Page 26 of What We Bury
Her eyes lift from the coffee. “How?”
“We’re very good at our jobs.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer you need.” I take another sip. “The point is, nobody is looking for him because he isn’t missing. He’s just . . . somewhere else. And as long as everyone buys that story—which they will, because people always believe the version that requires the least effort—then you and me and my friends will never have to think about last night again.”
“You expect me to just . . . forget it?”
“I expect you to not talk about it. What you do inside your own skull is your business.” Just like the fantasy of fucking her on that bloody sand is mine. “But out here—” I gesture at the diner, at the world beyond the window, at the whole sunlit, oblivious town going about its morning. “Out here, last night never happened. You went to a party. A guy walked you home. You went to bed. End of story.”
She’s quiet for a long time. The ceiling fan whirs. The waitress refills coffees four booths over. Outside, a seagull screams at a trash can.
“And if I can’t do that? If I—if someone asks me something and I?—”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, actually.” I set my mug down. “Here’s the thing about last night, wildcat. We didn’t kill the guy. I mean—we helped, sure. But you did the actual deed. You picked up a knife and you went to work on him, and I’m not judging—trust me, I’m the last person in this diner who’s going to judge you for that—but the fact remains. If this ever comes to light, you’re not a witness. You’re a participant. And we have the murder weapon.”
I watch the words hit her. Watch her flinch, then recover, then file it away behind whatever wall she’s been building inside herself since long before last night.
She presses her palms flat against the table. “So this is blackmail.”
I give her a slow nod. “If it makes you feel better to call it that, yeah. But nobody’s asking you for money, and I’m not the one who needs leverage here.”
She doesn’t blink. “You want insurance.”
“Bingo.” I smile, because it’s the truth and because most people recoil from honesty when it’s sharper than the lie they expected. “We’re in this together now, remember? I can’t riskyou blowing our cover, and you can’t risk us ratting you out. Mutually assured destruction. It’s a classic for a reason.”
The ghost of something—not a smile but close to one—twitches at the corner of her mouth. It’s gone before it fully forms, but I see it. I want to see it again. I want to be the one who put it there.
My pancakes arrive and I begin to eat. She watches me with vague disgust, as if appetite after violence is its own kind of crime.
Fair enough. But I’ve been doing this long enough that the violence and the hunger exist in separate rooms in my head. I can close the door between them whenever I need to.
She’ll learn. Or she won’t. Either way, the pancakes here are decent.
“So, last night—your friends,” she starts while I’m mid-bite. “Is that something you do a lot?”
“Hang rapists?” I say with my mouth full. She nods, eyes big as she waits for my answer.
I chew. Swallow. Take a sip of my coffee. Then I meet her gaze.
“Every chance we get.”
NINE
SAGE
“What can I get you?”
I’m ninety minutes into my shift and Gull’s is packed—every booth full, every stool occupied, the kitchen window stacking plates faster than I can carry them. My feet have moved past pain into numb, throbbing acceptance. I move through it all on autopilot, smiling when I’m supposed to smile, refilling when I’m supposed to refill, sayingcoming right upandcan I get you anything elsewhile my brain is somewhere else entirely.
My bedroom.
I went back home to get my uniform after my meeting with Holden. He’d walked me back to my building, grinning like it was all a date, then vanished before I could ask whether he’d be watching from the street. Amy and Tyler had already left for the day.
