I keep my eyes on my mother.

“Do you think I’m fucking kidding you?” I whisper, leaning in. Our eyes meet. “You know that we killed Neil, don’t you? You know that we buried that monster alive in a satin-lined coffin which was a far nicer end to his life than he deserved.”

Pamela’s eyes blaze with fury—especially because this isn’t news to her. She knows all about Neil’s death, his burial, the fact that the oxygen tank found in the coffin with him came from one of the nursing homes she moonlights at.

My mother leans forward, looking me dead in the face.

“Of all my children, you were always the worst. There were moments, early on, with Penelope where I thought I could be happy. But you? You were the worst mistake I’ve ever made.” Pam leans back after delivering what she thinks is a fatal blow crafted of words and pain. It hits me and slides right off like nothing.

“This is your absolute last chance to answer my questions,” I continue, proud of myself for keeping my breathing even and steady. “You know what happened to Neil. If you think being inside these walls keeps you safe, then you’re even more of a fool than I pegged you for years ago. Why did you want to get away from your parents?”

“I’m not giving you my autobiography,” Pam snaps back, and I go to stand up.

If that’s her final answer then … well, I’ll use my new connections with Vera and Stacey’s girls to get what I need. I’ll have her fucking killed, and I’ll slash her name from my list with a lipstick color that reminds me of Penelope, and then I’ll probably cry for a while.

Throughout it all, I’ll have the Havoc Boys to fall into.

Even now, they’re waiting for me outside, piled on the roof or the hood of the Camaro, smoking, watching, waiting. Five boys in black with crude letters crafted of ink on their left hands, their hearts dark and obsessive, but poignant in their determination, in their love. Unfailing.

“Your grandfather was a drunk. He beat me and your grandmother. He used to fuck her, too, while she screamed. Does that answer your question?” Pam snaps as I lower myself back to the seat across from her. Those familiar green eyes of hers blaze with pain, but I can only sympathize so much. She is no longer just a victim; she is a perpetrator. There is no excuse for that. None at all. “I married your father because he was wealthy, and he wanted me. He wanted me so much that he divorced his wife of ten years.”

I stare at her and try to imagine her at my age, with one kid and another on the way.

“He was too old for you,” I say instead, but Pam just shrugs.

“He had money. He could take care of me.” She looks away for a moment, and I wonder if I don’t see some spark of emotion there. When she glances back however, there’s nothing. “The only man I ever loved was Neil, and you took him from me.”

“You let him rape your daughter,” I hiss back, but Pamela’s face shows me nothing. It occurs to me that sometimes people are just broken; struggling and clawing my way toward empathy does nothing, accomplishes nothing. “How long did you know about it?” I ask, and I can see in the casual shrug of her shoulders, it was a long time. “Did you know he was fucking a teenage girl named Kali Rose-Kennedy? That she was pregnant with his kid?”

“You kill her, too?” Pamela shoots back at me, her nostrils flaring. “Because they’re trying to peg that on me.” Oh, shit. I didn’t know that one yet. Where did the guys bury her? I wonder. On Tom’s land? I suppose it doesn’t matter now. With the Grand Murder Party taking blame for most of our crimes, and Pamela taking the fall for the rest, we could really and truly walk away from this thing with ‘clean’ hands. “Neil didn’t love her. He just had desires that I couldn’t fulfill.”

“I hate you,” I tell her, and I mean that. With every single molecule of my heart, I mean that. It’s not like when I say it to Victor or Oscar and what I really mean is I love you so much it hurts, so much that it aches and burns and bleeds from the very depths of my wicked soul. “That’s why I saved you for last. You know that, right? Out of everyone that’s ever hurt me, your betrayal is the worst. It cuts the deepest.” I pause again, wondering if I should ask about Penelope’s things, but what’s the point? Pam either sold them or gave them away or, hell, threw them in a dumpster somewhere and sent them to the landfill. I won’t ever have anything that isn’t in that box marked Old Homework and Assignments in sweet, soft, looping letters. “How did you do it, Pam? How did you kill my sister?”

“Nice try baiting me into a confession; it isn’t going to happen.” She stands up and one of the guards begins to approach the table.

“Tell me the truth or I bury you,” I growl back at her, but she refuses to look at me. “Pamela!” The guard comes over and reapplies her handcuffs, guiding her away from me as I stand there, shaking and panting and probably crying again. “Mom!”

With a snarl, I hit the table with the heel of my hand so hard that I actually cry out, cradling it against my chest as I shove up to my feet and storm over to the exit.

