Page 262 of What We Become

Knox is driving. I’m in the passenger seat of the new SUV—the insurance payout on the first one came through two months ago and Milo immediately ordered an identical replacement, same bulletproof glass, same custom sound system, same everything except the personalized plate, which this time reads ADMS FAM because the DMV still wouldn’t approve any version of MURDER KITTEN. Eli and Holden are in the middle row. Milo and Micah are in the back, Milo buried under a mountain of luggage that defies both physics and the concept of a two-week trip.

The road we’re on is familiar. Industrial. The kind of neighborhood where every building was designed by someone who hated windows and the concept of curb appeal.

“Knox.”

He doesn’t answer. Just drives.

I turn to look behind me. Eli is watching the road with a stillness that means he knows exactly where we’re going. Holden’s jaw is set. In the back, Micah catches my eye and gives me a look I can’t quite read. Milo has stopped talking. Something’s off.

“We passed the highway turn-off ten minutes ago.”

Knox’s hand moves from the wheel to my thigh and settles there.

“Trust me,” he says.

“Okay.”

I sit back and watch the buildings pass and try not to think about why my stomach just dropped, because my body knows this route even if my brain is still catching up.

We pull into a gravel lot I’ve been in before.

Hank’s Quality Meats. It all looks the same—the faded red letters that were probably bright once, the refrigerated van parked at the loading dock, the steel door that leads to a corridor lined with hooks. The last time I was here, Micah and I learned to break down a pig carcass while Milo narrated like a cooking show and Hank told us not to puncture the organs.

That was before the noose. Before the wall. Before the barn.

Knox parks. Kills the engine.

Nobody moves to get out.

“Why are we at Hank’s?” Milo says from the back, but his voice is wrong—too careful and measured, performing confusion he doesn’t feel. “I thought we were going to the cabin. Did someone change the itinerary without consulting me? I need twenty-four hours’ notice for itinerary changes. This is in the group chat rules⁠—”

“Milo,” Eli says from the middle row, using the tone he reserves for rambunctious students who won’t sit still.

“Oh.” Milo stops. “So I don’t need to keep pretending anymore?”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Knox gets out first and opens my door, offering his hand. I take it and step out onto the gravel.

The others pile out, and Holden moves to the steel door, holding it open. The corridor beyond is lit in that blue-white fluorescent way that makes everything look like a morgue, which isn’t far off given what happens in the rooms at the end of it.

“Someone needs to explain what’s happening,” I say, looking around at them all instead of stepping inside.

“Wedding gift,” Eli says. He’s beside me now, his hand at the small of my back. “We talked about it. All five of us. And we agreed.”

“Agreed on what?”

“To get you something you need.” Micah is on my other side. “Something we should have given you a long time ago.”

My pulse climbs as we walk the corridor. Hooks on the walls. Tile floor scrubbed pink from years of what Hank euphemistically calls “processing.” The industrial smell—cold metal, bleach, the faint organic undertone that never fully leaves a space where things are taken apart.

Hank is at the far end, standing outside a closed door. Arms folded. He nods at Knox, at me, and steps aside without a word.

Knox stops at the door and turns to me.

“We found him six weeks ago,” he says. “Milo ran the trace. Holden confirmed the ID. I picked him up three days ago from a motel in Bridgeport.”

The floor tilts.