I lick my painted lips and think about my list. No. 2. the best friend.

Kali is up to something; I can feel it.

“Anything else of note?” Vic asks, and Callum shakes his head. “Good. Stay sharp, but have a little fun, okay?”

“Oh, I intend to,” Cal says, reaching out and taking the vodka. He finishes the bottle off and tosses it aside, letting it shatter against the wall. He’s not the only one throwing glass bottles; everybody’s doing it. Intoxicated laughter poisons the air as he grabs my hand and pulls me into the crowd.

Vic looks decidedly pissed-off about it, but he doesn’t interfere.

“Every drug under the sun is available in here, and you’re more interested in dancing with me?” I ask as Cal wraps an arm around my waist and walks us back into the thick of the crowd. His smile is decidedly more wicked with those skeleton teeth painted across them, effectively doubling the size of his mouth.

“You’re a special sort of drug, too, Bernadette,” he tells me, leaning forward to put his mouth near my ear. “I keep wondering if I should’ve kissed you in the dance studio.” My skin prickles with goose bumps, but I don’t respond, letting Cal guide our bodies in a synchronous rhythm with the throbbing beat of the music. I don’t even recognize the song we’re dancing to, but it doesn’t matter. Callum knows what he’s doing, and he takes me with him, manipulating my body the same way he did in the studio. “If I had, what would you have done?”

“Guess you’ll have to run that experiment to find out?” I challenge, cocking a brow as my heart pounds. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. What Vic means when he calls me his girl. What Aaron wants when he tells me he still loves me. What Callum intends by dancing with me in front of a mixed crowd from all three schools. Or what Hael thinks about when he’s looking at me with those honey-brown eyes of his. Oscar … clearly hates me, so there’s not much to dissect there.

“Oh?” Cal asks, but then Hael is interrupting the entire party by climbing onto the dais where the DJ’s set up. He requests a song, and there’s a brief pause as the DJ scrambles to accommodate his request.

“Who’s here to fuck shit up tonight?” he shouts, and the entire room goes nuts, lifting phones and bottles of liquor in solidarity. With a laugh, Hael lifts up a bottle of his own, swigs some liquid, and then raises a lighter in his right hand. He flicks the wheel and spits the alcohol out at the same time, creating a wave of flame that rushes over the heads of the crowd. Everybody just fucking loses it, and a mosh pit starts up in the middle of the room as Hael’s chosen song comes screaming out of the speakers. He’s a pretty big fan of metalcore music, so that’s what we get, this hardcore screaming that riles up the room into a frenzy.

Hael hops down from the dais, chucking his bottle and making his way straight toward me and Cal.

“May I?” he asks, gesturing at Cal to cut in.

“I don’t know,” I quip back, still holding onto the front of Cal’s hoodie. “Will Brittany mind?”

“Oh, get fucked, Blackbird,” Hael says, grabbing me and yanking me into his arms. It’s pretty hard to dance to this song, so we end up just getting close and grinding together, pelvis to pelvis. My arms go around Hael’s neck as I notice Brittany watching us from the edge of the room. Speak of the devil … I think as her eyes glitter with a jealousy so intense it steals my breath away.

My eyes flick back to Hael’s brown ones, surrounded by black makeup. Does he know she’s watching us right now? I slide my fingers up the back of his neck, tickling his black-dyed red hair with my nails.

“Do you think Brittany likes my costume?” I inquire, nodding with my chin in her direction. Hael pauses, frowns, and glances over his shoulder, face tightening as he spots his ex on the fringes of the crowd. She’s dressed up like Ariana Grande with a high pony and a cat-eared headband.

“Fuck my life,” he grumbles as he turns back to me, keeping his hands firmly on the curves of my waist. “I don’t give a shit what she thinks.”

“You must’ve liked her at some point, to date her for so long,” I press, my lips near Hael’s chest. I wonder if he can even hear me above the wild thrum of the music. He keeps me close and finishes up the song, but when I try to pull away, he holds me there.

“You get it though, right?” he asks, looking at me with his head cocked slightly to one side. “Dating someone who’s not like you at all, just to see if there’s something you’re missing? I mean, you dated that douche Donald Asher.”

My lips purse, but I have no comeback for that.

When I look for Brittany again, I see that she’s disappeared into the party. Hael doesn’t follow after her like I thought he might. Instead, he parks himself on a crumbling high-backed chair, kicking one leg over the arm and snatching up an abandoned bottle of whiskey. He doesn’t seem concerned that he’s drinking out of some random’s bottle as he tilts it back.

