I stay on the phone as I make my way over to the car, waiting as Victor contemplates what I’ve just proposed. If he agrees, he’ll text Callum, and we’ll move forward with the new plan. As of right now, Brittany should be pulling up to the stoplight at the corner of Fuller and Parrish. Cal should be rising up from the backseat like a specter, hands reaching for her neck … He’ll knock Brittany out, take over control of the vehicle, and that’s that.
“Okay,” Vic finally agrees. “But if this backfires on us, it’s your ass.” He pauses a minute for dramatic effect—typical Channing behavior—and then hands the phone back to Bernadette. As soon as I get home, I’m going to beg her to put some tall heels on for me again, so I can fuck away the nightmare of imagining what’s happening to Brittany.
I pause next to the Firebird and unlock it as Bernie’s voice pours through the line like black silk.
Even if I don’t always know who I am and what I want, I do know one thing: cars are in my fucking blood.
Cars … and Bernadette Blackbird.
Bernadette Blackbird
“Pack your shit,” Vic says as I crack my eyes open and find him sitting on the edge of the bed. Hael is still passed out naked beside me, sunlight streaming across his bare ass. Fuck, you could bounce a quarter off that. I bite my lip as I sit up with a groan, rubbing at my forehead.
“Pack for where?” I ask, and Victor gives me a tight smile.
“The snow,” he says, and then he stands up, giving Hael’s bare ass a dark look.
“Victor,” I start, pushing the blankets aside and rubbing at the soreness in my side. The stitches might be out, but I’ve still got some healing left to do. As least I’ve stopped seeing Kali’s ghost—for the time being anyway. “Why the fuck are you talking about snow?” I ask, leaning over to slap Hael on the ass. I just can’t resist an ass that fine, not even this early in the morning. He snorts at me, but he doesn’t move from his prone position in the center of the bed.
Vic leans his big body against the doorjamb, the edge of his beautifully vindictive mouth curving up in the corner. I can vaguely hear Heather, Kara, and Ashley playing outside the closed sliding glass doors. The curtains are mostly drawn but every now and again, their shadows break apart the sunlight that’s peeping in.
“We’re going on the Oak Valley skiing retreat,” Victor tells me, and I laugh. In fact, I start laughing and then I just can’t seem to stop, doubling over and groaning as the healing skin on my side pulls. Still, I laugh for so hard and so long that I’ve got tears.
“Come again?” I ask, looking up at Vic as I dab away wetness from the corners of my eyes with the edge of the sheet. “Did you just say we were going on a skiing retreat?” The words feel funny coming out of my mouth, like they’re in a foreign language or something. “With Oak Valley Preparatory Academy?” I say the whole name of the school, just so the pretentious nature of the situation isn’t lost on anyone.
“The fuck?” Hael asks, turning his head to look at me and Vic. “Are you drunk or something?”
“Trinity invited me,” Victor replies smoothly, his mouth twisting into a bemused smile. I pretend like I don’t care, curling my fingers against the mattress, scraping claws to help me fight the intense primal flicker of my baser urges. Jealousy. Vic glances at me with his obsidian eyes, looking years older than eighteen, millennia wiser. “I want to see if I can’t figure out where she and Ophelia connect, why my mother would shove that girl in my face.” His smile dips slightly as he runs a hand up and down the inked length of his arm. A lion grins back at me, its sharp-toothed maw wide as it begins to roar. “James Barrasso is going on the trip, too, by the way—despite the fact that he doesn’t attend Oak Valley either. It’s just one big web here in Springfield.” Victor rolls his eyes and then pushes up off the door, pausing to point at me and Hael with a tattooed finger. “Pack. Snow. Now. We leave in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty?!” I choke out, scrambling from the bed as Hael wraps his arm around my waist and yanks me right back. He pins my mostly naked body under his very naked one. “You heard the boss, Hael.” But my chastisement does nothing to steal the grin from his lips.
