“How do you mean?” Ophelia asks, clearly losing her patience with Kali. She glances over at the girl, her makeup refined and elegant, her hair coiffed. It looks like she might’ve been on her way out the door to dinner or something. Ophelia, I mean, obviously. Kali looks like any random southside girl, her makeup too thick, her hoop earrings too big, tits hanging out, shorts up her ass crack. I mean, Bernie dresses like that sometimes, too, but it’s cute as fuck when she does it.

Kali looks down at me, and there’s something in her expression that scares the fuck out of me.

There’s a twisted, unearned, and unwanted sense of affection.

“He’s not just a school friend to Victor,” Kali says with a sigh, reaching out to touch the side of my face. I jerk back from her and scowl, but I don’t say a word. Not a goddamn word. Ophelia and I do not have a good history together. Despite the fact that I held a knife to her throat at the beach house not all that long ago—I should’ve seriously killed her when I had the chance—we’ve had verbal brawls for years. “They’re like brothers. If we tell Vic that we have Aaron, he’ll do whatever you want.”

Ophelia muses on this for a moment before glancing over at Tom. They exchange a look before she turns her dark gaze back on me.

“I have a hard time believing that,” she murmurs, cocking her head slightly to one side. “But I suppose it’s worth trying. We can always kill him later.” She smiles at me, and it is most definitely the smile of a reptile. “Alright, Aaron. Get up and let’s go. I suppose you’ll get to see how much your little gang really means to my son. Unfortunately for you, I have a feeling you’re going to get a rude awakening.”

Tom spins the shotgun around and before I can even think up a way out of this, he’s hitting me in the head with the butt of it and I’m slumping back down into the trunk.

The last image I see before everything goes black is Bernadette, smiling at me.

Bernadette Blackbird

We spend the rest of the night and all of the next day looking for Aaron.

We find absolutely nothing.

Nothing at all.

I can’t sleep the following night, pacing the floor in the living room and running my hand over my face to swipe away the tears.

“Bernie,” Callum says softly, slipping in the back door in his hoodie and shorts. He’s been out for hours, searching fruitlessly. I go stone-still, waiting for whatever information he’s brought back with him. When Cal looks away from me, my heart shatters, and my knees go weak.

“Where is he, Cal?” I whisper, but Callum just turns back to me, his blue gaze glittering in the moonlight. Hael is asleep on the couch beside me while Oscar sits in the chair between the two sofas. Victor steps onto the porch behind Callum, face drawn, mouth in a thin, flat line. “Where is he?” I repeat, trying not to get hysterical.

We all saw Aaron get pulled out of the car; we all saw him flee into the woods.

So where the fuck is he? He’s not at any of the boys’ regular rendezvous points. He hasn’t called us. He isn’t coming home. This is my worst nightmare come true. Just thinking about the possibility that something happened to him …

“I’m sorry, Bernadette,” Cal whispers, voice even huskier and more broken than usual, like glass in a graveyard. “If anyone should’ve been spirited away, it should’ve been me.” He closes his eyes and slumps against the doorframe while Vic pushes the slider open the rest of the way and stalks in.

I don’t know how to tell Callum that I could never choose between him and Aaron. Regardless of who went missing, I would feel this way. Then again, what do I tell the girls? I’m not sure I could ever look either of them in the face again if something were to happen to their brother, something that can’t be undone …

“He’ll turn up,” Vic says, like he’s so fucking sure of himself. “If someone had him, we’d have heard already. He’s a pretty valuable hostage, don’t you think?”

“We just blew up one of the Charters’ cars and exploded several of their crew member’s skulls with a rifle. If they do have Aaron, he’s probably dead.” There is no inflection in Oscar’s voice, none at all. My heart finally gives up and dies, and I crash to my knees on the floor in front of the fireplace.

“Goddamn it, Oscar,” Victor snarls as Hael snaps to, rubbing his hand down his face.

“Aaron back yet?” he asks, blinking around at us as we sit in the dark together. When nobody answers him, Hael curses under his breath and stands up. He musses up his hair with both hands and starts off on a tirade that’s entirely in French; I don’t even begin to try to follow it. “So what the fuck do we do now? We’ve never lost a member of Havoc before, Vic.”

“No shit,” Victor snarls as I sit there and think about how afraid I was when Aaron was bleeding out for me. I should’ve realized it then, when he threw himself in front of a goddamn bullet for me. It was never Cal that I needed to be afraid for; it was my ex-boyfriend.

