The boys chuck him into the back of the SUV, leaving him with Aaron and his .22 since we don’t have any ropes or gags on us. Gotta improvise where you can, right?

“I’ve scrambled the camera feed,” Oscar tells Hael as I sit in the SUV with Callum, feeling useless as the guys deal with picking up the pieces of this mess. “I can’t say what it recorded before now, but it’s the best I can do in the moment.”

“Good enough,” Hael says, climbing in the driver’s seat of Neil’s squad car and slamming the door. He takes off down the winding cemetery road as the other boys join me in the SUV and we follow after.

I have no memory of that drive into town, only of laying my head on Cal’s lap and feeling his fingers stir my hair.

When I wake up, I find us parked outside the old Prescott High building, music blasting from inside. Neil’s car is in front of us, and there are about a dozen girls waiting beside it. Pretty sure Stacey Langford is one of them.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Vic says with a tired smile, watching as I yawn and stumble from the SUV with Callum beside me, like my own personal guardsman. Hael, Aaron, and Oscar are already on the sidewalk waiting for me. “I was just about to give Stacey the go-ahead.”

“Go-ahead for what?” I ask, glancing over at her and her strange posse of girls, all of them dressed in pink sweatshirts and matching ski masks. Stacey yanks hers on and smiles as I cling to Callum, cranky and tired but alive. Alive and safe.

“We paid Stacey to start a riot, didn’t we, Stacey?” Oscar asks, and she shrugs.

“We would’ve done it for free, as a favor,” she clarifies, showing me teeth through the hole of her ski mask. “You ready?”

Vic nods, just once. He doesn’t need anything more than that. That’s what makes him a leader, all of that insane charisma and confidence. “Light it up.”

“Girls,” Stacey says, and then they all move forward, putting their palms up against the side of Neil’s police cruiser and rocking it forward and back, until it tips over with a groaning creak of metal. Windows shatter, covering the pavement with shards of glass. One of Stacey’s girls steps up and douses the damn thing in gasoline.

“Bernie?” Cal asks, holding out a matchbox as chaos erupts around us. People pour from the building in pink ski masks and skeleton masks both, wielding baseball bats and hammers, shovels and torches.

Without hesitation, they start flipping cars along the edge of the street.

Holy fuck.

I lift my head and see that Callum is still waiting for me to take the matches. I lick the blood from my lips as I grab them, staring down at the overturned police car as the night lights up like the Fourth of July.

“Do it,” Victor purrs, watching me carefully. “Finish it.”

Goddamn these boys. They’ve managed to find the perfect cover-up.

“You’ve got this,” Aaron reassures me as I strike the match.

Neil’s cruiser will be gone. He’ll be missing. And yet, his disappearance will be steeped in havoc, chaos, and mayhem. What we’re going to do with him after tonight … that’s another matter entirely.

I chuck the match at the car and watch as it goes up in a swath of brilliant, vibrant flame.

“Let’s go home,” Cal suggests as I stand there in the crackling heat, the sound of sirens piercing the distance. “We still have a wedding to attend tomorrow.” With a nod, I let him escort me back to the SUV and we take off, dragging Neil’s comatose body along for the ride.

I don’t stay awake long enough to remember getting home, only that I open my eyes and find myself in Aaron’s bed. He isn’t there, but when I head downstairs, I find him in the kitchen drinking coffee with the rest of the Havoc Boys.

Their conversation stops when I come into the room, bleary-eyed and exhausted from yesterday. I can hardly believe that we have to deal with Neil and have a wedding today. It doesn’t seem possible. Besides, the guys might’ve walked from the station, but that doesn’t mean they’re free and clear.

No, this shit is just beginning.

“Coffee?” Hael asks, lifting up his mug and saluting me with it. “A little caffeine to get you through the horror of a wedding night with Victor.”

“Heh,” Vic snorts, looking askance at his best friend. “You’re just salty because your birthday got fucked. Well, instead of cake, I’m going to eat Bernadette all night long. Be jealous, dickhead.” Hael just grins and laughs as I slide onto a stool at the peninsula next to Oscar.

“What are we going to do with Neil?” I ask, thinking of him, bloodied and still in the back of our stolen ride. I’m guessing the guys took turns watching over him last night. And with the stress the riot put on the Springfield police, it’s likely nobody will notice he’s missing until later today.

“That’s the wedding present I was talking about,” Vic says, smirking at me over his coffee. “Your stepfather, wrapped up nice and tight. The perfect gift for a Havoc bride.”

