“When can we start on that by the way?” Vic asks, and I give a dry laugh. “Trying again, I mean.”

“You’re such a dick,” Aaron murmurs, glancing away toward the diner and the happy chatter from inside. We bounce back quick in Prescott. The shooting is a scar that streaks across the neighborhood, but we’re used to scars here. We live in the shape of scars, ragged lines that never quite heal. “She isn’t ready for a baby.”

“But when she is,” Hael begins, and I glance back in time just to see him flash a signature grin. “Who gets to go first? I think since Victor gets the legal marriage, and Aaron got the V-card—”

I interrupt here just to insert some of my ‘crazy political views’.

“Virginity is an abstract patriarchal social construct that has zero validity and exists for the sole purpose of commoditizing young women but go on, I’ll wait.”

Hael snorts and shakes his head, sitting up and leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees.

“I say it’s between me, Cal, and Oscar.”

“I say,” Cal begins, sitting down on the hood and putting his basket of fries in his lap. “We just fuck bareback and forgo a DNA test. Seems the fairest way to go, in my opinion.”

“You would think up an egalitarian approach to orgies and conception,” Oscar inserts, glancing back at me in just such a way that I wonder if he isn’t interested in a bio kid of his own. Biology means basically nothing to me. If I let myself dwell on it too much, I’d have to consider that Pamela and her broken, twisted DNA were an infection on my soul. That just can’t be true. We’re human, and if being human means anything at all, then it means overcoming the basics of biology by using our brains and our hearts and our spirits. “But I would like a child specifically made of my seed.”

My turn to snort a laugh as I adjust myself from Vic’s lap to the tabletop between him and Aaron, so I can better see all five boys at the same time.

“Just so you all understand that I’m the only one who gets to decide how this goes.” I muse on it for a moment, wondering if I’m really going to have to have like, five kids or something in the future, just to please five alpha dicks. “If you’re all really, really nice to me, I’ll consider your wishes on my thirtieth birthday. Then you can, like, draw straws or some shit.”

“I’m happy to go last or not at all,” Aaron volunteers, looking back at me with his pretty eyes glittering mischievously. He’s being serious, and he’s being nice, but he’s also throwing that niceness in the faces of the other boys to be a dick. Which I like. A lot, actually. “Whatever makes Bernie happiest.”

“Okay, fuck you, Fadler,” Vic says, chucking a stray fry in his direction, but he doesn’t sound totally pissed off about it. His obsidian gaze sweeps Aaron before panning across the other three boys. “Look, I’m not an easy person to get along with.”

“Understatement,” Oscar murmurs, but Vic just narrows his eyes and chooses not to comment.

“Anyway, I acknowledge Hael’s feelings—even if I consider him to be a whiny little bitch.”

“Aww,” Hael says, putting a hand to his heart as Cal chuckles. “I appreciate that, Vicki.”

“Call me Vicki again and see what happens,” Victor challenges, but he’s clearly being playful, and my heart swells like sixty-nine sizes larger. “We’re in this together, alright? I get it. I don’t share Bernadette; Bernadette shares herself. You happy now?”

“You look like you’re in the middle of an enema,” Hael muses, but he’s already smiling. “But you know what? I’ll take it. We’ve got to be solid, going into that fucked-up hellhole they call a prep school. There’s no room for dissent.”

Cal cups his hands around his mouth and howls, taking up the mantle of my little cry Havoc game.

The other boys follow suit and I mimic them, adding my voice to the chorus of sound as it takes over the night. In less than a minute, we’ve got more than three-quarters of the parking lot joining us.

It’s a fitting way to end our time at Prescott High, now isn’t it?

There’s something sinister about the grounds of Oak Valley Preparatory Academy. The last time we were here, to talk to David and Trinity, I felt it, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Now that we’re here to stay, dragging bags from our cars and tossing them into a shared pile behind Hael’s Camaro, I know what it is: excess.

“Fuck, I hate this place,” I murmur, putting my hands on my hips as I stare up at the soaring sides of the dormitory. The ornate oak leaf designs around the windows and doors probably speak to some specialized form of architecture, but … we don’t really teach that sort of shit at Prescott High, you know what I mean?

I do, however, know that holding your keys between your knuckles isn’t a very good self-defense technique. Sure, if your attacker isn’t very experienced, those keys will hurt when you throw a punch. But if they know shit about shit, then they’ll just grab your hand in theirs and grind the sharp ends of the keys into you.

