world.
Unaware that she’s being stalked, Kali saunters down the hall like she’s queen, greeting Billie briefly and talking long enough that the other students clear out before she heads for the east hall. For the dark zone.
I slip out from behind the lockers as soon as Billie’s disappeared into the bathroom. I walk quickly but quietly, my boots gliding across the scratched and stained tiles that have lined these halls since my grandparents went to this stupid school.
As soon as I turn the corner and spot Kali, I start to run.
She turns around to look, tucking some hair behind her ear in the process.
“The hell?” That’s all she manages to get out before my fingers are digging into the back of her head, nails gouging her scalp as she gasps and reaches up to pry my hand away. “I’m pregnant,” she gushes suddenly, a truly cowardly move meant to save her own skin. Guarantee you the second I let go, she’d attack me instead.
“Oh, I already know that,” I purr, channeling Vic, channeling Oscar, channeling the pure emotional malevolence that is Havoc. Leaning in, I put my lips against Kali’s cheek, kissing her and staining her skin with my bloodred lipstick. “But as a friend once said, your face isn’t pregnant.”
I shove Kali forward and slam her face into the front of one of the lockers. She chokes on blood as hot red liquid streams from her nose and over her lips. I know she’s working to become a model. This incident might not change her life, but she won’t be pretty for a while, that’s for sure.
“You can thank Billie for this,” I hiss at her as my own face throbs. I cleaned it again last night, reapplied some butterfly bandages. The whole time, all I could think about were Oscar’s long, tattooed fingers caressing my cheek and arm. “Consider it an eye for an eye.”
Kali struggles, but my grip on her is too good. I shove her into the locker a second time, and she tries to scream. Too bad for her, I know exactly how to hold a bitch’s head back so that it’s hard to make a sound. With her neck curved the way it is, the best she can do is gasp and whimper.
My mind flickers back to Halloween night, to Kali sitting all cuddled up next to the Thing.
She could be a victim of his, too. I know that, and yet … nobody made her call Havoc.
She did that all on her own.
“You fucking whore,” she gasps out, but then I shove her forward again. Too hard maybe. Her knees buckle and she flags to the floor. There’s blood everywhere, but my vision is colored red, too, so it’s hard for me to tell.
Danny Ensbrook lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. Penelope screaming beneath the Thing. Kali laughing as she slipped into my stolen homecoming dress.
I think if gentle hands hadn’t grabbed me from behind, I might’ve killed her then.
“That’s enough, Bernadette,” a dark voice whispers in my ear, and then I’m overwhelmed with the smell of Callum’s aftershave. It’s a hard scent to describe, like private exchanges behind closed doors and pillow talk on a rainy morning.
I gasp like I’m coming to, releasing Kali’s hair as he hauls me backward, enveloping me in those strong arms of his.
“I’ve got you, Bernie,” Cal whispers, squeezing me tight, his head bent over mine, the hood of his sweatshirt hiding us from the world. “I’ve got you.” He holds me tighter than I’d ever imagine to be comfortable, but there’s something soothing about it. I feel my rage melting away, logic trickling back into my clouded vision.
Kali is on the ground, covered in blood and groaning.
Callum leaves her there, taking me by the hand and pulling me down the hall to the boys’ bathroom. He sits me down on the closed lid of the toilet and gathers up a wad of paper towels, letting the water in the old sinks run hot before he gets them damp.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” I say, my voice colored with dark wonder. Cal crouches in front of me, smiling tightly as he reaches out and takes my hand in his, carefully brushing aside Kali’s blood spatters.
“I can,” he says, voice gravelly and broken, but beautiful anyway, like a shattered tombstone on a sunny day. It’s a little sad, but the sun is warm, and the view is right. “Because I’ve been there. Remember how