“Let’s get this over with. I have a luncheon to attend.” Pamela waltzes up the steps like she’s important, sauntering past the Havoc Boys and failing to notice the way all five of them turn their heads, stalking her like prey.

Name number seven on my list.

I only know that I don’t want her dead. I can’t explain why, but I feel strongly about it. I should probably tell the guys before they get an idea in their heads that I can’t scrub lean.

“You heard the woman,” Victor says, nodding with his chin in the direction of the front entrance. We head inside together, and thank fuck we find out that the marriage office is down the righthand hallway and not the left. To go down that one, toward the courtrooms, you have to pass through a metal detector.

The boys consistently fail those at Prescott High five days a week, but they just pay off the security guards, so it doesn’t matter. Might be a bit harder to do that here.

Once we get to the office, Victor and I use one of the ancient computers in the room to fill out our information. When we get to the final screen that asks how we’d like our names written out, he clicks the option that reads Bernadette Channing before I get a chance to stop him.

“You goddamn prick,” I snap, and the woman behind the counter looks up at us with wide eyes. Her look very clearly says, How can you get married if you talk to each other like that? She doesn’t understand the sort of passion we have though.

It’s … explosive, but in the best possible way.

To pay Victor back, I click Victor Blackbird on the second screen and hit submit.

“You cheeky cunt,” he snaps right back at me, and then we end up sitting in silence with Pamela until our number is called.

She does what she has to do, flashing her ID and signing the papers with sharp, angry movements. When she’s finished, she doesn’t say goodbye. Shit, she doesn’t even ask about Heather. Instead, she just clutches her Burberry bag in tight fingers, her red nails digging into the handle the way they used to dig into my arm.

Pamela leaves the way we came in, and she doesn’t look back, not once.

“She isn’t invited to the actual wedding,” Vic tells me, putting his big hands on my shoulders and giving them a squeeze. “She knows that, right?”

“You could only get her to come if you paid her,” I tell him, closing my eyes as he kneads the tightness from my muscles.

There’s only one thing that’s worrying me.

Pamela usually likes to make a scene. Even with all the money Victor paid her—which came right out of our wedding budget—she should’ve been more … well, more of a bitch.

It makes me wonder if she isn’t up to something. Or at the very least, if she knows that her husband is.

“Do you know what you eventually want to see?” Vic asks me mildly. I open my eyes, watching the other four boys smoke in the breezeway outside as people walk by and gawk at their brazenness. My boys in black. I smile.

“You mean, as far as Pamela’s punishment?” I shake my head. “Not yet. All I know is that I don’t want her dead.”

Victor grabs my face in his hand, turning me to look at him.

“You’re too kind for this world, Bernie,” he says, leaning down to steal my soul out through my lips. I don’t believe a damn word of that, but I appreciate the effort. “Now, tell me how the hell I’m supposed to wait three days to marry your ass?” He growls at me, and I shiver.

Several women passing by the open door of the office turn to gawk, rubber-necking the fuck out of my future husband.

I narrow my eyes on them

“You know, the only advice Pamela ever gave me that was worth any salt was this: find your man and lock his ass down.” I turn to smirk at Victor. “I always thought it was bullshit, but hey, here we are.”

“Ah, right, lock my ass down,” Vic purrs, kissing me again. “Mine, and four other guys’, right? Should be a romantic honeymoon.”

He laughs as he moves past me and into the hallway, but I can tell the idea pisses him off royally.

I’m sure the honeymoon week/Thanksgiving break will be fascinating, a study into the emerald green depths of human jealousies.

My mouth twitches.

I’m looking forward to it already.

Friday, November twenty-second, is Hael’s eighteenth birthday, and yet another long drag at the coal mine known as Prescott High.

“Things are going to get lit tonight,” he crows during our break between second and third period, leaning back on the front steps and basking in the sun like a snake. He’s grinning so big that the sunlight catches on his white teeth, reflecting back at me. Victor has paid Stacey Langford to throw a party for his best friend in the old Prescott High building, so it’s pretty much guaranteed to be good.

Then tomorrow … marriage. To Vic. My heart lodges in my throat, but I banish the feeling of dread. That cold lump in my stomach isn’t about Victor; it’s about the Charter Crew and the Thing. Last time we had a party, Danny died.

Then Ivy died.

And now here we are, in a war that’s fought in shadows and surprise. I chew my lower lip.