That’s what we teach at Prescott High. That, and how to contour, or do a Kegel, or suck a dick. Beat a bitch’s ass. Hotwire a car. That sort of thing.

I’m sure the teachers here are going to love the six of us.

I light up a cigarette as the boys finish unloading our things. We don’t have a lot—of physical crap anyway. It’s the emotional stuff we have in spades, that heavy, deep, aching sense of belonging, like a thorn in your side that you don’t want to pull out because you hate to love the way it hurts.

“At least we get to be here with the girls,” Aaron suggests, lighting up a cigarette of his own. The flicker of the flame bathes his just-this-side-of-too-pretty face in nicotine, tobacco, and bullshit. I like that, the way he can go from looking like the boy next door to the man that kicked the boy next door’s ass. “Three and a half months. That’s it. Then we’re done with all of … this.” He turns his green-gold gaze to the building, pausing at the sound of approaching footsteps on the gravel.

Before I even turn around, my eyes catch on Victor’s and I know exactly who’s going to be standing there when I finally deign to look.

Trinity Jade waits off to one side, dressed in her heather gray jacket and charcoal pleated skirt, sky blue tie catching in the breeze. It tangles her gold hair around her face as she studies us with dust-colored eyes.

“It’s always a pain when the wind shifts, isn’t it?” she asks, reaching up to tuck some stray blond strands behind her ear. “Sometimes, it blows Prescott trash into the wrong neighborhood.”

“Oh, and it looks like that’s too motherfucking bad,” I purr back at her, loving the way her eyes take in my curvy form, my too-small red tee that shows off my belly button, and the soft waves of my blood-dipped hair. Maybe she can see that I’ve got that freshly fucked look in my cheeks, too? Having five boyfriends is a real treat when you’re as parched as I am. “Because if you’re not really, really nice to me …” I move up to stand in front of her, glad that I chose to wear wedges today. Tack those few extra inches onto my already much-taller-than-other-girls frame, and I tower over Trinity Jade. “I’m going to tell daddy Samuel all about your cheap-ass gangster blood.”

I grind my teeth briefly and flick my tongue against the corner of my mouth, just to taste my rachet ass lipstick, just to make sure it’s still there. If you’re smart, it isn’t difficult to steal nice lip stains. If you’re skilled, you can mix and paint and sculpt the cheap shit until it looks like the good stuff.

That’s what I’ve done today.

I call this shade Missed Opportunities. It’s red and scary and it reminds me of the blood that wouldn’t stop running down my legs.

Trinity looks right past me, toward Vic instead.

“I’ve spoken to my grandfather; he agreed to play along with this game of annulment for my sake, but he doesn’t understand. He’s a very forthright and honest sort of man. This won’t last long.”

Victor ignores her, looking at his Harley with a pained sort of expression. A valet is supposed to come by shortly to move our vehicles to the Student Parking Area. I don’t much like the idea of being separated from our only modes of transportation, but it’s part of the game, and we’re all very good at playing games.

“You can deal with my wife,” Vic says, gesturing in my direction with his chin as Aaron locks up the Bronco and gives it a gentle pat. Hael looks half-ready to cry over the Camaro, but it’s the Eldorado that’s really got him twisted up. “I restored that car for you, babe. Not for some stuffy ass valet to fuck around with.”

Sacrifices must be made, I suppose.

“Pardon?” Trinity queries, giving these long, slow blinks that really push me over the edge into believing she’s a true psychopath. Remember when I slammed her head into the bar at her own murder-mystery party? Or shoved the heel of my hand into her nose at the art gallery? I barely got a reaction out of the bitch. She’s fucking insane.

“Do you speak English?” Hael asks, cocking his head to one side. “Or do you need it in French: Tu peux parler avec notre femme. Au passage, va te faire foutre.” Hael smiles tightly and moves away as Trinity murmurs something in response, also in French. That gives him pause, and I see his hands curling into tight fists at his sides.

I decide not to ask for a translation on that one.

I cock a brow.

“Grandpa know you’re not really Samuel’s kid?” I ask, and Trinity gives me a sharp look that very clearly says not too loud, not here. Luckily for her, it doesn’t suit us to give out this secret either. We intend to hold it nice and tight—until the time is right, of course. Obviously, at some point, we’re going to tell the whole motherfucking world.

Just not quite yet.

“Alright,” I continue, because we’re not really here to have any sort of normal conversation. Just extortion and threats today. “Well, the next thing you’re going to do is get Gramps to tell Ophelia that you and Victor are legally married. We know how to get ahold of a very convincing marriage certificate to help the ruse along.”