Page 40 of What We Burn

“You missed the highway,” Holden says from the passenger seat, his voice flat and his demeanor saying he’s already regretting the group decision to go with Milo to his server room while he did a thorough check of all our devices.

“It’s called defensive driving, Grandpa,” Milo says, and flicks his turn signal like an accusation. “Someone’s been in the digital perimeter. Not even trying to be subtle about it. My job is to get us off the grid for a few minutes.”

Holden shoots him a look I can feel, even from the back seat.

“You know being off the grid only works if the pursuer isn’t tracking you in real time.”

“I’m running the VPN through a tiered privacy chain,” Milo says, as if that explains anything, and makes another hard right, sending Holden’s elbow into the console with a dull thunk. “Which I could do in my sleep, but it’s more fun under pressure.”

Knox, in the seat next to me, doesn’t say anything. He’s watching Milo’s hands on the wheel like a hawk, those deep brown eyes narrowed and all the softer lines of his face drawn tight. Milo’s reckless turns don’t faze him—Knox braces a broad palm against the door and takes it, muscle and instinct entirely at home in chaos.

“You doing okay, Fury?” he rumbles with a little more concern than usual. His hand settles on my knee and rests there, solid and reassuring, as if he can anchor me to the seat through osmosis alone.

“I’m fine,” I lie.

No one calls me on it, but Milo gives me a worried look via the rearview mirror, and Holden glances over his shoulder just long enough for his eyes to flick over me, then away again.

I’m wedged between Knox and Micah, which is like being sandwiched between a brick wall and a warm blanket. Knox takes up approximately sixty percent of the available space. Micah has his arm stretched along the seat behind my head. His fingers brush my collarbone in a subtle, unconscious caress that costs nothing and means everything. The motion is grounding, and right now my insides are about as stable as a half-frozen lake.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Micah whispers, dropping a soft kiss on the side of my head.

I close my eyes and lean back, let the sounds of rubber on wet pavement and the guys’ bickering in the front seat wash over me, try to pretend I’m anything but a dead girl riding passenger in my own life. Like the me from before is gone and now I’m just piloting a body, learning how to move, how to not give in to the urge to crawl out of my own skin and into anything less complicated. Maybe it’s cumulative. Maybe it’s just today. When I woke up, I felt good. It was the first morning since the attack that I felt like me again. Then I’d reached for Holden, realized I was alone, and things went downhill from there.

Knox found me in the kitchen. I was standing at the island with my coffee—the one Eli makes every morning—when Knox walked in holding my phone like it was a bomb waiting to go off. Which, I guess, it was.

“Fury. I need to show you something.”

He didn’t sugarcoat it. Didn’t ease me into it or ask me to sit down or do any of the careful, gentle lead-up things that Micah would’ve done. He just handed me the phone, unlocked, the messages already on the screen, and stood close enough that when my knees buckled he caught me without having to move.

How’s the throat?

Bet it would have hurt less if you’d let me fuck it.

And underneath—a contact card. Brock Davis. His face. His number. Smiling, like he hadn’t been dead for weeks.

I threw up in the sink. Knox held my hair. Then I rinsed my mouth, splashed water on my face, and asked him to tell me everything.

He did. All of it. Including the part where the text came in while I was asleep in Holden’s arms. Including the part where five men stood in a garage at three in the morning and debated whether I got to know.

“Some of them wanted to wait,” Knox said.

“Who?”

He didn’t answer that. Didn’t need to. I know who. I know exactly who would try to fold me in bubble wrap and call it love.

“I told them you should decide what happens next,” he said.

I looked at him—this enormous, quiet man who says less in a day than Milo says in a minute—and I thought: you’re the only one who never tries to make decisions for me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me, Fury. Be angry.”

So I am. I’m angry. I’m angry at whoever sent that message, and I’m angry that they used Brock’s face to do it, and I’m angry that even dead, even buried, even reduced to a name on a spoofed contact card, that man is still trying to fuck me. I’m angry that the first good morning I’ve had since someone strung me up like a wind chime was ruined before I’d finished my coffee. And underneath the anger, in the place I don’t let anyone see, I’m terrified. Because whoever sent that text knows what Brock did to me. Knows about the rope. Knows about my throat. Knows enough to make a joke about it.

And they’re still out there.

In for four. Out for four.