Page 275 of What We Bury

“No! I was awake before he—” She stops and looks around the room. “Where’s Holden?”

Knox and I exchange a glance.

“He just left,” I say carefully. “He went to talk to Eli.”

A shadow passes behind her eyes before she nods. “Okay.” She comes the rest of the way down the stairs, moving slow, like gravity has gotten heavier since this morning.

“Do you need anything?” I ask. “Water? Food?”

“I brought ice cream,” Milo says, holding up the grocery bag. “The fancy brand. And chocolate pretzels. And a candle that thelady at the store said promotes emotional healing, which I think is bullshit but it smells nice and?—”

“I could use a hug,” Sage says.

Milo drops the bag where he stands, the ice cream splattering open. He crosses the room in three strides and wraps himself around her—full body, arms tight, face buried in her hair—and she sinks into him with a shudder, her hands fisting the back of his shirt.

“I’ve got you, kitten,” he murmurs. “I’m here. Always yours.”

She holds on. Breathes. Then she lifts her head from his chest and looks over his shoulder at me and Knox.

“I want a hug from all of you,” she says quietly. “Please. I just need to feel—I need to feel like I’m not what he said I am.”

Knox moves first. He comes up behind her and folds both of them into his arms, his chin resting on the top of her head, and the size of him around the two of them is like shelter made of muscle. I step in next, finding the space at her side, my arm around her waist, my forehead against her temple as I inhale the salt and sugar of her skin.

Milo whispers something obscene and sweet in her ear, and she laughs, barely, but it’s a laugh. Knox kisses the top of her head. His lips linger, and then he looks down at her like he wants to punch the world for ever hurting her. I run my hand down her back, slow and careful, mapping every vertebra, every tremble, every place where she’s fighting to stay here in this room with us instead of falling back into that numb, empty space Eli shoved her into.

“I love you, Sage,” I say, because it’s the only weapon I have against the things Eli said.

As soon as I do, Milo echoes me. “Love you, kitten, more than anything. Even more than actual kittens.”

Knox’s voice is a growl in her hair. “You are everything, Fury. To me. To all of us.”

Sage lifts her face from the circle of arms and looks at each of us in turn with a focus that makes my heart stutter. I know what she’s about to do before she does it—because I’ve watched her need build like this before, watched her reach for something to drown out pain with pleasure the way some people chase shots with fire. This is how she finds her footing again. By seeking the center, by taking control of the thing that was just taken from her.

“Don’t stop touching me,” she whispers, shifting back just enough to fit her palm to the back of Milo’s neck and kiss him hard and full on the lips. He reacts instantly, kissing her back, hands fanning up into her hair like he might get lost there. She pulls away, gasping, and turns to face Knox. He’s standing so close behind her they’re already touching everywhere, so she just tilts her chin and lets herself collapse into his arms. He doesn’t catch her so much as absorb her, bending down and wrapping every inch of himself around her. His lips graze her temple, then her cheek, then her mouth—a kiss without rush or violence, just pure, molten need. When he breaks away, there’s a tremble in his jaw I’ve never seen before.

Her hands are everywhere—curled in Milo’s shirt, splayed flat on Knox’s chest, then reaching for me. I step in, close the circle around her, and she catches my face with both hands and kisses me like she’s desperate, like my mouth is a life raft. She’s at the edge, needing us not as comfort, but as proof of something Eli just tried to break.

I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are wet. Her mouth is bruised pink from kissing all three of us. She’s shaking with need, and I lean in and kiss her again, slower this time, and I let the kiss say what I can’t fit into words.

You are not easy. You are not just fun. You are not what he called you. You are ours and we are yours and the only thing he got right was that we love you.

She makes a sound against my mouth—half-sob, half-moan—and her hands come up to fist in my shirt.

“Off,” she breathes. “All of it. I want you. All of you. Please.”

Milo is already moving. He’s the fastest of the three of us at most things, and clothes coming off is one of them. He peels his T-shirt over his head and tosses it somewhere, then his hands are on the hem of Sage’s shirt and he stops there, looking at her.

“You sure, kitten?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me again.”

“Yes.”

SEVENTY-FIVE

MICAH