Page 42 of What We Bury

He doesn’t finish the sentence. It doesn’t need finishing. We both know what comes next.

“So you went after him,” I say, almost a whisper.

“Not at first. At first, I just . . . watched him. Followed him. Learned his routines. I told myself I was gathering information, that I hadn’t decided what to do yet. But I think I knew. From the moment the jury came back, I knew.”

“What happened?”

“I beat him to death in a parking garage,” he says simply, without drama. “Didn’t plan it, didn’t plan for anything. I saw him walking alone one night, and next thing I knew, I was smashing his head into the concrete. I didn’t stop. Even when I knew he was dead. I kept going. For her. For me. For every goddamn story like hers.”

I don’t realize I’m crying until Eli glances over. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m probably scaring you.”

“No.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve. “I’m not scared. I’m just . . . I wish someone . . .” I clamp my mouth shut and shakemy head because I don’t want to go there. Don’t want to wonder what would have happened if someone had cared for me the way he cared about his sister. “What happened after?”

“Knox happened. He and I have been friends since high school. He’d noticed something was off—I’d been distant, angry, disappearing for hours at a time. He figured out what I was planning and showed up to stop me.” Eli’s mouth twists. “Except when he saw who I was beating and why, he didn’t. He kept watch until I was done.”

I try to picture it—Eli, wild with rage, fists bloody, and Knox standing in the shadows, watching, waiting.

“And then?”

“Knox made a call and Holden showed up. They cleaned everything away and drove me home. That’s how it started. The three of us. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t even planned. But after that night, it was like a switch flipped. There’s no going back, you know?”

“I know,” I say, and I do. I don’t realize I’m twisting my hands in my lap until Eli reaches out, gentle, and covers them with his own. His palm is warm and his fingers are rough, callused along the sides, but his touch is so careful it makes my eyes sting again.

“Listen,” he says, “what you did—what happened on the beach? That’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“But it is,” I blurt. The words burn on the way out. “It is, Eli, because I wanted it to hurt. I—” I stop, try to collect myself, my lungs fluttery with the effort. I want to say more, but the words keep hanging up somewhere in the back of my throat, twisting until I’m choking on the shame instead of talking about it. The thing is, it wasn’t just survival—it was hunger.

They call it rage, but that’s not what it feels like. The rage is gone the second you feel the blade hit the bone. After that, it’s just . . . release. Like I was built for this. Like it’s the only thing that’s ever fit.

Eli’s silent for a long moment. His thumb moves—barely a scrape across my knuckle, almost nothing, but I feel it everywhere.

“People always want a clean story.” His voice is quiet but, somehow, stronger than it was before. “Target or hero or monster. But it’s never like that. Sometimes you’re all three. And sometimes, you have to become a monster to be the hero.”

“I don’t feel like a hero,” I whisper. “I feel like a monster.”

“I know.” His hand tightens on mine. “Me too.”

We sit there as the afternoon shifts around us. His hand stays on mine. I don’t pull away, and when we get up to leave, he puts his jacket around my shoulders.

THIRTEEN

MICAH

“What about Thai food? Do you think Sage likes Thai food?”

I frown as I look down at Milo. He’s waist-deep in the hole we’ve been digging forhours, dirt smeared across his forehead, grinning up at me like we’re discussing weekend plans instead of in the middle of corpse disposal on a Sunday night. I’ve barely slept since Friday.

“What?”

“Sage.” He says her name like he’s tasting it. “Do you think she likes Thai food? Because there’s this place near her apartment that does these amazing drunken noodles, and I feel like she’d appreciate them. She seems like a spicy food person. You can tell by the way she stabs.”

“You can tell someone’s spice tolerance by their knife skills?” I ask. “What are you, the Rain Man of red flags?”

“Don’t knock it.” Milo jams his shovel into the dirt. He braces a palm against the dirt wall, ankles sunk into the soft loam. “That’s how my mom picked my first stepdad. The way he cut amango. Said he had a surgeon’s touch and, I quote, ‘would make a thoughtful lover.’”

“They still together?”

“Nah. He cheated with a nurse. My mom made his life hell for a solid three years.” Milo smiles as he hoists himself out of the hole and sits across from me.