Sara Young is waiting just past the metal detectors, leaning against a wall and smiling sympathetically back at me.

“Did you get anything out of that?” she asks me, but I’m sure she can already tell, based on the wetness glistening on my cheeks, or the way I’m cradling my hand against a chest full of broken, ugly things.

“You mean did I get the closure I was so desperately seeking?” I choke out with a harsh laugh. It isn’t fair. I’m supposed to get some sort of closure. That’s what the list is about. That’s how books work. Movies. Comics. The hero confronts the villain and gets all the answers. But … real life makes no narrative sense. “No.”

I start to head for the door, but Sara reaches out, capturing my upper arm.

“What did you come here for, Bernadette?” she asks, and even though I know I should just yank my arm away and storm out of the building, her brown gaze is clement and indulgent. In her own way, Sara cares about me.

I stare down at her hand on my arm and she very carefully pulls it away, still watching me, dressed in a black cap, jeans, and a Polo shirt. Now that she isn’t playing the doe-eyed police girl, her outfits have changed. I was getting played much harder than I thought by sweet little Sara Young.

“I wanted to know if she really did it,” I say, my voice a hollow echo of its usual self. My eyes narrow and the corners of my lips turn down in an exaggerated frown. “I think that by avoiding coming here, I thought I could avoid the reality of it. But I just … can’t anymore.” I look back up at Sara’s face, dark with a melancholic sort of sympathy. “Pamela murdered Penelope for the crime of … what? Being a victim? Being abused and ignored and cast aside. I don’t understand it.”

“People like you and me will never understand people like Pamela Pence.” Sara stands up straight and turns to face me, like we need to be on level ground in order for this conversation to happen. “Someone who fights against their own self-interest, who believes in something that’s corrupt and broken. Bernadette, I know you said your mother seemed upset over that video with Neil and Penelope, but … I don’t think it was for the reasons you wanted it to be.”

Yeah, how ironic is it that Pamela fucked up so badly that even a lie intended to get her charged with murder turned out to be impossible to keep. Like, she couldn’t even maintain the façade that she might’ve been a decent person.

“How did she do it?” I ask, my voice breaking. “How did you know?”

Sara’s mouth purses into a thin line, but she doesn’t shy away from the question. All around us, people move in groups, talking and smoking, the mood somber and subdued. It’s hard to get excited, in a cage for people. Some of the ones who are in it deserve much, much worse than this but most are just drug addicts who need rehab, not cells. It’s just so goddamn fucking sad.

“Your sister kept a wireless security camera in her room, Bernadette. It was in the box of items we seized from you.”

A … security camera? I have to blink several times to clear my head.

I know cameras are cheap; you can easily get one for like eighty bucks online. And that amount of money … it’d be easy to say, sell one of Pam’s stolen designer dresses and get a camera instead. Bet ya Pamela didn’t even notice it, that when she packed up Pen’s room, she just shoved the camera in the box without considering that it might’ve been recording. I’d ask Sara, but … Police Girl is too straitlaced to give anything else away.

“I should go.” I start toward the exit and she follows me out. As I pass the maroon colored Subaru, I make sure to wave to Constantine. And then flip him off. The boys watch me from across the lot, frozen into postures of indifference—slouches, lounges, leans. They’re all boneless kings, made of shadows and dark things.

And they’re all waiting on me.

I pause in front of the Camaro, the Eldorado, and Vic’s bike, all lined up in a neat row in the center of the massive parking lot. It’s like, big enough for a fucking Black Friday sale or some shit. “I don’t feel very good,” I explain as all five of them continue to watch me, waiting to see what it is that I’ll do. Gauging my mood, that’s what they’re doing right now.

“What do you need?” Aaron asks, the first one to slide off the hood of the Camaro and move over to stand in front of me. He offers me his cigarette, and I take it, inhaling and doing my very best not to cry. Well, not to cry anymore. I was crying in there even though I didn’t want to, even though Pamela didn’t deserve to see how much she affected me with what she did.

She took Penelope away from me, and it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life, that probably will ever happen in my life. If Penelope were here, and I had Heather and Kara and Ashley, if I had Havoc … life would be perfect. But it can only ever be beautifully flawed because my sister—a soul mate of a different sort than the boys—is gone and she’s never coming back. She won’t get to see how much I’ve changed, how much I’ve grown, all the wonderful and crazy things that I’m going to do with my life.