There are just too many of them, and far too few of us.

“Jesus,” Harper screams, touching her hand to her shoulder and staring at the crimson color of her blood with a mixture of shock and disgust. “I’ve had enough of this shit.” She turns toward me and raises her weapon while I watch in horror as Greg shoves Tristan and sends him stumbling. Pretty sure the latter is fighting with a broken arm right now, blood pouring down the side of his head from when he fell into the pool initially.

“No!” I scream, but Ileana and Becky grab hold of my arms and yank me back, Jason and Anna stepping in to assist them.

“Get her to the maintenance shed by the pond,” Harper instructs, and the ex-Bluebloods drag me down the path while I scream and flail, leaving Tristan behind.

Harper unlocks a door with a ring of keys and ushers the group inside. They set me down on the ground near a floor-to-ceiling beam, and Ebony ties me up with the help of some of the guys.

“Harper, there are people here,” one of the bulky, faceless dudes says, and she curses under her breath.

“Go deal with it; I’m almost done here anyway,” she snaps, and the others take off, leaving Harper, Becky, and Ileana behind.

“You can still come back from this,” I tell her, breathing hard, my shoulders burning from having my arms tied back around the post. “You haven’t lost all redeemability, Harper.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” she tells me, hitting me across the face with the gun so hard that I see stars. “I’m just trying to decide if I should put a bullet in your head first, or watch you burn alive.”

“Are we really doing this?” Becky asks, glancing over at me with a slightly unsure expression on her face. “I mean … killing somebody is kind of a big deal.”

“We have Club permission to do it,” Ileana snaps, and either her bra is stuffed or else she’s already gotten a new implant. “It’s not like we’re going to get in trouble. Who cares about some random scholarship girl anyway? Doesn’t her dad have cancer or something? Like he’ll be around long enough to make noise about this.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Becky starts, and then Harper just loses it.

“You want to be a pussy?” she screams, and in the back of my mind, I know that if Miranda were here, she’d give a lecture about using the term pussy in such a derogatory way. It’s funny what the brain comes up with in times of extreme duress and shock. I almost feel like I’m floating outside of my body, watching this whole scenario take place in a different dimension. “Then get the hell out! Ileana and I will take care of it.”

Becky races out of the shed with tears streaming down her face, but she doesn’t try to stop them.

Instead, I watch in horror as Harper hands the gun to Ileana and then picks up a red gasoline tank. She starts pouring it in a circle around me, and then leaves a trail that peters out near the door. I’m surprised she doesn’t splash me in it, but then I realize she probably wants to see me suffer as much as possible first.

Harper du Pont is most definitely a psychopath.

No doubt about that.

“Do you have the matches?” she asks, holding out her hand toward Ileana.

I struggle against my bonds, panting with the effort.

“Harper, you don’t want to do this,” I tell her, but she ignores me, smiling as she strikes a match and the stink of sulfur fills the air. She blows it out with pretty lips and then backs away toward the door with Ileana tagging along behind her.

“Goodbye, Working Girl. It was nice knowing you.” Harper lights another match, and then Creed appears, grabbing her wrist and jerking her back so hard that the flame goes out.

Zack shows up next, sacking Ileana like she’s the wide receiver on an opposing football team. She goes flying, not, unfortunately into the pond, but she does end up slamming into that Jason guy as he comes around the corner. The two go down in a heap as John follows after, still bleeding, but carrying his baseball bat again. He swings it at Zack, but my football player boyfriend manages to grab hold of the weapon to keep it from making contact.

A car’s headlights sweep across the scene as it pauses just outside the ring of trees and Zayd and Wind hop out. Windsor’s behind the wheel which, if you think about it, is pretty surprising. Until … well, until today he was terrified of driving.

I guess that means … he was willing to overcome his fear to rescue me?

“Back the shit off my girlfriend,” Zayd says, his graduation gown long since discarded, his tattooed arms bright in the light from the car’s headlights.

“Get fucked,” Harper sneers, elbowing Creed in the face. She runs toward the shed, but he’s right behind her, knocking her into the gasoline while the two of them struggle over the matches.

Windsor and Zayd help Zack off the ground, and the three of them fend off the surge of Bluebloods as Creed finally throws Harper against the wall, pocketing the matches and running over to me. He pulls what looks like a kitchen knife from the bookbag hanging over his shoulder, and saws at the ropes.

“Seriously? You think you’re going to get out of here with this bitch?” Harper asks, pulling a lighter from her pocket. Creed ignores her, freeing me from my bindings and yanking me to my feet. He pulls me over to one of the broken windows as Harper lights the flame.

“You’ll burn, too!” Creed screams back at her, and then since he’s covered in gas, I shove him out the window before he can make me go first. He trips and falls over the edge as Harper tosses the lighter to the floor, and the entire place goes up like an inferno.

I choke at the sudden rush of heat, but Creed is already grabbing me by the arms and yanking me out into a tumble on the grass.

“We need to get out of here,” Zack says, panting as he pauses next to us and helps us both to stand.

“Not without Tristan,” I snap, and then I turn and take off into the trees, back in the direction of the swimming pool.

The scene we stumble on is awful: Tristan on his knees, bleeding from his head, his eyes closed. Greg has the gun pointed at his forehead.

We have seconds, maybe, to save him. Seconds.

Without thinking, I jump off the edge and slam into Greg. A shot goes off, but I don’t know if it hit Tristan or not. I didn’t see.

The other boys are down in the pool in an instant, dragging Greg off of me.

Zayd and Zack hold him still while Windsor pulls back and punches the asshole in the face as hard as he can, dropping the bully like a bag of stones.

Creed helps me stand out of the murky water, and I glance over to see Tristan struggling to get to his feet. There’s a bullet buried in the wall just behind his head, but he’s alive. Alive. He’s fucking alive. We both are.

“We need to get out of here and over to the Maserati,” Windsor instructs, and I have to think for a moment before I remember that it wasn’t my rose-gold convertible that pulled up near the pond, it was Zayd’s blue Jaguar. “We brought two cars, just in case. I imagine they’ve already slashed the tires of the other one.”

Windsor and Zack help Tristan out of the pool, while Creed and Zayd do the same for me.

Then we’re running full-out, toward the old-growth tree that’s such a landmark, we can see it painted against the orange and yellow sky. If it didn’t tower so far above everything else, we might not even know how to get out of there.

Fire is now sweeping from the maintenance shed and through the trees, taking advantage of the dry summer heat to sear the world with flames. Before long, it’ll probably be a full-blown forest fire.

Goddamn it, Harper!

We hit the parking lot only to find several of the Bluebloods waiting for us—including John Hannibal.

“You’re not getting out of here that easy,” he says, lifting Harper’s gun in our direction. He pulls the trigger, and a shot hits the gravel near our feet.

“No, I think we are,” Windsor corrects, pulling a revolver out from under his own jacket. “I will shoot you. Just know that. It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission, isn’t it? I bet the Club would forget all about you if I paid them enough. You’re just not that important, John Hannibal.”

John grits his teeth, but he doesn’t drop the weapon, not until Tristan steps forward, still clutching his arm.

“You know why you all welcomed back in an instant?” he asks, voice echoing in the quiet empty space. “It’s because I’m the King of Burberry Prep, and I always will be. Now get the fuck out of the way, or the emails we have set to go out at midnight tonight are you going to wreck your family’s businesses in ways you never could’ve imagined. If you fancy being poor, by all means, be my guest.”

Both guns are lowered, nice and slow. And that’s when I hear the scream.

“Where is Harper?” I ask, just before Becky comes stumbling out of the trees.