I’m vaguely aware of him cupping his hands around his mouth and letting out a piercing howl that slices right through the woods and cuts into the rest of the boys like a knife. A part of me is certain that I can feel them all turning back to look at us, beginning to move, their footsteps heavy and loud on the forest floor.

I must pass out because the next thing I know, I’m surrounded by Havoc and something hurts. It’s the pain that really and truly wakes me up, a violent, wrenching, awful sort of pain that feels endless and all-encompassing, as if I have no choice but to give into it.

Instead of five masculine faces, shaped by time and violence and pain, decadently handsome, perfectly wicked … I see the faces of five sweet boys across the length of a playground. My clothes are too nice for this part of town, and my breathing is shallow because I’m so scared. I’m not sure what they first thought when they all turned and saw me, dressed in designer clothes and quivering.

What must I have looked like? How must I have sounded?

“Bernie!” Victor’s voice is a strange, broken shattered thing. He presses both hands against the wound in my chest, and I cough, spattering Callum’s face with blood. “Damn it.” After a moment, he adjusts himself, digging two fingers into the wound near my heart. “What artery am I trying to pinch off?” he snaps at someone. Hael, I think.

You’re hurting me, is what I try to say, but I can’t seem to make any sound come past my lips. I painted them with a special color today. It’s called Victory but it only tastes like blood. And regret. And goodbyes.

“We need an ambulance,” Aaron is choking out, his phone pressed to his ear as he places his hand over Victor’s, like he just can’t bear not reaching out to help. My eyes find Callum’s, and I see that the blue of them is different somehow. Wet. He has tears. There are tears in his eyes. He’s crying.

He knows.

He fucking knows.

“You were supposed to follow orders,” Oscar says, so detached he may as well be floating a million miles away. He leans over and puts his forehead against mine. He’s shaking, too, I think. It’s hard to tell because everything is getting blurry.

“Blackbird.” It’s Hael’s warm voice, but he doesn’t sound like he’s smiling. Something is wrong. I just want him to smile. I turn my head slightly to one side, but I can’t seem to focus on him. His brown eyes waver in front of me as I try and fail to lift my hand toward him.

“Bernie,” a small voice whimpers, rife with sniffles. I’m barely able to register that it’s Heather calling out to me. Heather, who is safe. Heather. My last remaining sister. My world. My heart.

Warm and soft. I let my heavy lids close as memories sweep over me. Aaron’s shy smile as he gave me a fresh pack of crayons, one where all the tips were sharp and unused, when all his other crayons were broken and dull. Callum when he invited me to dance and made me forget that I was supposed to be crying over my dead dad. Hael as he let me try out his bike, holding it up and pushing me along even after I’d already fallen and scratched it. Oscar using dull children’s scissors to make me a dress made up of a thousand pieces of paper. Victor shoving a kid down the slide for pulling my pigtails.

I cough one more time and then sweet, beautiful light sweeps in around me.

I’m not afraid anymore.

I’m queen of Havoc.

My being dead doesn’t change that.

And ending things like this? It’s how it’s always supposed to have been.

Without me to protect, there doesn’t need to be a Havoc.

The last thought that I have before I die is this: I set you free, boys. I set you fucking free.

Aaron Fadler

There have been times where I’ve regretted the things I’ve done. Was I too harsh? Did I cross too many lines? Never did I regret Bernadette Blackbird.

I’m sitting on the floor of the hospital with an arm banded around my knees, eyes closed, mouth pressed into the bloody leg of my jeans. I feel so ridiculously seventeen in that moment, like my birthday will never come, like I’ll be trapped forever in the unending halls of Prescott High, searching for dark zones and quelling rebellions.

“She was dead,” Callum whispers, his voice the most ragged I’ve ever heard it. It cracks and shatters with each word, like broken glass digging into my eardrums. It takes an extreme physical effort to keep my hands away from my ears. In fact, I want to dig my fingers into them until my eardrums are too damaged to hear whatever words the doctor might utter.

Time of death …

Death.

Bernadette, dead? When we were supposed to protect her? How? Why? I don’t understand any of it.

“She isn’t dead yet,” Oscar snaps, looking over at his friend like he might very well kill him. I can hardly look at them. Instead, I’m struggling to tear my attention away from Vic. I’ve never seen him look the way he does now, twirling his ring around his finger. With Bernadette gone, he’ll go home and put a bullet in his head.

