Page 175 of What We Bury

Sage sends through a row of heart emojis and I close the chat with the biggest smile I’ve worn since the beach and actually take time to clean up my mess. Holden hands me a napkin, and instead of sarcasm, he just wipes his own hands and says, “She’s got us.”

I nod. Yeah. She fucking does.

FORTY-EIGHT

SAGE

Istare at the clock on the wall, willing it to click over to five, practically vibrating behind the counter.

I’ve wiped down the same section of Formica three times. My body is here, but my brain checked out about an hour ago—already halfway home, already picturing the two men who’ll be waiting for me when I get there.

Today marks three weeks since that night under the jetty. And to say my life is drastically changed would be the understatement of the century.

“Okay, spill.” Jamie slides onto his stool with an eager look on his face. After our conversation yesterday—the one Milo interrupted with his over-the-top apology—I’m starting to think Jamie might become a real friend. Not a replacement for Amy. Nothing that simple. But close enough that the rare contact I’ve been having with her doesn’t sting quite so sharply.

“Spill what, exactly?” I ask, meeting his kind eyes.

“You’ve been grinning at salt shakers since I got here. What’s got you so jazzed? Hot date for a Friday night?”

“Something like that.” I can’t keep the smile off my face. I don’t even try.

“Something like that, she says.” He props his chin on his hand. “You look like someone who won the lottery and is trying to act casual about it.”

“I’m not acting casual.”

“No, you’re not.” He grins. “Go. Get out of here. The clock just hit five.”

I bounce on my toes. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“As long as you come back with details.” He points his finger at me. “I’m living vicariously through you now. It’s the least you can do.”

I untie my apron, grab my bag, and practically skip out the door. The bells jangle behind me and the evening air hits my face—warm, salt-tinged, golden—and I feel something I haven’t felt in so long I almost don’t recognize it.

Happy. I feel happy.

The walk home takes twelve minutes.

I’ve done it enough times now that I know every crack in the sidewalk, every streetlight that flickers, every patch of pavement where the tree roots have shoved up through the concrete like the town is trying to break its own bones.

Tonight, the walk feels different.

Not safe, exactly. I don’t think I’m built for that word anymore. Safe is too clean. Too absolute. Safe is something people say right before the floor drops out from under them.

But I feel . . . held.

Which is insane, because I’m alone—physically. I’m sure one of them is watching from somewhere, somehow.

But as far as I can observe, there’s no Knox beside me, silent and massive and steady. No Holden parked across the street pretending surveillance is casual. No Milo materializing out of nowhere with food and chaos and that grin that makes everydark thing in my head trip over its own feet. No Micah’s hand at the small of my back. No Eli’s autumn eyes turning me inside out from a shadow somewhere.

Just me. My sore feet. The sea air. The leftover heat under my skin from last night.

By any reasonable measure, my focus should be the murder. The danger. The dead men. The cameras. The fact that five killers have folded themselves so thoroughly around my life that I can’t always find the seam between being protected and being wanted.

But it isn’t.

It’s them. What happens to me when I think about them. And not just the sex, though God, the sex is a significant percentage of the problem. My brain has become an unhinged little animal with no hobbies left except replaying hands and mouths and voices in the dark.

But under the noise of all that wanting is the part that should actually frighten me. And it’s not the bodies or the cameras. It’s that in three weeks, every one of them has found a place under my ribs, and I don’t know what happens if one of them leaves.