whines, and there’s just something in her voice that tells me she’d do anything to be a part of us, to become a Havoc Girl herself. We should never have indulged her price with Bernadette. Even though it goes against everything we stand for, we should’ve just spirited her away in the woods and buried her.
I adjust my position and cringe; my entire body hurts. Seriously, there’s not a fucking part on me that doesn’t ache. My fingers subconsciously seek out the bullet wound on my shoulder that still isn’t healed all the way. It feels extra tender and sore right now.
“How do you mean?” Ophelia asks, clearly losing her patience with Kali. She glances over at the girl, her makeup refined and elegant, her hair coiffed. It looks like she might’ve been on her way out the door to dinner or something. Ophelia, I mean, obviously. Kali looks like any random southside girl, her makeup too thick, her hoop earrings too big, tits hanging out, shorts up her ass crack. I mean, Bernie dresses like that sometimes, too, but it’s cute as fuck when she does it.
Kali looks down at me, and there’s something in her expression that scares the fuck out of me.
There’s a twisted, unearned, and unwanted sense of affection.
“He’s not just a school friend to Victor,” Kali says with a sigh, reaching out to touch the side of my face. I jerk back from her and scowl, but I don’t say a word. Not a goddamn word. Ophelia and I do not have a good history together. Despite the fact that I held a knife to her throat at the beach house not all that long ago—I should’ve seriously killed her when I had the chance—we’ve had verbal brawls for years. “They’re like brothers. If we tell Vic that we have Aaron, he’ll do whatever you want.”
Ophelia muses on this for a moment before glancing over at Tom. They exchange a look before she turns her dark gaze back on me.
“I have a hard time believing that,” she murmurs, cocking her head slightly to one side. “But I suppose it’s worth trying. We can always kill him later.” She smiles at me, and it is most definitely the smile of a reptile. “Alright, Aaron. Get up and let’s go. I suppose you’ll get to see how much your little gang really means to my son. Unfortunately for you, I have a feeling you’re going to get a rude awakening.”
Tom spins the shotgun around and before I can even think up a way out of this, he’s hitting me in the head with the butt of it and I’m slumping back down into the trunk.
The last image I see before everything goes black is Bernadette, smiling at me.
Bernadette Blackbird
We spend the rest of the night and all of the next day looking for Aaron.
We find absolutely nothing.
Nothing at all.
I can’t sleep the following night, pacing the floor in the living room and running my hand over my face to swipe away the tears.
“Bernie,” Callum says softly, slipping in the back door in his hoodie and shorts. He’s been out for hours, searching fruitlessly. I go stone-still, waiting for whatever information he’s brought back with him. When Cal looks away from me, my heart shatters, and my knees go weak.
“Where is he, Cal?” I whisper, but Callum just turns back to me, his blue gaze glittering in the moonlight. Hael is asleep on the couch beside me while Oscar sits in the chair between the two sofas. Victor steps onto the porch behind Callum, face drawn, mouth in a thin, flat line. “Where is he?” I repeat, trying not to get hysterical.
We all saw Aaron get pulled out of the car; we all saw him flee into the woods.
So where the fuck is he? He’s not at any of the boys’ regular rendezvous points. He hasn’t called us. He isn’t coming home. This is my worst nightmare come true. Just thinking about the possibility that something happened to him …
“I’m sorry, Bernadette,” Cal whispers, voice even huskier and more broken than usual, like glass in a graveyard. “If anyone should’ve been spirited away, it should’ve been me.” He closes his eyes and slumps against the doorframe while Vic pushes the slider open the rest of the way and stalks in.
I don’t know how to tell Callum that I could never choose between him and Aaron. Regardless of who went missing, I would feel this way. Then again, what