“I can be done in five,” he purrs, licking the side of my face. But then his expression turns real serious, real fast. Maybe he’s thinking about Brittany? Wouldn’t surprise me. He’s been dealing with her calls all week, her crying, frantic, terrified phone calls. She’s back at home, obviously, but all is not right in her world. Now that she thinks Hael is on her side again, he has to field those calls while a snake of envy wraps itself around my throat. “But you’re right. I need time to pack some sex toys. We can continue this later.” His honey-almond eyes sparkle as he pushes up and away from me, just in time for Aaron to move into the room, his medical boot banging against the doorjamb.
“I want to talk to you about the girls,” he says, and I nod, leaving Hael to stand in the corner, naked and contemplating the nightstand drawer full of sex paraphernalia. I leave him where he is and find my hands on the sides of my lover’s face. Aaron leans into the touch, lifting his left hand up to take mine. Of all the boys, he looks the most like a wicked angel. His wavy chestnut hair is beyond adorable, but his muscles are hard, his tattoos a vibrant journey from childhood to … whatever this is. Hell, maybe, interspersed with bouts of heaven.
“I assume we have babysitting plans already in place?” I ask, and Aaron gives me a dark look.
“Not quite,” he says, pulling my hand down from his face and weaving our tattooed fingers together. I love that he gave me my HAVOC tattoo. Whenever I look at it, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll think of Aaron. “Victor wants to take the girls to Oak River today.”
I just stare back at him without blinking for a minute.
Nobody can protect Heather better than I can. Nobody. The thought comes to me unbidden. It feels true though. Thus far, it has been true. I don’t want to be separated from my little sister. Not now, not until she’s old enough to move out and start a life of her own. That’s the whole point of this, isn’t it? For us to be together.
No, the whole point of this is to keep her safe—regardless of how it makes you feel.
“Oak River …” There could be monsters hiding behind those walls. I know for a fact that there are—or at least were—monsters there. Donald Asher was only one of a million spoiled rich kids with the devil crouching on his shoulder. But just because I prefer the brutal honestly and bloodshed of Prescott to the sneaking deviance of the wealthy, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some advantages to Heather attending that school.
Everybody knows—whether they admit or not—that privilege starts early. The parents who can afford to send their kids to wealthy schools always say things like, I’m not putting my child at a disadvantage to make a point! if you confront them about equally funding public schools and sending their kid to one.
There’s a meme about it, with one of the main characters from the movie Mean Girls. Regina George is leaning forward, and she says something to the effect of, “So you agree then? You agree that private schools give the wealthy an advantage over the lower classes?” It ensures that the best and the brightest don’t always succeed. Because how can you if you have to work an extra job after school to help pay rent while someone else is given private violin lessons? The system does not ensure the smartest or most capable become doctors or scientists or politicians; it favors the rich.
So.
Will I send Heather to a private school the way so many wealthy people do? To give her an advantage that I know she’d never have if she worked her way through Springfield’s poverty-stricken school system?
Before I can answer that question—for myself or anyone else—Aaron gears himself up to say whatever it is that’s on his mind.
“Bernadette,” he begins, giving me a look that says I’m not going to like what he’s about to say. “We have our crew all over the city; you know that.” He pauses and glances away for a moment before turning
his attention back to me. “Pamela was seen with Ophelia this morning.”
I just stare back at him, but my knees feel suddenly weak and I put a hand on the wall to brace myself.
“Okay,” I reply, because my stomach has already hollowed out and I feel sick to the point of vomiting. I don’t have custody over Heather. That’s one of the things that’s been bugging me, eating at my brain like a parasite. I might be emancipated, but my sister is not. Challenging Pamela through the court system won’t work either. Actually, it might make things worse. I have no idea what Neil’s brother or father might do if they find out about a legal battle. What if, now that Neil is gone, they get involved?
“We can get the girls into the school to start on Monday. Actually, they can move in today.” Aaron’s face is pinched. He looks like he wants to punch something. This is where we understand each other best, as sibling-parents who never wanted the job of raising little girls, who resent it, but who would give their lives to keep working that job forever.
