The last thing I need is for the GMP to figure out where Heather is, who Heather is, and how much she means to me. Kara and Ashley, too, of course. That’d be my biggest fucking nightmare.

Vera reaches over and gives my hand a squeeze and a pat, her mouth pursed into that sympathetic so sorry, girl face she gets when she’s acknowledging other people’s tragedies. Every time we hang out, I see other girls come up to her with some problem or another, and it’s always this face that she gives them, one that recognizes pain and validates it.

“Graves are for the living, not the dead. So take your time getting over there. I doubt your big sister would want you to risk your own life to visit her corpse.” Vera shrugs, having put her wisdom out there in the most ineloquent way possible. I smile anyway and take another bite of my sandwich. “As far as your little sister goes, trust me: better safe than sorry.” Those blue-gray eyes of hers stare into her soda, watching bubbles pop. After a moment, she reaches out and gives it a stir with her straw. I bet she’s thinking about Stacey again, or about the other girl they lost after the robbery went bad. I don’t let myself think about what might’ve happened to that girl …

“So.” I set my sandwich down again, looking around the rachet fucking shithole we’re sitting in with its portable air conditioning unit dripping across the floor and the abandoned buffet in the corner, stacked with unused chairs. Ahh, Prescott. Classiest place on earth. “You called me here. What did you want to talk about?” I look at Vera expectantly, and she stares right back at me like I’m a crazy person.

“You just assumed I only called you here because I had business?” she clarifies, and it takes me a moment to think about it, but then I shrug.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess I did. It isn’t?” My stomach flutters strangely, and I realize I’m getting a friend crush. Like, maybe for the first time in years, I could be making a platonic friend. Oh, the boys are going to be so jealous … I take another bite of sandwich to disguise my total ineptitude for friendship. Let’s just say, it’s been a while. From sophomore year to the beginning of senior year, I was basically alone. Not even just that, but actively despised and hated, too.

“Girl, seriously?” Vera asks, and then she laughs, leaning back in her chair and giving me a long sigh as she looks me over. “Stacey liked you, you know.” I just keep eating my sandwich because I’m not entirely sure how to respond to that. It’s too sad in so many ways, to think that maybe Stacey felt a connection to me the way I did to her.

“Thanks.” That’s all I manage to get out, but then, we’re both Prescott bitches so we speak the same language. Vera can read all of the myriad things I’m trying to say with that one word. Thank you for telling me that. I liked her, too. I also thought we might become good friends.

“After this, come over,” she tells me with a small nod of her chin. “Hang out with the girls, drink a little. Relax. We’re just having a small casual birthday party thing for Tiff.”

Ah, Tiff, the one with the braids who hates me.

“She despises me,” I say, and Vera shrugs again, sipping her soda with a sharp grin building on her heavily painted lips.

“Maybe a little, but she never turns a Prescott girl down at the door. Come on, say yes.”

I think for a minute and then pause when Victor’s heavy hand rests on my shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. When I glance up at him, I can tell that he’s been listening in on the conversation.

“Go,” he tells me as Vera makes a scoffing noise. Like, I’m sure she thinks this is ridiculous, me needing permission from my harem of men to attend a Prescott party. But that’s not what this is about at all. Victor isn’t ordering me around or pissing testosterone in an alpha male show of dominance the way he does sometimes. Instead, he’s trying to be supportive. He wants me to go, to make friends. I can tell all of that in his one-word response, just the way Vera could with mine. “We’ll make sure you stay safe.”

Victor lets go of me and heads back to the table with the boys as I glance back over at Vera to find her giving me a long, studying sort of look.

“You are cock-whipped,” she tells me, and I scoff.

“I am fucking not,” I growl back because I’ve totally kicked bitch’s asses for less. But then Vera just laughs, and I shake my head. “I am not cock-whipped. If anything, they are the ones that are pussy-whipped.”

“Ah, right,” she says, standing up from her chair as I clean my fingers off with the napkin and then pick up my garbage to chuck in the bin on the way past. “Victor motherfucking Channing is pussy-whipped as he orders your ass around.”

“He actively encourages me to fuck four other dudes,” I remind her as we step outside into the warm afternoon sunshine. Vera thinks about that for a moment and then sighs.

“Okay, okay, you’ve got me with that one. Now, you spoiled ass Oak Valley Prep ho, come with me and get your southside on for the love of god. Spend too much time at that palace and you’ll forget your roots.”

