Page 158 of What We Bury

We use the tablet to figure out their locations. One above the front door, one in the hallway light fitting, one on the bookshelf in the living room, one mounted under the kitchen cabinet.

I cross to the camera on the bookshelf—the little black eye aimed at the couch, at the exact cushion where I fell asleep on Milo’s shoulder while hobbits trudged toward a volcano. I lean in until I know my face fills the whole frame.

“Milo.” It comes out steadier than I feel. “I know you’re watching. Holden said the backup’s gone, but you’ve still got the live feed up, because God forbid you miss anything.”

I let it sit. Somewhere across town, I picture him going very still.

“Here’s the part that makes this so spectacularly shitty: I trusted you. You were the one who listened to all my garbage and sat on this couch watching TV with me, and you turnedmy home into something you could pull up whenever you got anxious. The couch. The kitchen. Me, at my most private. Amy, without ever knowing. And you told yourself that was love.” My throat tightens. I shove through it. “It’s not. Watching someone isn’t keeping them safe. I have spent my whole life with people deciding what’s good for me from somewhere I couldn’t see them, and I will not take invisible control from someone I actually let in.”

The anger’s burning clean now. Useful.

“So you’re going to take this one on the chin. You don’t get to deflect or crack a joke.You’re going to sit in it. You’re going to give me space. And when I’m ready, we’ll talk, and you are going to listen to every single word. Understand?”

The camera says nothing, obviously. But I know him, and I know he heard me.

“Okay.” I straighten and turn to Holden, who’s watching me with an expression that isn’t quite a smile but wants to be. “Now they can go.”

I watch him work, standing on chairs and reaching into corners, his movements efficient and careful. He dismantles each one, placing the tiny devices on the kitchen counter in a neat row like evidence at a crime scene.

They’ve been here an entire week. Put here by a man who couldn’t tell the difference between keeping someone safe and keeping them catalogued. I hate that I didn’t know about it.

I hate that maybe I understand.

“I’ll talk to him properly,” I say, watching Holden take apart the last one. “When I’ve cooled off. Cooling off doesn’t mean forgiving him. It just means I want to choose my words, not throw them.”

“That wasn’t cooled off?”

“That was the trailer.”

His mouth twitches. “Then he’s in for it.” He pops the battery and sets the final camera on the counter with the others, then checks the tablet. One by one, the feeds blink out into dead gray squares. No hallway. No kitchen. No couch. No live window into my life.

“For what it’s worth,” Holden adds. “Every single one of us told him he was wrong. And he gets that he fucked up. But hearing it from us isn’t the same as hearing it from you.”

“No. It’s not.”

He looks at me, and something in his expression shifts—the serious Holden receding, replaced by something warmer. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I let out a breath. “Yeah, I think so. I’m pissed. Unsettled. Not forgiving him yet. But I’m not . . . shattered by it. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense.” He leans against the counter, arms crossed, watching me with those ocean-blue eyes. “You’re tougher than anyone gives you credit for, wildcat.”

There it is. That word. The one he pinned me to a wall with, the one that made my pulse jump and something low in my belly catch fire. Micah’sbaby girlis tender. Milo’skittenis playful. Holden’swildcatis a dare.

“Thank you,” I say. “For being straight with me.”

“Always.”

I turn to tidy up, needing something to do with my hands. But when I reach for the clean glasses on the drying rack, my fingers are clumsy, and the glass slips. I grab for it too fast, and it shatters against the edge of the sink, a shard slicing across the pad of my index finger when I stupidly try to catch it.

“Shit—”

Blood. Bright red, immediate, wells up from the cut and drips onto the stainless steel. It’s not deep but it’s bleeding freely, andthe sight of it against the clean sink makes my vision narrow for a second.

“Let me see.” Holden is beside me before I’ve finished cursing, his hand catching mine, turning it over to examine the cut. His fingers are warm and firm around my wrist, holding me steady, and I watch his face as he looks at the blood.

Something changes.

It’s subtle. A shift in his breathing, a dilation of his pupils, a tension that wasn’t there before. He’s staring at the cut, at the red line of blood running down my finger, and his jaw tightens in a way that has nothing to do with concern.