“After this, can we get something to eat?” Cal asks, and Hael and Aaron both groan.

“Seriously?” Aaron snaps, just before he reaches over to turn off the stereo. He turns onto a gravel road and shuts off the headlights, leaving us in total blackness. How he navigates that winding, mountain road is beyond me, but I'm on pins and needles the whole time, my fingernails digging into the sides of my seat.

A good twenty minutes later, we make a slow, tight turn between two large trees, and I spot the white Kia Sportage under the dim glow of a porch light.

“Bingo,” Hael murmurs, and the tension in the van seems to snap, a new energy taking over the group, just like the night we broke into Oak Valley Prep.

“Time to kick some ass,” Cal says with a low, hoarse laugh as Vic throws open the sliding door, grabs a black duffel from the floor, and hops out. I follow after him, unsure of what my role here is, exactly.

“Break the door down,” Vic says, slinging the duffel over his shoulder. “More impactful that way.”

“Consider it done,” Hael says, and both he and Callum move forward and up the front steps of the porch. There's only one car here tonight, so I'm guessing Miss Yes-Scott isn't entertaining her boss tonight.

Both boys put their boots up to the door and kick in unison, knocking the wood off its hinges and sending it crashing to the floor. A high-pitched scream follows, accompanied by Vaughn's distinct bellow.

“What on earth—” he starts, followed by a grunt. I chase after Vic, Aaron, and Oscar, stepping on the broken door and finding a cozy cabin lit with a fire, Principal Vaughn bent over and already bleeding from the face, and Ivy freaking Hightower naked on a bed in the corner.

She's covering her body with a blanket, her painted lips open in surprise as she gapes at us.

“Clothes, keys, now get the fuck out,” Vic says, tossing a pile her way and snatching some keys off the counter of the kitchenette near the door. He chucks those in her direction, but she's so out of it that she doesn't catch them before they hit her in the face.

“What's going on here?” Vaughn manages to grind out before Cal and Hael shove him into a chair next to the fireplace. He looks up, red running from his nostrils, one hand trying to cup the liquid as it drips from his chin.

Vic tosses the duffel onto the floor and moves over to stand in front of our principal, bending low, and staring the older man straight in the face.

“You've conned your last girl, Vaughn.” Vic smiles, and it's even less pretty than Oscar's. “And you've fucked with Havoc for the last time.”

“Are you going to kill me?” Scott Vaughn asks, beginning to shake. It doesn't escape my notice that his first thought is that he's going to die. That's the power of Havoc.

“Probably not,” Vic says, standing up straight as Ivy yanks her dress over her head. There are handcuffs dangling from the headboard, a pink vibrator lying atop the white blankets, and a camera on a tripod near the end of the bed.

The footage is streaming onto a laptop that's sitting on the counter. Oscar moves over to it right away and cuts the feed.

“It's not live,” he calls out, and Vic grunts.

“After we're done here,” Victor says, cocking his head to the side. “You might wish you were dead though. Boys.”

“Alright, princess, are you deaf? The man said get out.” Hael grabs Ivy by the arm and yanks her from the blankets, dragging her toward the door.

“Am I still getting paid for tonight's session?” she asks, and Hael laughs, shoving her outside and then glancing over at me with his signature smirk in place. Hard to believe I had his dick in my mouth just a few hours prior, huh?

“And where's the reward in altruism, huh? Do you hear this bitch?”

“She's an anomaly,” I say, moving over to the door to stare Ivy down as she fumbles with Vaughn's keys and unlocks the doors to the Kia.

“Can I at least have my purse?” she snaps, turning around to face me. Maybe she thinks having me here makes her safer? It doesn't. I have no control over what the Havoc Boys do.

I grab the pink purse from the floor near the umbrella holder and move down the steps, shoving it against her chest, and refusing to let go until she looks me in the eye.

“If you tell a soul about what happened here tonight, you're next.” Ivy tries to take the purse from me, but I keep hold of it. “I mean it. I'll send Havoc after you, and you won't like what happens.”

“Okay, okay, I got it,” she says, her expression mollifying as she cringes away from me. Despite what Hael thinks, I do feel sorry for Ivy. She's always cared far too much what the world thinks about her, and she's so desperate for attention that she was probably easy pickings for Vaughn. As far as the money, of course she wants to be paid. She lives in a double-wide with her dad and three sisters. This could be rent she's losing out on. “Wait,” I say, just before she climbs in. I pound back up the stairs as Hael stares at me like I've lost my damn mind, and I find Vaughn's wallet in his discarded pants.

