos. You can’t stir Havoc without a little pain.

Bernadette is sitting at a café across the street, a black coffee in front of her, blond hair hanging around her face. She doesn’t want to go to school today.

Because of us.

I put my elbow on the table and rest my chin in my hand, watching her. She probably thinks that only happens now, her being under the eyes of Havoc. But that’s not the case at all. The five of us were as fucked-up as children as we are now. We’ve always watched Bernadette Blackbird.

At first, we thought of her as a lost, little bird, someone that needed protecting because they were too weak and too soft to defend themselves. Life proved to us that we couldn’t save her, no matter how hard we tried. We couldn’t save her from her abusive mother, or her pedophile stepfather.

All of that because we didn’t have the power.

We do now. And the reason we have that power is because of the violence.

“Anything new to report?” Hael asks, flopping into the chair across from me. When he looks at Bernadette, I can see it in his eyes. He’s in love with her, but in a different way than I am. The love I have for her hurts. It stings. I grit my teeth against the sensation while Hael isn’t looking, but by the time he turns back to me, the emotion is gone. I keep it locked away in a silver chest inside my heart, and I always make sure to toss away the key.

I smile.

“Nothing. She hasn’t touched her coffee or checked her phone.”

Hael nods and sighs. He doesn’t like this plan, but there isn’t much more we can do. We watch Bernadette, but Bernadette will not stop watching us. There’s no goddamn place for her here. Like I said, Havoc is violence. Violence is not fun. I just want Bernadette to leave.

She doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, unfortunately. And I really hate doing this under the guise of helping Kali Rose-Kennedy. She’s an opportunist and a silver-tongued liar with an inferiority complex; I’d never hurt Bernadette just to please her, regardless of her calling Havoc.

Above all, Havoc means two things: loyalty and family.

It doesn’t feel like we’re being very loyal to Bernadette right now.

“Shit, I hate this,” Hael says, chewing at his lip for a moment. He shakes his head again, but he does nothing to change her fate. None of us do. Hael knows he has a mother who lives inside her own head, a murderer for a father, and very poor prospects for the future if he doesn’t help Havoc build something better. We could all very easily get stuck living our parents’ lives on repeat—and we could doom Bernadette along with us.

“If it weren’t difficult, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do,” I say, shoving up from my seat and heading down the sidewalk toward Prescott High. If Bernadette doesn’t show up today, we’ll have to go and find her tomorrow, drag her from her cozy bed, make her fear the only people in the world she shouldn’t have to be afraid of.

I curse under my breath, exhaling sharply and then reaching down to fix the cufflinks on my jacket.

I tell myself not to look back at her, but I do anyway. Our eyes meet and something inside of me shifts and breaks; lava appears in those cracks, scalding and dangerous. Bernadette lifts her coffee to her lips and drinks, watching me like I said she would be, like always.

For two years, I regret that moment because that’s the moment I could’ve put a stop to it.

And I don’t mean by being nicer to Bernadette; I mean by becoming her worst nightmare.

Then she could have left, then she could have avoided all of this.

She could’ve missed me, shooting her would-be rapists in the head. It still had to be done—after all, they’d touched her in ways that only I or one of the other Havoc Boys should touch her—but I wouldn’t have ever told her about it. She wouldn’t have had to see.