It was about Hael and how much she craved him.

My stomach flips, and I exhale sharply.

“This isn’t fair,” Brittany says, burying her face in her hands and letting out a deep sob that draws the eyes of everyone else inside the building. “It’s just not fair. You were mine. You were fucking mine.” Her shoulders shake as I exchange a look with Aaron.

“We should go, maybe,” he says, because we already know the answer to our query, even if Brittany refuses to say it outright.

The baby … is not Hael’s.

But also, this moment is personal and sad and weird, and I just want to get the fuck out of there.

“I’ll stay for a bit,” he says, tucking his fingers into the front pockets of his dirty jeans. Brittany sniffles and lifts her head up to look at him, but when she reaches out to touch him, he moves back. “Hands to yourself and we can talk. Otherwise, I’m out of here and you will never see me again.”

It hits me then that Hael—despite the things he does in Havoc’s name—is actually sort of … nice.

Oscar seems to realize this, too, and scowls like he’s a disappointment.

“What a fucking relief,” Victor murmurs, exchanging a look with Callum. “Not our baby, not our problem. Let’s roll. Hael, meet us back at the house in twenty? We have wedding shit to plan today. You can be my best man as long as long as Callum is Bernie’s maid of honor.”

“Just so long as I don’t have to wear a dress,” Cal quips, giving a dark anti-smile. “They don’t suit my frame very well.”

“This isn’t a joke!” Brittany screams, but she just sounds reedy and desperate.

We ignore her, turning right back around to head outside. Just … not before I put my hands on Hael’s massive bicep and rise onto my tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“You owe me oral sex now, too,” I whisper, just loud enough for Brittany to overhear. Hael grins at me as I drop back to my feet and follow the other boys outside.

As soon as I’m situated safely inside the Bronco, I just throw my head back and laugh, and I don’t stop until we get back to Aaron’s place.

Two years earlier …

Hael Harbin

I cannot, for the life of me, understand how Batman sleeps at night. He holds the power to kill the bad guys, but yet … he lets them go. Every. Fucking. Time.

That’s my problem, right? Like, I go home, and I lay my head down on that goddamn pillow, and I can’t stop thinking about Bernadette Blackbird.

Sure, my friends and I have been into her since she showed up at our inner-city elementary school, quiet and reserved and too pretty for South Prescott. The other children didn’t like her because when she first started going to school with us, her clothes were too nice, her hair plaited, like a little doll.

The thing is, while they saw all of that and thought of wealth and snobby Oak Park assholes, we watched Bernadette morph from a doll into a statue. Day after day, the same clothes. Her hair got wilder and more knotted, her shoes worn.

For years, we watched her dip lower and lower into poverty and pain, and we felt powerless.

The only thing we could agree on was that none of us could ever have her. Because as much as we loved Bernadette, we always loved each other, too. She could destroy us from the inside out and we knew that, even at a young age.

Thinking back on it, I’m like, what the fuck, bro? Destroy us from the inside out? Huh? How? By being the perfect Havoc Girl? By fitting in and getting along with five fucked-up misfits that barely belong in society?

No way.

The only reason Bernadette couldn’t be one of us at first, was because we were all selfish.

Well, not today, Satan.

My hand squeezes around the handle of the knife. We have guns, Havoc does. I mean, we didn’t used to, but things are changing. We’ve morphed from a kiddie gang ruling a high school into something else, something sinister and wicked and black.

“You can do this, Hael,” I tell myself, waiting for the front door of a particular motel room to open, for Neil Pence to step out. Once he gets down the steps, I can move out of the shadows, wrap my arm around his neck, and drag him into the trees at the edge of the park.

I can kill him.

Quietly. Painfully. Cover my hands in blood for Bernadette.

My entire life I’ve watched my father beat on my mother, use her as a punching bag for his drunken nights and his jobless days. There’s nothing I hate more than a man who chooses to treat a girl in his family with disrespect.

Nothing.

Besides, I’ve turned into something strange, a whore who can’t stop fucking, who doesn’t know what to do with his feelings, or how to help anyone. This is the least I can do, really. Dad is still in prison and, god-willing, he’ll stay there. Mom is safe, at least for now. I mean, if the parole board doesn’t jam their heads up their own asses and decide to let him free.

I lick my lips, adjusting my grip on the knife. Neil Pence is out here, fucking a prostitute who looks about the same age as Bernie. Blonde hair, big tits, curvy. I should kill him just for that.