I let Vera lead me down the sidewalk with the boys following behind. What I don’t tell her is that I could never forget my roots. The origins of my story are wrapped around my heart in thorns, briars that make me bleed even as I make new memories and roses bloom. No, forgetting is not nor ever will be an option.

Some people have material things to fill the endless void in their hearts; in Prescott, we make bonds. That’s how we fill that dark void up until it’s overflowing.

When we get to Tiff’s house and look back, I see all five boys slip into skeleton masks and my mouth quirks into a smile. How they do shit like that, coordinated like a group of dancers, I’ll never quite understand.

Vera grabs my hand and drags me into the tiny rundown shotgun house at the edge of the train tracks.

That night, I experience the most normal teenage Prescott party that I have ever been to in my life. No GMP members, no shootings, no dead teens, no stranglings, no bodies buried alive. Just … alcohol and weed and loud music from tinny speakers and dancing with five interchangeable boys in skeleton masks.

At the end of the night, one of them slips a mask on my face, carries my tired ass out to the car and drives me home. I only wake up once more, when I’ve been tucked carefully into bed and surrounded by five warm, hard bodies.

That’s when I finally grab onto and hold something I’ve always wanted: normalcy.

And we are close. We are so motherfucking close, I can taste it.

The thing is, someone—Aaron, actually—once told me this: you chose to dig in deep, just for a little taste of vengeance. It won't be as sweet as you think, cupcake. In fact … you'll find it leaves the taste of ash in your mouth; it's almost obscene.

Ash … That isn’t what I’m actually tasting, is it?

Because things can never be too rosy for too long, a few weeks after Tiff’s party, I’m sitting in the living room with Aaron while the two of us try to puzzle out some of our homework together. We could ask Vic or Oscar or even Cal for help—and we probably will—but not yet. We’re both too stubborn to give in that easily.

Instead, we’ve been sitting here for almost two hours working on the same set of math problems. At least we have that in common, me and Aaron, our shitty ass remedial math course. Also, since neither of us is used to all this fancy ass iPad learning and shit, we try writing the problems down on a piece of paper like a proper 90s kid and actually manage to solve a few.

Hael lounges across from us, reading on his phone. He and Aaron think they’re slick, that I haven’t noticed that they’ve both downloaded some reverse harem novels to dig into. And by reverse harem, I mean books that feature one main female chick with at least three dedicated dudes.

Basically, my life.

Although I’m not sure how many readers would want to jump into this shit-filled pond—even with all the hot-ass man candy and the rope tying and the orgies and the multiple orgasms and … oh, wait. Never mind. I’d jump my ass into this shit just for the boys.

“Fuck,” Hael blurts suddenly, and I flick my gaze up to find him staring at his phone, eyes wide, blood draining from his face. “Shit, shit, shit. I have to go.” He shoves up to his feet and, since he’s only wearing boxers, grabs the first pair of pants he can find which just so happen to be Callum’s.

Hael snatches the clean black boardshorts from a folded pile on the chair near the breakfast bar and yanks them on while Victor emerges from the hall and narrows his eyes on his friend.

“What’s going on?” he asks, and it’s only partially a question. Mostly, it’s an order: tell me. Now.

“My mom …” Hael starts, and that’s all he needs to say. We don’t waste any time in dragging on jackets and slipping feet into shoes. In less than a minute, we’re all standing in the elevator while Hael drags his fingers through his bloodred hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he’s murmuring as he stares down at a text on his phone screen.

Aide moi!

I don’t have to speak French to guess what that one means: help me.

Then, underneath it, just a single word.

Martin.

Hael looks like he’s about to crack as he storms up to the student valet in just such a way that I feel compelled to grab his arm. My fingers curl around his taut bicep, but I don’t dig my nails into his skin the way my mother once did to me.

“Hael.” It’s all I have to say. He stops short and grits his teeth, casting this look down on me with his beautiful brown eyes that very clearly echoes his mother’s words.

“Aide moi,” he breathes, and I reach down to curl my fingers through his as Victor deals with the valet instead, instructing him to bring the Camaro and the Bronco around. Meanwhile, I curl my body against Hael’s chest, burying my head in the crook of his neck and pressing light kisses there that have him shuddering and relaxing against me. He releases my hand and bands his arms around me, holding me close while Aaron, Oscar, and Callum wait beside us.