“How?” I ask, because I already know what I’m going to say now. I have to agree to this. I have to. Because it isn’t about me and my wants. It’s about keeping the girls safe. Here, with us, might be the safest place in the world, but we can’t always be with them. And we can’t keep them locked up like they’re in prison.
“You know those two contacts Oscar got out of Coraleigh?” Aaron asks, and it takes me a second to remember. Oh. The day he tied me up and fucked me. That day. “Both of them have wives on the schoolboard for Oak River.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much fucking better,” I snap back at him. “Pedophiles on the schoolboard.”
“Wives on the schoolboard,” Aaron corrects, but his voice is hollow, like he’s trying his hardest to convince me of something he also doesn’t want. “We can get them in with fake names. Bernie, we can hide them from the GMP and Ophelia. One of our crew works at the library there; he can keep an eye on them.” He pauses for a moment and sighs heavily. “Look, I don’t like this any better than you do, but we make hard choices in this life. You know that.”
“The rich people in this town are so fucked-up,” I groan, rubbing at my face with my hand. “What if one of their teachers is a pedo?”
“What if one of the teachers they have now is like Vaughn?” Aaron retorts, and I groan, sagging against the wall. He takes me into his arms, cast be damned. “Look, this isn’t permanent. It’s for now. We will figure this out. We always do. Besides, once Victor gets his inheritance, we can do anything, Bernie. Our methods, that money …” He trails off as I rest my forehead against his chest.
“I hate this,” I murmur, but I know he’s right. I know he is.
“Me, too,” he says, holding me there until Hael finally snaps out of his own funk and appears just in time to smack me in the ass.
“Better get moving,” he says, slipping past us and up the stairs.
I pull myself away from Aaron, our eyes meeting in a look of shared pain and frustration.
We’ll do this, but it’s going to piss us both off.
Gods help the next person who gets in our way.
I thought I wouldn’t cry, but I did. Especially when Heather looked at me after I explained that we were going to play a game, that she was going to call herself Hannah for a while. “To keep the bad guys from finding me, huh?” was how she replied to that. Because kids are always smarter than we give them credit for.
Shit, I’m seventeen and people like Sara Young tell me to lay off the caffeine, like I’m still a child.
“A bus?” I ask, as we pull into the driveway of a mansion in the Oak Park neighborhood. Jesus. Even ritzier than Oak River Heights. The entire place stinks of desperate wealth. I’ve always wondered if the rich have no souls, if they have to horde things and hurt others to feel anything at all. If they really did have souls, they wouldn’t crave so much pomp and circumstance.
I wore a special shirt today that says Eat the Rich.
Shit, I even left my raggedy winter coat open so Trinity could read the text without issue.
“A bus,” Victor confirms as Hael parks the Bronco in front of the garage doors of the house. Trinity is waiting on the porch, looking annoyed. She’s dressed like a typical snow bunny in a belted white down coat, white pants, and knee-high boots trimmed in fur that I’m sure isn’t faux.
“Let’s just drive ourselves,” Hael groans as I shift on Callum’s lap in the back seat. There are only five seats in the Bronco, so we made do. Either Vic thinks it’s too cold for the Harley—doubtful—or he just didn’t want to leave his metal baby in Trinity’s driveway.
“Get out,” Vic says, looking over his shoulder just once to make sure we all get the message. Play nice. I scowl at him as he exits the vehicle, moving around to the back to retrieve our bags.
“Did she know we were all coming?” Cal muses as he studies Trinity out the window. She’s looking straight at me, her hatred penetrating the glass. I ignore her and turn back to Callum.
“You mean, did she know that I was coming?” I ask, and then I slide off of his lap as Hael opens the door for me. He takes my hand as I hop out in my heeled black hiking boots. Yeah, they do make those. But only badass bitches can wear them.
I light up a cigarette as I stand there in the icy morning, a hint of frost in the air. It might snow. Doesn’t often in Springfield. Or, it used to not snow. Climate change and all that.
