That’s the first sign I have that something’s wrong; I did not expect Tom Muller to die here tonight.

“Fuck,” I murmur as Mason laughs and yanks me forward, shoving me into one of the downstairs rooms, the ones that used to be old bank vaults. The door slams into place as Mason flicks first one lock, then the next, and the next.

Three locks, all of them on a solid metal door that can’t be blown up or shot down or picked.

Trapping us inside.

In here, nobody can hear Mason’s girls scream. Nobody can hear them cry. Nobody can smell their blood.

This vault room, it may as well be a tomb.

I back away from Mason as he lifts the liquor bottle to his lips, finishing off the alcohol inside before tossing it aside and letting it shatter. He drags a hand across his mouth as he looks me over, standing there in a corset and a miniskirt, my hair hidden beneath the red curls of an expensive wig.

“Fuck is right,” Mason tells me, grinning as he reaches down for his belt, sliding the leather from the loops of his pants with a hissing sound. “You and your boys think I’m stupid?” he clarifies, taking a step toward me and causing me to scoot back a few of my own. His gaze is as slick as oil, rife with perversion and violence. I can only imagine the things he’s done to girls in the dark.

And tonight, he recognized me. Just as Victor suggested he might. Just as Callum promised he would.

I smile.

“No, actually. The guy you almost killed—Callum Park—he was impressed. He told us we shouldn’t underestimate you.”

“So you show up at my club during a night of mourning?” Mason reaches out to take my arm, pausing briefly as he glances over his shoulder at a sound. It’s hardly anything. Most people would never notice it, not with the thumping, pounding bass from the main part of the club or the insistent, unrelenting creak of a bed on the floor above us.

Mason notices though, spinning around to find Callum waiting there with a knife in his hand. He toys with it, pressing a single finger against the end of the blade as he smiles.

“You were right, Mason. I am still human. I’m not sure why I denied it in the moment. Chalk it up to youthful inexperience. I’m grateful for your observation though, because I was reminded that I’m not the darkest, most twisted shadow in the night.”

“And you came back for another round?” Mason queries, his expression showing grim appreciation for Cal’s ability to predict his movements, but also a disturbing level of glee at the thought of being able to kill the blond boy in front of him. “Because that worked out so well for you last time?”

I slip my phone from my pocket, checking the time.

It’s now been eleven minutes since we pulled into the parking lot; we’re running out of time.

“Humans are like wolves,” Callum says, looking up from the knife to Mason Miller’s terrifying face. Mason has the same unsettling look in his eyes that the Thing possessed. The same look as Eric Kushner. The look of a predator. “We need a pack. A single wolf can’t bring down big prey. But a pack? Well, a pack can do anything.”

Mason’s hand goes for the gun on his belt, but it’s too late. The sound of a hammer being pulled back surprises him. He glances up just in time to see Oscar rising to his feet after sliding out from underneath the bed.

“Cry ‘Havoc’,” Oscar drawls, silver eyes half-lidded with boredom. Mason reacts with lightning fast reflexes, but Oscar’s already pulled the trigger. The bullet from his revolver rips through the man’s throat, making him choke and stumble. Blood bubbles to his lips as Oscar pulls the trigger yet again, nailing Mason in the shoulder. Again, in the thigh. In the arm.

The monster slumps back, smearing crimson down the length of the vault door.

I squat down beside him, pushing some hair back from his forehead as his hands spasm and he tries—even in the throes of death—to go for the pistol he dropped on the ground after the first shot found its mark.

“I want you to know that we didn’t kill you here today.” I stroke the man’s face as he stares at me with wide eyes, ones that ask a simple question: what happens to me after this? I haven’t the faintest idea, but I do hope that it’s something awful, whether a pit in the depths of hell or rebirth as a banana slug who gets promptly salted, I don’t give a fuck. But at least Mason Miller, as he is now, won’t be around to hurt anymore girls. “You were killed by a bunch of hookers. They gave us intel. They told us where to find you. They let us in. Whores. Prostitutes. Call girls. That’s why you’re dead right now.”

I lift the discarded pistol up to Mason’s head and smile.

“Fuck you.”

And then I pull the trigger and blood spatters my face, staining it crimson. I pull my phone from my pocket, the connection to Victor’s still going strong.

“I take it it’s done?” he asks as I rise to my feet, bringing the gun with me. The GMP will dispose of Mason’s body discreetly, so there’s no concern there, but I’m not letting them keep a murder weapon with my fingerprints on it.

“It’s done,” I say as Cal unlocks the door and swings it open to reveal Aaron, Hael, and Vic waiting for us.

