the cart, heading down the aisle in black jeans and a white t-shirt, one of the most casual outfits I've ever seen him wear. I let him go, grabbing a small red basket instead and loading it up with the ingredients I need for tonight's dinner. Once I'm finished, I wait near the self-checkout, sipping my coffee and waiting for Oscar.
As far as mornings go, this one is terribly boring.
But I have a feeling this is just the calm before the storm.
You don't murder a teenage boy and just walk away from the ramifications.
Oscar rejoins me a while later, but we don't talk to each other.
Once we've paid for the food and loaded it up, I climb back into Hael's car and sit in silence while Oscar starts some orchestral piece that gives me the chills. Checking the title of the song on his phone, I see that it's Heaven, We're Already Here by The Maine, only … a music-only version of the original. The sound of it gives me the chills.
“Do you have the video?” I ask as we make the turn into Aaron's quiet, little suburban neighborhood. I don't have to specify; Oscar knows what I'm talking about. The video with … Penelope. And the Thing.
They have a video; they have proof. All this time, they've held the one thing I needed in their clutches. Havoc's reaching claws have no qualms about drawing blood from the innocent.
They're using Penelope's pain to keep the police at bay.
They're using mine.
Oscar says nothing, pulling into the driveway and then handing me his iPad.
I wait until he's climbed out before I press play on the video he's pulled up.
My mind goes blank, and everything that makes me, me … it all just disappears.
The world is evil; I've always known the world is evil.
But this, it’s even worse than I ever could’ve imagined.
My hands shake and fat tears roll down my face as I watch what I already knew to be true take place on a shiny glass screen sitting in my lap. My sister's most unbearable pain, and there it is, etched into technology forever.
I make myself watch the whole thing; if Penelope suffered then I can at least watch. I can watch. I can fucking watch.
Throwing the passenger side door open, I fall to my knees with the iPad clutched against my chest. Pushing up to my feet, I start running. I have no idea where I'm going, but I can't stay here. Heather will be safe with Havoc.
Despite everything else I know about them, I believe that part to be true.
So I run and I don't stop, holding the iPad like I'm holding Penelope's heart in my hand.
“Bernadette!” It's Oscar's voice, calling out to me.
But he doesn't stop me, and I don't slow down, pushing myself so hard that I trip and fall more than once, bruising my bare knees on the concrete, turning them bloody.
Numb, numb, numb.
All I want to be is numb.
Numb, like when I was locked in the closet. Numb, like when my foster brother smoothed his hands over my budding breasts. Numb. Forever numb.
How could they? All this time, they had this video. All this time.
The Thing knew—he knew—that this would freak me out, that it would make me question everything I thought I knew about the Havoc Boys. And he was right. I hate that more than anything, that he knew exactly how to get under my skin and destroy me.
There's video proof of Neil Pence raping my older sister.
And I hold it in my hands.
But if I turn it in, he goes to prison … and so do the boys.
At first, I don't realize where I'm going, not until I find myself outside the door to the Southside Dreams Dance Company.
I push my way in, my face wet with tears, my legs wet with blood, and I find my way down the hall to Studio C.
“Get the fuck out,” I snarl as soon as I step inside, still clutching the iPad, my skin soaked in fresh sweat, my heart in pieces. Callum pauses at the front of the room, turning to look at me with eyes the color of melancholy. That's what they are; they're not even blue, not really. Blue doesn't look like that, like a pool of a thousand tears, like crushed dreams and fragmented realities.
“Excuse me?” one of the girls at the front asks, and I flick my green eyes over to hers. If I were certain I could stop myself