“She knew,” Victor tells me, striding past with his bag in his hand. I watch him go, glancing over at Trinity. She’s an Oak Valley Prep girl, through and through. She knows about Havoc, even if she wants to pretend that she’s above us somehow. Likely, she even knows what we did to Donald. The rumor mill has churned out stories of the boys’ brutality for years.
I rub at the bare spot on my finger where my wedding ring is supposed to sit. It’s on a chain under my shirt instead, but I’m most definitely not going to pretend like the promise of a divorce is enough to keep me away from Vic.
“Eventually, I’m going to get her alone in a room …” I start and Aaron gives me a tight smile.
“Just pretend like you’ve fallen in love with your ex again and see what she does. It shouldn’t be that hard to fake it, right?” His smile gets a bit wider, a bit more boy next door mixed with tattoos and bullshit. I grin back at him, moving around to get my bag when I see that one of the guys has already taken it and loaded it into the bus.
Oscar is standing there with his iPad in hand, but when he looks up, I can see that he’s dreading this just as much as I am.
I think about what he said to me the night of the murder mystery party. “I’m sorry that I’m not good at this, Bernadette.” There are so many things between us that need to be said, so many things that I’m dying to know.
“We should talk,” I say, before I lose my nerve. Oscar turns his head slowly to look at me, but at least he doesn’t snap back with some overly defensive bullshit. We stare at each other as his white glasses slide down his nose and he fixes them with a single finger. His middle one, of course, because how could he possibly not be a dick for two seconds?
“Since I'm sure Victor will be spending most of his time this weekend with Trinity …” Oscar leans in close to me, trailing his inked fingers down the length of my arm. The move is casual, not unexpected between lovers, but this is Oscar we’re talking about. Nothing he does is casual. He’s nothing if not a man of careful calculations and purposeful intent. That, and I'm sure I could live a thousand lives, die a thousand deaths, and I would never forget what he told me, why he doesn’t like to be touched. You know how he did it; he tried to strangle me. “You'll have plenty of free time to spend chatting with me.”
He draws his hand back suddenly, staring down at it with a sharp frown, like he isn't sure why he touched me in the first place.
Oscar takes off for the bus, leaving me alone with Aaron. I glance over to find him watching me, his face contemplative but peaceful. That’s a bit of a surprise for me to see,
considering we just sent our girls away.
“How are you not freaking out?” I ask, reaching both hands up to adjust the high pony I've gathered my hair into. “About the girls, I mean. It's all I can think about. Heather, at that school, with all those rich fucks …”
Aaron smiles at me, and the shape his mouth makes, it can only be described as the color of a summer sunset or a hug you didn't know you needed until warm arms wrap around you and hold you close.
“What you're doing with Heather,” he begins, stepping forward and touching his thumb to my lower lip. Even just that simple touch resurrects so many good memories for me and so many wishes for the future. That's how powerful first love can be, a transcendent force so powerful it could defy gravity itself. “Is what I wanted to do for you all along. Nantucket, remember?” Aaron winks at me to soften the blow, but he's right. He is so fucking right. Sending Heather away keeps her safe, and I'm the only one that suffers.
“Fuck,” I murmur as he chuckles at me. “You're right, I know you're right, but that doesn't make it any easier.”
Aaron leans down toward me, brushing his sweet mouth across mine, smelling like sandalwood and roses and future hope.
“It should,” he whispers, moving his lips from my mouth to my cheek and then pressing a gentle kiss there. “Because it means you've learned to truly put somebody else first. You miss Heather, but she's in the best possible place she could be. You kept her safe by sacrificing your time together. It's not an easy thing to do.” Aaron pauses and looks up, running his tongue along his lower lip as he notices Trinity glaring at us from her position near the bus. “Pretty sure we’re making everyone late,” he says with another laugh, one that very clearly says I don’t give a shit if we are.
Oak Valley Prep students might like schedules and punctuality, but Prescott students just play shit by ear. We do things on our own fucking timeline. After all, we operate assuming ours is shorter than other people’s.
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