Page 114 of What We Become

I am not okay. And I won’t be until I watch the life drain from this asshole’s eyes.

TWENTY-SIX

SAGE

“No!”

My eyes burst open just as the last brick is placed, and instead of solid blackness and the chemical scent of foam, my nose is filled with the salty-sweet scent of Milo’s hair. I press up on my elbows, moving my tongue around my mouth and tasting blood where I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek again. Awesome.

I look around the room.

2:27 a.m. Post-nightmare, all six of us dog-piled in Milo’s fuck pit because none of us trusts the dark alone. Holden is stretched along the outer edge on the side closest to the door, because even asleep, he needs to put himself between us and a threat. Milo’s twitching beside me, little spasms that tell me his brain is probably hunting deer or chain-sawing trees named after dead men.

“You okay, Fury?” Knox is a wall at my back, and I turn and face him.

“Yeah,” I whisper, voice raw. “Just . . . the bricks again.” I press my cheek to his chest so he can’t see my face. “Dreamed the wall closed.”

His arm tightens, pulling me flush against his furnace-warm skin. “I’ve got you. You’re breathing. Here.” He shifts my palm to his ribcage, lets the slow thunder of his heart knock against my knuckles, steady as a war drum. I sync to it until the room stops spinning.

Across the mattress Milo jerks, a tiny chainsaw noise slipping out. I reach over Knox’s arm, pet Milo’s crazy hair until the twitching eases. He’s warm, alive. We all are. But I need the proof.

Eli’s voice drifts up from the foot of the bed, rough with sleep. “Bad one?”

“Same set list,” I say. “Encore performance.”

Micah shifts on my other side, fingers threading through mine without opening his eyes. “Want water? Company? Or want me to punch the dream guy?”

“Stabbing sounds more therapeutic,” I say as I squeeze his hand. “I’m gonna get up for a bit. Reset my brain.”

I wriggle out from under Knox’s arm, careful not to wake Milo, though he’s been taking his meds lately, which means once he’s out he could nap through dynamite. My bare feet hit the cool hardwood, and I stand still for a second, letting the night settle around me. The moon slices through the gap in the blinds and paints bars across everybody’s skin—Knox’s ribs rising slow and even, Micah’s curls spilled across his pillow like ink, Eli half off the mattress, one foot dangling toward the floor.

I pad to the kitchen, flipping on only the under-cabinet LEDs so the dark doesn’t feel like it’s swallowing me whole. The fridge light is a comfort, the hum of its motor a lullaby. I grab a cold water, drink half straight from the bottle, then keep it clutched against my chest, remembering the last bottle I drank out of. Then I just stare at it and wonder how many normal things Stephen is going to ruin. So far he’s taken bottled water, dogs, brick walls, and new friends.

I set the bottle on the counter a little too hard. The plastic cracks against granite, a tiny sound that still makes me jump. I hate that. Hate that Stephen’s ghost can make me flinch at a water bottle.

The floor creaks behind me, and I spin, heart already in my throat before my brain registers Eli in the doorway, hair wild, sweatpants slung low, eyes soft with worry.

“Need company or space?” he asks, voice still gravel-sleep.

“Company,” I whisper. “But no talking. Just . . . be furniture for a minute.”

He hums approval, folds around me, chin on my shoulder. We breathe together until the refrigerator cycles off and the silence feels safe instead of hungry.

Eli’s arms stay loose around me, warm palm flat between my shoulder blades like he’s willing my heartbeat back to normal. The countertop bites into my hip where I lean, but I don’t move because the pain is something real to hold on to.

I watch water beads run down the side of the bottle and imagine them freezing into tiny knives. Feels fair. Stephen took simple things and made them sharp.

Eli strokes my spine in long, even passes. I like that he isn’t shushing me or trying to fix the unfixable. We both know the danger. Both know it isn’t going away until Stephen is in the ground. The only difference between us right now is that Eli’s stillness looks like peace, and mine just looks like exhaustion wearing a better mask.

I close my eyes and try to summon sawdust, cedar, and mountain air, but the cabin has been washed out of my senses. Eli’s arms are still here, though. Proof I didn’t leave everything safe behind.

Finally my lungs steady enough that I can speak without it sounding borrowed. “I need him dead, Eli.”

Eli’s thumb stills. “I know.”

“This thing—the monster you talk about—it’s like it’s scratching under my skin, demanding vengeance in blood.” He stays quiet while I suck in a breath, trying to organize my thoughts. “I could breathe at the cabin. But here . . . it’s like I’m a victim again. And the longer I feel like a victim, the more I want . . .”

I catch myself before I get the final words out. But Eli finishes them for me, anyway.