Page 31 of What We Bury

She glances up at me. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Knox.”

I don’t offer anything more. She doesn’t need my life story, doesn’t need to know anything beyond what serves her right now. Names are just sounds we answer to. Mine’s four letters that don’t mean shit.

“Knox,” she repeats, testing it out. “That your real name?”

I shrug. Doesn’t matter if it is or isn’t.

We walk in silence for half a block. She vibrates beside me, a live wire trying to stay grounded. Her hands keep fidgeting with the strap of her bag, and every few steps she glances up at me, then away, like she’s making sure I’m still there.

I’m used to being the biggest man in most rooms, but beside her I feel like some oversized beast trying not to cast too much shadow. She’s small, yes, but there’s nothing meek about the way she moves. Nothing delicate in the set of her jaw or the steel in her spine.

I keep my stride measured, deliberately shortening my steps so she doesn’t have to jog. I’m used to folding myself down—hands visible, shoulders lowered, voice kept quiet. You learn to do that when you’re built like a warning sign.

With her, the contrast is worse. She’s small enough that I could break her without thinking. It makes me want to cross the street and watch over her from a distance, to protect her from my size as much as from the street.

The memory of her viciously stabbing Brock flashes.

Well, maybe not so fragile.

“Are all five of you going to take turns babysitting me?” she asks suddenly, breaking the silence.

I don’t answer right away. Truth is, we haven’t figured this part out yet. The schedule isn’t set, but we’re all on the same page—eyes on her until we know she’s stable.

“Yes.” No point in lying.

She makes a noise—something between a laugh and a scoff. “Great. Just what every girl dreams of. Five strange men following her around. You have all the evidence. I’m fucked if I talk. You don’t need to worry. I’ve got enough self-preservation in me to keep my mouth shut.”

I don’t take the bait. Just keep walking, one foot in front of the other, scanning the street ahead out of both necessity and habit.

“You know this is insane, right?” she continues when I don’t respond. “This whole thing. The masks. The—what do you even call it? Vigilante justice? The stalking? It’s completely insane.”

I shrug. “Insane is relative.”

Something about her spikes my temperature, and I don’t like it. Her scent—vanilla and coffee grounds—drifts up every time she moves, and I have to force myself not to breathe it in too deeply.

I watch a couple walking toward us, the way the guy’s arm wraps possessively around the woman’s waist. They’re laughing, heads tilted together, oblivious to everything but each other. I shift, positioning myself between them and Sage as we pass. It’s a reflex, my body making decisions before my brain can intervene.

“Are you always this talkative?” she asks, a bite of sarcasm in her voice.

I glance down at her. Those gray eyes flash up at me, challenging. Fearless.

I’ve seen a lot of survivors in my time. Broken people, shattered beyond repair. Sage isn’t like them. She should be curled in a corner somewhere, rocking back and forth. Instead, she’s walking beside me, back straight, challenging a man more than twice her size even though she watched me pull the rope that hanged someone less than twenty-four hours ago.

But then again, she’s that same woman who took the knife from my boot and turned the same man into something that would give a coroner nightmares. I watched her scream while she did it, transfixed. Watched the blood spray across her face and arms and chest, watched her keep going long after he stopped moving, watched the animal inside her claw its way to the surface and take over.

Fucking glorious.

I respect her. I don’t say it, but I think it. I’ve thought a lot about her since that jetty. There’s a pull, low in my gut, that started the second I saw her on her knees and hasn’t let up since.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m going to take that as a no.”

I glance at her. Just a glance—I can’t afford much more than that, can’t afford to look at her too long or I’ll start noticing things I shouldn’t. Like the curve of her neck, the way her hair catches the light, the shadow of exhaustion under her eyes that makes me want to put her somewhere soft and dark and let her sleep for a week.

“I talk when I have something worth saying.”

She snorts. I almost want to smile. There’s a rhythm developing between us, combative but good.