“I do love it when things go according to plan,” Oscar remarks, frowning at a tiny fleck of red on the end of his shirtsleeve.

Vera appears at the end of the hall, holding the duffel bag I asked her to bring. She hands it over wordlessly, peering into the room behind me at Mason’s body just before Cal drags the door shut again. Likely, the man will be left alone in there until Monday, the way all the call girls say he likes. The GMP won’t know he’s dead for a while, long enough for us to leave, get some sleep, and then head to Oak Valley first thing Monday morning.

Brilliant.

“Two minutes left,” Victor warns, nodding his chin in the direction of the exit. We slip out quietly, taking Vera with us. She’s got her own ride, but I grab her hand before she takes off, giving it a quick squeeze.

“Might need my nails touched up sometime soon,” I offer in a tentative reach for friendship. I’ve never been all that good at it, making friends with girls. Shit, last time I tried it, I ended up with Kali as a bestie and we all know how that turned out. But one bad apple isn’t going to spoil my whole barrel. A million bad experiences can’t erase the sweet memories of companionship that I had with Penelope.

“Girl, anytime.” Vera’s gaze slips past me to the waiting horde of boys, and the edge of her painted mouth quirks up at the corner. “You’re going to need someone with a vagina to talk to, after drowning under all that dick.” She gives me a lipstick-studded kiss on my bloody cheek before scurrying off into the dark, so our pursuers won’t see her if they happen to pull up.

“Time to get the fuck out of here,” I murmur, a slight smile pulling at my own mouth.

We climb into our respective vehicles and take off, heading back down the busy West Burnside Street toward the highway. This time, Aaron takes the wheel so I can open Vera’s duffel bag.

I shove the wig in first, snatching a package of lavender-scented wet wipes to swipe the smattering of blood from my face. Then I very quickly grab the oversized skeleton hoodie I was wearing when we initially left the house from the back seat. Once I’ve got that on and zipped up, I hit the button that brings down the top of the convertible.

As it folds back with a mechanical purr, I can feel the crisp night air crawling down my throat. When I laugh, I swear, I can taste stars.

About a half mile from Kay’s, we pass a familiar-looking maroon Subaru. For the briefest of seconds there, it feels like time slows to a crawl, and I glance over, meeting Sara Young’s eyes for the briefest of moments before her vehicle continues toward the club and ours barrels toward Springfield and the seedy little neighborhood that bred a pack of wild dogs.

Cry Havoc, baby.

Wesley’s is packed, as it always is on a Friday night. Vintage cars fill the slanted parking spaces where employees pause on rollerblades, hooking metal trays to windows that are rolled halfway down. Here and there, a vehicle creaks and rocks as its teenage occupants fuck in a dance as old as time.

Me, I sit on the hood of the pink and white Caddy my boyfriend built for me, licking a strawberry ice cream cone in a way that makes all five of the dangerous men I call my boys gaze at me like wolves might watch a sheep.

The thing is, I warned them before: you thought you caged a kitty cat? You got a fucking cougar. Watch my claws when you take me to bed.

So, if we’re running with the dogs of war or the wolf pack reference, then I guess I’m a snarling canine with slaver dripping from its jaws. Also, slaver means saliva in case you didn’t know. Mr. Darkwood once tried to correct that word in one of my poems, so I wrote the definition in chalk on the back of his car and got detention for a week.

Poor Mr. Darkwood.

According to the Prescott goss circulating on social media, he’s still alive but in critical condition. I truly hope the man pulls through, much as we disagree on particular word choices. It’s not his fault if he’s a boomer who doesn’t know how to use Google.

“Stupid Cupid” by Connie Francis is playing over the speakers, and I swear, I spot the elderly owners dancing inside the eat-in portion of the restaurant. There’s an old-fashioned jukebox in there, black and white checkered floors, and booths outfitted with cracked red leather. Somehow, the image reminds me of that 1942 painting, Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.

“The Charter Crew really did a number on this place, huh?” Hael asks, whistling as he leans back and looks up at the ruined sign near the entrance to the parking lot. It’s about forty feet high and on most nights, blazing with light to invite customers into the drive-in. It might be dark now, but with the nearly full moon blazing above us, I can see the cracked and ruined surface covered in graffiti.

There’s a silhouetted clown face emblazoned there now, but that’s okay. We brought a few cans of spray paint with us.

At the opposite end of the lot, Sara and Constantine sit in their car, watching us. Sara doesn’t like what we did tonight because she knows it has something to do with the GMP. The thing is, no matter how hard she tries to figure it out, she never will. In her wildest dreams, I doubt she’d ever consider that I shot Mason Miller in the head.