“Last chance, Bernadette,” the Thing says, putting his hand on the radio at his hip. “Say it, or I call you and your friend Aaron here in.” He pulls the radio out and pauses as a clicking sound comes from behind his head; it’s the distinct sound of a gun’s hammer being pulled back.
“Don't make your final mistake here, Neil. I'd hate to have to scrub your brains off the walls of Aaron's living room.”
Vic's voice is ice-cold, his full mouth twisted in a dark frown. His purple-black hair is slicked back from his face, still wet from a shower, his makeup wiped clean, clothes fresh and blood-free. As soon as I see him, a dark thrill travels through me, one that tastes like sweet, heavy poison.
“And if you think I'm bluffing, go ahead and test me.”
The fury that lights my stepfather's face scares the crap out of me. He has friends; he has connections.
And he came here for a reason.
“I knew I shouldn't have followed you here,” Vaughn murmurs, still wringing his hands.
“Excellent observation,” Oscar says, suddenly standing behind the principal. A chill traces over my skin. How the fuck did he get in here without me noticing? His gray eyes are focused on the back of Vaughn’s head, his revolver held rock steady in a single hand. He pulls the hammer back and keeps smiling.
Hael swaggers in from the kitchen (I figure he, at least, must've used the exterior door that leads into the laundry room), while Callum slides open the patio door. He has the bat in his hand still and while he’s cleaned up, the weapon’s still stained red.
The energy in that room suffocates me, climbing down my throat like smoke. I find it suddenly hard to breathe.
“Don’t worry, Bernie. Neil’s just a dickless, neutered dog,” Vic reassures me, stone-cold, immovable. But he strikes that chord deep within me, shaking away the ice crystals that cling to my soul. He eats away the numb and leaves me bleeding. Who can staunch that bleeding? Me? Am I supposed to bandage my own emotional wounds? “His hands are tied; we have dirt on him.”
“And why don’t you tell my lovely stepdaughter what, exactly, that is?” Neil asks, turning around to face Victor, not at all concerned about the gun in his face. The way that man smiles, it cuts to the marrow in my bones and rots me from the inside out. Right here, this is the type of person who only gets pleasure from watching others suffer. “You can’t though, can you? Because you’re afraid to.”
The thing about Neil though, is that he’s underestimated Victor Channing.
“We have a video of him,” Vic says, nodding his chin in Neil’s direction. “With your sister Penelope.”
On the outside, I do nothing. I’m still standing there, trying to help Aaron keep his feet, blood smearing across my hands. On the inside, I’m shattering into a mosaic of hurt and pain and rage. It’s leaded glass, that mosaic, and my anger is the iron that holds all the pretty pieces together. One day, I’m going to pick up one of those pieces and I’m going to stab Neil Pence through the empty cavity where his heart should be.
“Neil, what the hell is going on?” Kali asks, crossing an arm over her still-flat stomach and looking between Victor and the Thing with a particularly vacuous facial expression. Nobody ever said the lying little twit had any working brain cells. Principal Vaughn looks like he might shit his pants. “You said we were going to come over here and put a stop to all this.”
“A stop to what?” Oscar asks innocently, pushing his glasses up his nose with an inked middle finger while at the same time keeping his revolver trained on Scott. “A raucous Halloween night? I see Kali came in costume. It’s quite popular for girls to dress up like whores on All Hallows’ Eve, isn’t it?”
“Fuck you, Montauk,” she snarls, smoothing her hands down her pale pink skirt. Despite Oscar’s quip, she didn’t dress up, she didn’t come to Stacey’s party. She abandoned Mitch’s pathetic clown crew, but why? What is she doing here? What is Vaughn doing here? And why are three of the seven people on my list standing in this room?
“You have one minute to fuck off out of here before we make all three of you disappear—permanently.” Victor steps back and drops the gun to his side. His eyes are like two dark pools, ready