Mostly, I’m killing him because I’d do anything to make sure that Bernie makes it to adulthood without falling into the hands of a predator.

That’s all I want. I’ve got simple needs, you know. I’m easy to please.

Something in the darkness draws my attention, and I shove to my feet, spinning around and swinging the knife in an arc at my would-be attacker. Fortunately for me, the person coming at me is just as good as I am and manages to miss having his throat split open from ear to ear.

I would never forgive myself if I killed Aaron Fadler.

“Dude, what are you doing here?” he asks me, sounding tired. We’ve stopped chasing Bernadette around, sure, but it’s impossible to miss her when she steps foot on campus every morning.

Her sister is dead; she looks broken.

I drop the knife to my side as Aaron studies me, waiting for an explanation of some sort.

“You know what I’m doing here,” I retort, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that Neil hasn’t left the motel yet. All seems quiet on the Western front. I look back at Aaron, and in his eyes, I see a reflection of my wants and needs.

“We followed you,” Aaron adds, stepping back to lean against a tree. He looks like a strong wind might blow him over. I slip the knife—the very same one my dad used to cut me once upon a time—back in its leather holder and then tuck the whole thing in my pocket, so I can cross my arms. “They’re all here, around the corner.” He pauses and looks away. “Waiting for me to bring you back.”

“Is this an order from Vic?” I ask, not even sure why I’m bothering. I know the answer to that.

“You know it is.” Aaron looks up, meeting my eyes just as I hear the door swing open and look back to see Neil swagger down the upstairs walk toward the stairs. Fuck. I look back at my friend. “Bernadette is a part of us, but so you are. Havoc has to look out for every member, not just Bernie. You going to prison for life for stabbing a cop doesn’t do anyone any good. Pamela will still have Bernadette, she’ll still be trapped by Heather, by Heather’s grandfather and uncle …”

I touch the knife at my side, knowing that my time for jumping Neil is running short. It’s now or never, but looking at Aaron, I don’t feel quite as sure as I did. Giving up Bernie for life, I don’t want to do that, but I will. Because I’ll never be selfish when it comes to her again.

“Besides, who’s to say killing him now won’t find its way back to her? Everyone knows she hates him. He’s sent her to juvie for attacking him before. We can’t take the risk, Hael.”

I frown, and my hands squeeze into fists at my sides. But I already know that he’s right, just like I knew about Vic. I might act like an idiot sometimes, but I’m not as stupid as I look.

“Every night he’s in that house, there’s a risk that he might touch her, that he might put his hands on her. Aaron, I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.”

“It won’t,” he tells me, reaching out a hand, palm up. It takes me a minute to realize that he’s asking for the knife. With gritted teeth, I give it to him because I’m not sure what I might do with it if I don’t.

Well, okay, I do know. I’d destroy Neil and I’d probably howl with laughter while I did it.

I reach up to scratch at the back of my head.

“Well, you gonna explain or what?” I snap, listening to the sound of a car door being shut. After a few seconds, the engine starts up and Neil disappears into the night. I didn’t do it. I wanted to, but I didn’t. Am I still that same selfish asshole I’ve always been? The thought infuriates me.

“Look, he knows we have the video now. He knows we’ll come for him if he touches her. Right now, we have to work on building Havoc, so we can help her later.” Aaron plays with the knife for a minute. “Someday, she’s going to come to us, and she’s going to call Havoc. We have to give her a weapon she can actually use, something that’ll help her escape.”

He stops talking. I get it. We all want that for Bernadette, a normal life. A life that is, specifically, not the one we live. Well, except for Vic. I love the guy, he’s my best friend, but he can be … intense.

“I love her, too, you know,” I say, and Aaron nods. He’s lucky. He’s the only one of us who got to pretend, at least for a little while, that she could be his. “So we use the video to keep Bernie safe?” I scoff and rub my hand over my face. “I don’t like this. We shouldn’t be using a video like that as a weapon.”

“We can, if it means keeping both Havoc and Bernie safe.”

Aaron meets my eyes again. We’re similar in a lot of ways, me and him. We both want to be the good guy yet we both do evil things. We’re both inextricably lost somewhere in the middle.

“Okay,” I say, exhaling and putting my hands on my hips. “Okay. But someday, he has to die. You know that, right?”