“You were arrested by the VGTF yesterday and you’re, what, plotting murder today?”

Victor shrugs his muscular shoulders, like it’s no big thing.

“No rest for the wicked,” Oscar reiterates as Aaron makes me a cup of coffee and slides it across the counter. It’s spiked with chocolate milk and whiskey, my favorite. I hide my smile behind a sip. “Finish up and I’ll help you into your gown,” he purrs, and I close my eyes against a shiver.

This is happening, actually freaking happening.

I set my mug down on the counter and exhale.

Yesterday felt like it lasted a century. I was afraid in ways I’ve never been afraid before. I was worried.

But I never doubted Havoc.

Never.

I won’t doubt them today.

“You sure I should wear my wedding gown to deal with Neil?” I ask, raising a brow in question.

“Oh, we’re sure,” Cal says, grinning at me. “Just trust us.”

And I do.

Always.

The hole that I decided against hiding in yesterday has now become the focus of our morning.

Neil Pence is lying in a beautiful black coffin at the bottom of it, the lid flipped open, the bloodred satin interior shiny and pretty and wicked. His eyes are neutral, his mouth stuffed with a gag, hands and ankles bound. He just looks at us like he isn’t afraid, like he doesn’t believe any of this is actually going to happen.

“Give him some time,” Callum says softly, his face painted silver in the early morning light. Fog drifts lazily around our ankles as I stand there in the black Lazaro wedding gown that I picked out with Oscar. My hair is still slightly damp from my shower, hanging loose around my shoulders. “They always break, eventually.” He smiles as he crouches down, staring at Neil with an intensity that reminds me of a blue-eyed wolf stalking prey. “Don’t they, Neil?”

Hael uses a long stick to stab Neil in the face, scratching him up a bit as he pushes the gag from the Thing’s mouth. He coughs for a moment and then laughs at us, like he’s still the one in charge.

“You don’t have the balls to kill a cop,” he jeers, a metal tank tucked between his legs. I’m not sure what it’s for. It, or the plastic bag tucked under his arm. He barely fits into the coffin with all of that, but I’m sure it’s not built for comfort.

I figure this is a scenario similar to the one with Donald, where the boys pretended to hang him from a tree. We aren’t actually burying Neil, but we want him to think we are.

“Bernie,” Vic says, glancing over at me. “I wanted this to be your wedding present. The best part of it all is that Neil actually drove himself up here to preview the attraction. Now, this gift was supposed to be from the five of us, but I feel like he deserves at least a bit of credit.” He turns back to my stepfather and smiles. “Seems fair, right?”

Oscar removes the revolver from inside his suit jacket and pulls the hammer back, leveling it on Neil.

“You going to shoot me, boy?” Neil taunts, still unfazed by the situation. “You’ll spend the rest of your life getting fucked up in the ass in prison. You ready for a life like that?”

“Listen up,” Aaron begins, ignoring Neil’s rambling. “We’re not without compassion. If we were, we’d be as bad as you.” He sighs and shakes his head, pulling out a knife and sliding down into the hole with Hael’s help. Aaron cuts the bindings on Neil’s hands then drops the knife beside him as my stepfather shakes them out with a twisted smile on his ugly mouth.

When Aaron turns to grab Hael’s hands for a boost up, Neil goes for the knife and tries to stab him.

Instead, he ends up with a gunshot to the thigh, his screams echoing around the empty graveyard. Up here, only the dead can hear his cries.

Hael pulls Aaron up and out of the hole, and we all take a step closer, so that we’re circling the space. The boys are all dressed in their tuxes for the wedding today. Most of their shirts are undone, ties loose or missing, but they still look fly in their pressed slacks and shiny loafers with metal skulls on the tops. Barker Blacks, I think the shoes are called.

I’m standing at the foot of the grave in my dress and combat boots with Victor opposite me in a pink tie. Aaron and Hael are on my right, Callum and Oscar on my left. At a nod from Vic, they all remove skeleton masks from their pockets and slip them on.

Even me.

I put the rubber mask over my face, my mouth a flat line, my face bereft of emotion.

“I’m going to kill you!” Neil wails, clutching his leg. “And I’m going to bury you, Bernadette, you fucking whore.”

“I think,” I say, crouching down at the side of the hole. “That you’re the one who’s getting buried today, Neil.” I wait for a moment as he struggles to stand up, clutching the knife like he thinks we’ll actually let him climb out and fight us. “This is for Penelope. You understand that, right? That you’re being punished?”