“Don’t stress, Blackbird,” Hael says as he sits up and the other boys start to trickle out of the front doors to take their seats around us. Cal sits close to me and offers up a fresh cigarette and a cold chocolate milk with a straw. My favorite. “We’re expecting trouble.” Hael leans in close to me, nuzzling my face with his. “Girl, that’s what makes it fun.”

“Don’t pray for trouble, Hael,” Oscar chastises, watching as the Thing’s police cruiser crawls down the street yet again. It’s a scare tactic that isn’t working, so he can fuck all the way off with that shit. “We have enough of it as it is.”

“Let’s just get through this weekend alive, and I’ll be happy,” Vic murmurs, lighting up a cigarette and watching my stepfather’s car with narrowed eyes. “By the way, Bern, we have a wedding present to give you tonight.” He pauses, flicking me a cocksure smirk that has me smoldering. “If you’re a good girl, you don’t get it at all. Now, if you’re a bad girl …”

“You can have it at three a.m.,” Cal finishes as Aaron takes a seat on Hael’s other side. “The witching hour.” He smiles at me and sips his Pepsi. “Bad things always happen at the witching hour.”

Goose bumps rise up on my arms, but I don’t say anything. I’m not displeased by the idea of a gift.

“You’ll like this one,” Aaron promises me, his attention shifting back to the Thing’s car. Now all the boys are watching. “Actually, I think you’ll love it.”

“Nah,” Hael says, shaking his head, his smile darkening for a moment into something truly wicked. “I guarantee she will; she’s just as bloodthirsty as the rest of us.”

Nobody there disagrees with him—not even me.

On any normal day, my third period class puts me to sleep. I mean, it’s biology. I know all the important stuff—like how an alpha male and alpha female clash in the wild, how violence begets power, how it’s survival of the fittest out there. The rest of it … I have no use for.

A bit of commotion sounds from the hall, like the pounding of heavy boots. It’s not an entirely unusual sound. There are always cops at Prescott High, sometimes SWAT. Okay, well, that was only one time, but most of us just yawned our way through their visit.

Today though … feels off.

I know as soon as the call comes into my phone from Hael, ringing once and then going dark, that something bad is happening.

My entire body goes cold.

“Havoc just got dragged out of class by the VGTF!” someone chortles, and the class explodes into action, ignoring our teacher’s tired, dreary pleas to sit down. If you work at Prescott High, you’re either a do-gooder like Keating or else you’re just bored and drained of life (i.e. every other staff member except maybe Mr. Darkwood whom I still hate).

I shove up from my chair and the crowd parts to let me through.

The VGTF.

The Violent Gang Task Force.

Oh. Fuck.

I’m already panting as I stumble into the hall, my eyes widening as the world around me slows down, like the hungry ticking of time is being filtered through sand.

There are my boys, all five of them, handcuffed and being marched down the hall in a single file line. They’re each being escorted by two cops, decked out in full SWAT gear, with face shields and rifles and everything.

My mouth goes dry as Victor glances my way, his expression bored, dark eyes admitting nothing.

I move up to him, ignoring the shuffling of the cops, the lifting of guns.

“Finish class. Act like nothing’s wrong. Hit Aaron’s house after school and one of our guys will meet you there to get the girls,” he whispers before he’s cuffed in the back of the head and I’m dragged backward by Ms. Keating. One glance at her face, and I can see that she’s worried. That’s when I know for certain that she’s the best, most genuine human being I have ever met.

While Sara Young and her type aren’t bad people, they’re twisted in their own way from following a rigid set of moral rules. Ms. Keating is just kind, through and through. She doesn’t like seeing her students manhandled like criminals.

I mean, they are, but that’s not the point.

I’m starting to hyperventilate as I watch each letter in Havoc walk by.

“Last time you’ll fuck with my daughter, you punk,” a bald man without a helmet says, his fingers clamped so tightly on Hael’s bicep that I can see angry red marks where his skin is indented.

It doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.

Brittany’s dad. The anti-gang squad. Her rage at Hael when the DNA results came back.

Either her father acted on his own in response to his daughter’s grief … or she betrayed Havoc. Broke her price. Wrote her own epitaph.

Hael looks at me in apology as he’s ushered past, Aaron close behind him. He says nothing to me, but his look says it all. He knew this might happen one day. He pushed me away from Havoc because, unlike Vic, his love is not selfish. It’s endless and infinite and pure.