Page 190 of What We Bury

But the rest of it? Wanting in?

That I understand.

“Kitten—”

“You promised to protect mewithme. Not behind my back, remember?”

And there it is. My own words, handed back to me like a grenade with the pin already pulled.

“You know the others are going to be a problem, right?” I lean on the counter. “Eli will literally have an aneurysm. Holden will say you’re a liability and then stare at a wall for twenty minutes. Knox will just look at you with those eyes and you’ll feel guilty even though you haven’t done anything wrong.”

“And Micah?”

“Micah will ask you if you’re sure and then support whatever you decide, because Micah is the only person in this group who should be allowed to interact with other humans unsupervised.”

She smiles. Small and fierce. “So what do I do?”

I straighten up. “You can’t just walk into a meeting and say ‘I want in’ because Eli will shut it down before you finish the sentence. You need skills. Real ones. Not just the stabbing instinct—which, incredible, truly, no notes—but actual technique.”

I hold up a hand before she can accuse me of plotting behind everyone’s back. “And I’m not saying we hide this forever. I’m saying we prepare you enough that when this goes to the group, you’re not asking for permission. You’re bringing a case.”

“Prepared,” she says.

“Exactly. Eli can say no to chaos. He has a harder time saying no to competence.”

She straightens on the stool. “What kind of skills?”

I grin at her. The big grin. The one that made Eli say, the first time he saw it,why does your smile make me nervous?

“How do you feel about pigs?”

FIFTY-TWO

MICAH

Atext wakes me late Saturday morning. I pick up my phone and swipe it open, staring at the screen through bleary eyes.

MILO:

Meet us here and bring a change of clothes.

No context or explanation. Just a pin to an address I don’t recognize and the implication that whatever I’m walking into is going to ruin what I’m wearing.

I should know better by now.

The GPS takes me to an industrial strip on the east side of town—the kind of place where every building looks designed by someone who hates windows. I pull into a gravel lot beside Milo’s truck and a refrigerated van with HANK’S QUALITY MEATS stenciled on the side in faded red.

Fitting.

The smell hits before I reach the door: cold metal, raw flesh, and that sweet edge that clings to the back of your throat. I’ve smelled worse—we all have—but not usually at this volume.

I push through a heavy steel door into a corridor lined with hooks. Empty ones, thankfully. The fluorescent lights overhead give everything that blue-white mortuary glow, and my sneakers squeak on tile that’s been scrubbed so many times the grout has given up and turned pink.

I hear Milo before I see him.

“No, no, no—you gottacommitto it. Don’t saw. One clean stroke. Like you’re unzipping a jacket.”

I round the corner into the main processing room and stop.