I hate him for that because I know I don’t have that luxury. Heather needs someone to take care of her. Kara and Ashley need me. I close my eyes until I feel a warm hand on my shoulder. Lifting my head up, I find Hael with a Styrofoam cup in his other hand. He offers it to me.

“Coffee,” he says. He tries to smile, but it’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever seen. I think, if Bernie dies here tonight, that he’ll go on. But he’ll never be the same. Maybe, one day, ten years from now, he’ll marry a nice woman, but she’ll always catch him staring off into the sunset thinking about a girl who isn’t her. Then, one day, she’ll wake up and he’ll just be gone.

That’s Hael Harbin for ya.

“No thank you,” I manage to get out, forcing myself to stand up. I’m unsteady on my feet, but even with the wobbling and disorientation, I can’t miss the image of Police Girl making her way down the hall toward us. She looks appropriately sad for the situation. Maybe not all cops are bad after all?

“I’m so sorry to hear about Bernadette,” she says, and I see Oscar scowl so violently that Sara’s hand strays near the butt of the gun on her hip. She looks at him, but he just turns away to stare at the wall. Imagining Oscar without Bernadette is like imagining a grenade without a pin. He won’t last very long until he does something he regrets so deeply that he breaks. Cal … I can’t really look at Cal. He’ll either explode or implode, not sure which.

I bite my lip and rake my fingers through my hair.

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask, because Vic doesn’t function without Bernadette. I function because I have no other choice. Being a parent means you push on when all you want to do is curl up and die. And now I’m a parent to three girls. I’d always assumed Havoc would raise them with me, but … I don’t know anything anymore.

“Maxwell Barrasso is dead,” Sara tells me, and I nod. We know that, obviously. She glances briefly over at Hael, but he may as well be carved of stone. There’s a faint smile lingering on his lips, but it’s tainted with melancholy and colored with confusion. He isn’t sure what he should be doing right now. Because if we’re not protecting Bernadette, and we failed to protect Bernadette, then who the actual fuck are we? What the fuck is Havoc? “Anyway,” she continues, exhaling sharply. “I’m here to tell you that you’re all free to go.”

“Free to go?” I ask, and she gives me a smile that’s far too melancholic to be comforting. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I have all the information I need currently. Once you’re done here, you can … go home.” Sara tucks her hands into the pockets of her blue jacket. I just stare back at her because there are no words that I could say that would encompass my emotions right now.

I’m falling so fast and so hard that no matter where I land, my bones are likely to break. Shatter. Turn to dust. My knees feel weak, but Hael catches my elbow before I can collapse to the floor like the fool in love that I am.

Even though I know it isn’t true, I always wanted to believe that true love was stronger than anything else. That, if you had it, you could do anything. You had everything. I’m not sure what I believe anymore.

“That isn’t to say that I won’t have more questions later,” Sara says with a sigh. “But for now, we’re not charging your … family with anything.” She pauses again and then reaches out with a manila envelope. “If Bernadette somehow pulls through, give her this.”

Sara steps back and turns away, heading down the sterile hallway in the direction of the exit.

I watch her go and then look down, reaching inside the folder to see what Sara left in it.

It’s a page from a journal with thin pink lines and the faintest image of a rose in the background. The handwriting is looping and familiar. Penelope. I would recognize it anywhere. That same day, when Bernadette showed up at the playground and was instantly hated by everyone in it, Penelope was loved. I don’t think, at the time, she knew how to help her sister. By that time, she was already struggling with so much.

If only we’d had her back the way we had Bernadette’s.

I blink through what I think are tears, but I don’t give a shit what anyone else thinks.

“Shit,” Hael breathes as he reads the page ahead of me. “Bernie needs to see this.”

Dear Bernadette,

Sometimes I’m not good at saying all the things I need to say. So … I’m going to write it down here and maybe one day, I’ll feel brave enough to tell you.

Things have not been good for me for a long, long time. When I close my eyes at night, there are more nightmares than dreams now. It wasn’t always like that. Before Dad died, things were better. But now … You know that Dad’s mom lives in Nantucket, right? Well, she’s agreed to take me in.

I should’ve left a long time ago, but I wasn’t sure if Pamela or Neil would let me go. I’m afraid of them both, but I’m too afraid to stay, too. So, I’m leaving. I want you to come with me, but I know you won’t leave Heather. She can’t go with us because Neil will never let her go. They’ll come after us; they might even put us in another foster home like the Kushner’s.