The boys have already started stripping him, but I don't look his way as I take the wallet and empty it of cash and credit cards, heading back outside and handing them over to Ivy. She stares at the wad of money for only half a second before she snatches it from me.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and then she climbs in the car and gets the fuck out of there, spraying gravel in her haste.

“You are one, weird chick,” Hael murmurs, studying me as I come back up the steps and move across the broken door. He waits for me to pass, lifts it up, and sets it back in place as best he can.

“We'd make you get naked, like you do your girls, but nobody wants to see that,” Vic says, turning to look at Aaron who's now manning the camera. “Can you work that thing, or do you want to use our phones to film?”

“I've got it,” Aaron says, as Oscar moves over to stand in front of Principal Vaughn with a notebook and pen in his hand.

“I want you to write out your bad deeds, and then I want you to sign it,” Oscar tells him, waiting until Vaughn takes the items from his hand before moving away. “Oh, and don't skimp on the details. We'll know if you did.” Oscar pulls his gun out and sets it on the counter, playing around with the laptop again before he presses play on a video. A girl that I vaguely recognize from our school starts to strip on camera, and I look away.

“A confession signed under duress is useless in court, you know,” Vaughn says as the pen hovers over the page and his eyes dart around the room in fear, coming to land on mine. “What is your stepfather going to think of all this?”

“He'll probably just be disappointed he doesn't get to watch anymore of your illegal, underage porn videos,” I say, completely deadpan. That numbness inside of me is burning at the edges with a righteous rage. “Start your note with I'm sorry. More people need to learn how to say those words without gagging.” I nod my chin at him, and Aaron flinches. The words weren’t directed at my ex, but hell, they sure are poetic, aren’t they? “Do it.”

Callum stands beside our principal, one hand tight on the man's shoulder as he reads over the words. I take a seat on a small bench next to the closet and wait patiently, my mind racing with all the ways this could go horribly wrong and bite us in the ass.

“Don't worry,” Aaron says, leaning against the wall next to me and lighting up a cigarette. “We've been at this long enough to know how to cover our bases, Bernie.” He doesn't look at me, his attention focused on Vaughn.

After a good fifteen minutes, Callum makes a frustrated sound and yanks the notebook from the principal's hands.

“He's not getting shit done,” he says, handing the note over to Oscar.

Oscar reads it and then glances at Vic before picking up his gun and putting the barrel to Vaughn's head.

“Here's what I want you to write: My name is Scott Anesso Vaughn, and I'm the Principal of Prescott High. For over ten years, I've been coercing young girls into the porn and prostitution industries for pay. I've also slept with many of these girls, the majority of whom were under eighteen. I can no longer handle the burden of this truth.”

“Please don't,” Vaughn whimpers, hand shaking as he sits there in his underwear and struggles to follow Oscar's instructions. “I have kids. They go to the U of O, you know. Both amazing athletes, and—”

Oscar hits him in the face with the gun, hard enough to send blood splattering across the log walls of the cabin, and then pulls the hammer back for emphasis. Vaughn quickly shuts up, finishing his note and signing it with a flourish. He passes it back to Oscar who re-reads it, the flames from the fireplace reflecting off the surface of his glasses. With a curt nod, he withdraws the weapon and Vaughn lets out a sharp exhale of breath.

“Now get up,” Vic commands, nodding over to the bed. “We're going to make a little video.”

“Please no,” Vaughn whimpers, his body limp when Cal hauls him to his feet. “Please, I'm begging you!”

Aaron moves back over to the camera as Vaughn crawls onto the bed, a grossly pathetic sight in his underwear and nothing else.

“I want you to think of all the girls you've brought to this cabin,” Vic says as Vaughn begins to weep softly. But I have little sympathy for a pedophile and a pervert, so I stay numb as I watch him cry. Is he really weeping or is it just an act? Probably an act. There's not even a sense of satisfaction in me, watching these evil men like Don and Scott burn, just that same, easy numbness. “Think about all of them, desperate for money to pay rent or buy food for younger siblings or earn a ticket out of poverty.” Vic pauses and turns to point at me. “And then I want you to look Bernadette in the eye and say you're sorry for what you've done.”

“I'm sorry,” Vaughn sobs, shaking. “I'm so sorry.”

“We're going live in thirty seconds,” Oscar says, and Vic nods, turning back to Vaughn.