Page 263 of What We Bury

Micah drags a hand down his face. “Yeah. Maybe. It has to be someone connected to Brock. Someone who’d have an issue with Sageandus.”

Eli moves closer. “It could even be someone we’ve never clocked—the diner, the bar, an ex. This could even have been meant for Amy, not Sage.” He shakes his head. “We’re guessing here. All we’ve got is a rope, two words, and a bunch of circumstance.”

“Then we pick the circumstances that require the least amount of mental gymnastics,” Milo says. “Who had access? Tyler. Who has reason to hurt Sage? Fucking Tyler. And who keeps popping up on our bad guy radar? Tyler-fucking-Kavanagh.” He holds up his fingers and counts them off. “One, two, three. I’m satisfied. Let’s go.”

“We’re not moving without evidence,” I grunt, raising my voice just enough for Milo’s shoulders to jump to his ears. “That’s not who we are. Stand. The. Fuck. Down.”

He sits back and folds his arms across his chest, pouting.

“I knew this was a mistake.” Eli sighs. “All of us. Around her. I knew it on the beach. I knew it when we started getting too close. And I let myself have it anyway.” His shoulders are rigid. “She was safer before us. A girl nobody looked at twice. Now we’ve made her into something worth hanging a rope for.”

“No.” Milo’s off the couch. “Don’t. Don’t you dare do this again.”

“Milo—”

“We are not the problem.” Milo’s voice cracks clean through. “Whoever walked into her apartment is the problem. Not you loving her. Not one single one of us.Them.”

“He’s not hearing you,” Micah says from the chair, flat and tired. “Look at him. He’s already gone.”

“You think this is the last one?” Eli’s looking at all of us now. “Let’s say this isn’t Tyler. Let’s say it’s Stephen—the guy evenFenrir hasn’t been able to track down. What’s he been saying, Milo? That he’ll escalate?” He pauses but Milo doesn’t respond. “This is escalating. Italwaysescalates. And every one of them comes through her, because of what we let her become to us.” His throat works. “We should have stayed away.”

“But you didn’t.” I say it once. Not comfort—fact. “None of us did. So be here. Own what we are.”

He looks at me, and for a second the thing under the mask shows. Fear, the pure kind. Then it’s gone, walled back over, and he’s pulling his jacket off the back of the chair.

“I need air.”

He doesn’t wait for any of us to respond. The front door opens and shuts, and through the window I watch him go down the path into the dark, away from the house, hands shoved deep, shoulders up around his ears.

The room goes quiet. Milo looks at Micah. I look at Micah. It’s the same look we’ve handed him a hundred times—go after him. You’re the one who can. You always have.

Micah lifts both hands off his knees, palms out. He doesn’t stand.

“No.”

Milo blinks. “Micah?—”

“I have spent years dancing with that man’s demons.” Micah’s voice is worn down to the grain. “I follow him out, I talk him off the ledge, I get the wall to come down an inch—and then he builds it back twice as thick and leaves me standing in the rubble. Every single time.” He looks at the door Eli walked through. “I’m done. If one of you wants to chase him into the dark and try to love some sense into him, be my guest. But it’s not me. Not tonight. Not anymore.” His jaw flexes. “He’s not mine to save.”

I’ve watched Micah go after Eli more times than I can count, through worse nights than this.Eli runs, Micah follows.It’s themost reliable thing about the two of them. Hearing Micah say no is like hearing a load-bearing wall announce it’s tired of holding the roof. Something just gave way in this house, and it isn’t the rope.

After a while Milo closes the laptop. “I’ll work from the kitchen. Better light.” He goes.

Micah takes the glasses to the sink. He stops by my chair on the way past, sets a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and I shake my head.

“Nothing to be sorry for.”

Then he follows Milo out.

Upstairs, the bath drains. Footsteps. The soft give of two people settling into a bed.

I stand. I sweep the house again, every latch, the back garden, the side gate, the lock on the den. All clear. I check the deadbolt. I check the chain.

Then I move the armchair—I don’t need or want a bed right now—positioning it so I can see the entire floor and entry points all at once. I sit. My hand finds the knife on my belt out of habit.

The anger that’s been under my ribs since I walked into her living room and saw that rope hasn’t moved all night. It’s not going to. But it has a direction now. Whoever did this—whoever’s patient and careful and thinks they can drop a noose over her life—is already dead. They just don’t know it yet.