I separate myself from the crowd, trying to have a good time but finding it impossible to shed that sharp-edged tension I’ve been nursing since moment one. Something bad is going to happen tonight, I think as I find a spot to rest next to Oscar.

He’s standing near the curved edge of the staircase, watching the action from afar.

“This house is practically a playground,” he says, glancing over at me. It’s eerie, seeing him with all that makeup and no glasses. “Drugs, drinking, smoking, dancing, fucking.” He emphasizes that last word, make no mistake about it.

“So?” I ask, my head buzzing with alcohol and the thick cloud of cigarette and marijuana smoke.

“So, why are you over here with me?” Oscar asks, his bat leaning against the wall next to him. “You know I can’t stand you; go bother somebody else.”

My eyes narrow on him, but now that he’s said that, I’m not fucking moving.

“What are you waiting for?” I ask, watching an Oak Valley Prep asshole with his hands all over Wendy’s ass. Pathetic. My lip curls. These filthy rich boys think all the chicks at Prescott are playthings they can toy with, use, and then throw away like trash. An image of Donald rolling down the roof flashes in my mind, and I bite my lower lip.

“Trouble,” Oscar says, pushing away from the wall and taking his bat with him. He leaves me there to blend into the shadows, my ears straining for gossip. Since the boys are all dressed in matching costumes, it isn’t hard to pick them out of the crowd. As I do, I notice that Vic is watching me from across the room. I’m not sure I’ve ever left his sight.

“You heard what they did to Don, right?” this Oak Valley asshole asks, pausing at the table on my right to score some of the spiked punch with the plastic bones floating in it. I can tell he’s from the prep school because he’s wearing enough goddamn cologne that I can smell it through all the sweat and smoke. That, and I recognize the shoes he’s wearing. My stepdad has a pair, and I know they cost mad money. Mom wouldn’t stop talking about how she got them for free from a friend’s husband because they didn’t fit, and the guy couldn’t be fucked returning them.

“I mean, he got the crap beat out of him, didn’t he? I thought it was just a B&E sort of thing?” the other guy—who probably thinks he’s clever, wearing a breathalyzer costume with a hole on the crotch that says Place Mouth Here—replies.

“That’s the story, but it was fucking Havoc, man. They carved the word Rapist into his forehead. The wound was, like, deep enough that it dug into his skull. Don’s gonna be in and out of laser treatments for years to get that shit removed.” There’s a long pause there where everything goes silent around me, my heart beating frantically in my chest. “They cut his balls off, too, man. They castrated him.”

My throat goes completely dry and my eyes get wide.

“You okay?” Aaron asks, appearing beside me. I glance his way, but there are no words. I’m not sure if the gossip I just heard is true or yet more Havoc rumor and speculation, but … Does the fact that I’m hoping it’s true make me a bad person?

“Did you guys cut off Don’s balls?” I ask as Aaron approaches me, and his face pales. Even beneath the layer of makeup he’s wearing, I can see it. It’s true. It’s fucking true. “Jesus Christ.”

“You didn’t think we’d let him off easy, did you? Bernadette, I tried to warn you. We’re messed-up. Havoc is fucking messed-up. You just—” He pauses, clenching his teeth to stop the flow of words, like he’s just realized he’s about to reveal something important to me.

“I just what?” I ask, turning and getting in his face. “I just never saw it? You guys were fucked to me, but … you could’ve done worse. Why didn’t you?” Aaron scowls at me and tries to turn away, but I’m not letting him go. I’m onto something here, I know it. “Aaron, talk to me, goddamn it. What did Kali have on you? Why didn’t you guys fuck me up like you did Don?”

“Bernadette,” Aaron starts, turning back to look at me, the skeleton makeup on his face turning his visage into a grim one. But then he pauses and looks up, eyes darkening. I follow his gaze and see that the crowd’s parted to reveal a group of people standing near the front doors.

They’re all wearing grinning clown masks, bandages on their right shoulders darkened with faux blood. I do a quick headcount and come up with almost two dozen people standing there. It’s impossible to tell if they’re male or female, with their masks and dark clothes.

“Jesus,” Aaron grinds out as I feel my pulse start to pick up.

Shit.

This is what I was waiting for.

Havoc never gets a day off.

“Are those bandages supposed to be in support of Mitch or something?” I whisper as this EDM/dubstep rap comes on, blaring through the speakers as Vic moves forward to greet the new crew. Aaron clenches his jaw and looks down at me, like he’s considering spiriting me out the back door or something.