Page 119 of What We Become

“Perfect,” he says. “Go nuts.”

Knox hands the knife back.

“Tobias Freely.” Holden’s voice is flat and unhurried. “Do you know why we’re here?”

I watch the man’s eyes widen—first in surprise at Holden’s voice, then in animal panic as the reality of the situation crawls up his brainstem and sets everything on fire. The tape over his mouth flutters.

Holden waits two beats. “Knox.”

Knox peels the tape off in a single, unimpressed rip.

Freely gasps, immediately launching into a string of incoherent pleading. “Please. Please. If this is about money, I don’t have any⁠—”

Milo snorts. “Buddy, if you had money, you’d have had a decent security system, right?”

“Please,” Freely blubbers. “I don’t know why you’re here. I haven’t done anything wrong.” He looks around the room, and his gaze skates right over Sage until she moves closer, knife at her hip.

“The boys,” she says.

That makes his eyes fix on her, lock, and betray him. They go cold and angry underneath all the noise. I’ve seen it before. The predator is always real, and it always lives in the eyes.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m innocent.”

Sage ignores his words. She takes two slow steps forward, murder coveralls rustling, and then plants her feet right in front of the chair. She crouches until she’s at eye level with him. He recoils enough to make his chair wobble.

“Do you remember any of their names?” she asks, calm and level.

Freely’s breath is a raw, wet sound. “I—I haven’t done anything⁠—”

A fucking lie. Knox claps the tape back over his mouth.

Sage tilts her head. “I know what you did,” she says. It’s the voice of a woman who has been on the other side of a man’s violence. “I know what it feels like when someone takes your body and uses it for something you didn’t agree to. I know what it sounds like when you scream and nobody comes.”

Freely’s eyes are streaming. Snot runs over the tape.

“The difference between us,” Sage says, “is that I survived. And you’re not going to.”

She stands and looks around at the five of us in our skull masks. This is what love looks like for us: a clean room, a sharp blade, and a predator who deserves what comes next.

“Any requests before we let you loose, kitten?” Milo asks, voice light. “Musical accompaniment? Mood lighting? I can dim the overheads if you want ambiance.”

“Milo,” Holden says.

“Right. Shutting up. Go get him, kitten.”

Freely lets out a muffled shriek and pisses on the floor as Sage raises the knife above her head.

“Fuck,” Holden says. “I hate it when they do that.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Sage says. “One last humiliation before they pay for their sins.” Then she plunges the knife in and twists.

The blade doesn’t slide easy like in the movies. It catches on something—cartilage, maybe bone—and Freely makes a sound that isn’t even human, more like air escaping a torn tire. Sage pulls back, and the knife comes free with a wet sucking noise that sounds like music to my black heart.

She doesn’t hesitate. She drives it in again, lower, where the ribs part, and this time she angles up, seeking the vengeance she’s been chasing since Brock, since before Brock, since the first time she learned that some men take what they want and call it teaching.

“That’s my girl,” I whisper, not loud enough to reach her.

Freely’s head drops forward. Blood runs down his chest in thin lines and drips onto the plastic beneath the chair, gathering there in a dark pool.