The ex never lives to see the end of the movie, right?

Putting my face in my hands, I try to get my shit together. I know logically that it’s safer for me to wait here, in case he shows up or we get a phone call or something, but it’s so fucking hard. All I want to do is put on some tennis shoes, head outside, and start running until I find him. Theoretically, Ophelia is trying to have me killed, but I’m not sure that I care right now.

All that matters is Aaron.

All that matters is finding Aaron.

“Hael, you and Oscar head out next,” Vic says on the end of a long sigh. “Cal and I will stay with Bernie and the girls.”

Hael nods and moves over next to me, crouching down so he can push some hair back from my sweaty forehead. He tries to smile, but it doesn’t go anywhere near his eyes.

“Try to get some sleep, okay? You can’t do anything for Aaron if you’re a zombie.” I nod at Hael’s words, closing my eyes when he leans in to press his lips against mine. I know he’s right, but I’m not sure that I could sleep if I wanted to. How can I, when I don’t know where Aaron is or what’s happening to him? What if he’s being tortured? Burned? Buried alive?

I choke on the thought as Hael helps me to my feet, encouraging me to sit down on the sofa, so he can tuck a blanket around my shoulders.

Oscar stands up next, but instead of simply walking away, he moves over to me for a minute and puts a hand on my head. I look up at him, but I don’t have any energy left in me for quips or repartee.

“It might not mean much coming from me right now, but I’m sorry, Bernadette,” he says, stroking my scalp with his long fingers. “I’m sorry.” Oscar bends down and presses a kiss to my forehead before straightening up and moving away with Hael in tow.

I have no idea what, exactly, he’s apologizing for, but it means a lot regardless.

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” I tell Vic and Cal, already feeling this strange emptiness inside of me where it feels like Aaron should be. “How did this happen? How?”

“We play dangerous games, Bernadette,” Victor says softly, clearly exhausted. He runs his fingers through his hair and looks me over as Cal finds his way into the living room and takes a seat on the sofa opposite me. “Sometimes, in dangerous games, there are high prices.”

He stands up suddenly and leaves the room, but I have no idea where he’s going. He’s been up for two days straight at this point, so I hope like hell it’s to get some sleep. Speaking of … my lids feel heavy, and I curse my body for being a traitor. I’m not allowed to feel tired or need sleep, not when Aaron is missing.

Not when he could be hurt.

Not when he could be …

I refuse to let my mind go to dark places. The world is already dark enough as it is.

“It’s the winter formal tomorrow,” Callum muses, and I look up at him like he’s insane. There’s no way I’m going to a fucking school dance when Aaron is missing. “We should probably check in there, see who shows up from the Charter Crew. We still have no idea if Hael’s work has yielded any results.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” I scoff, feeling stabby. Seems silly I felt that way over Aaron’s tight jeans just yesterday. Seems so stupid now, getting bitchy over the possibility of some girl hitting on him. All I want is to see his face again, kiss his sweet mouth, feel him hold me in his arms. This fucking blows.

“If someone in the Charter Crew has him, I’ll know,” Callum tells me, blue eyes dark and depthless. He looks terrifying right now. “Trust me, just one look, and I will know.”

I’m not sure how to respond to that. I believe him, but I’m not putting on a pink dress and going to some stupid ass dance. It isn’t happening.

I wrap the blanket around my shoulders and stand up, moving over to the big sofa where Cal is sitting, and curl up in his arms. He wraps me in his hoodie and covers my head with his own, protecting me, watching over me. Like always.

“Sleep, Bernie. I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”

I mean to protest Cal’s request, but instead, my heavy lids get the best of me and I conk out. When I wake up, it’s to a knock on the front door. My heart soars as I scramble up and out of Cal’s lap, but not before Victor sweeps across the living room and checks the peephole.

He frowns, slipping a pistol from his waistband before he cracks the door with caution.

“Yeah?” he quips, giving whoever it is on the other side a once-over.

There’s a man there, but he’s just a delivery guy. He looks freaked all the way out over Victor, and practically tosses a shimmery cream-colored envelope at him before booking it the fuck out of there.

“What the fuck is that?” I ask as Vic uses his shoulder to shut the door, slipping the flap on the envelope open with a fingernail. Purple petals fall to the floor with a sweet scent, and he scowls, like he already knows what’s going on. “Is this a wedding invitation?” I ask, supremely confused and slightly sick feeling. If there was any news about Aaron, any at all, one of the boys would’ve told me about it already.