Page 37 of What We Bury

The entire project is a carefully curated digital footprint of a man who’s alive and well and ghosting all his friends because he’s in love and running away from grown-up responsibility.

It’s my best work. My magnum opus. And nobody will ever know.

The beers arrive. I gulp down a third of Brock’s when Rhonda’s not looking, splashing a little on his shirt for authenticity, and position his hand around the glass. His fingers are stiff enough to hold it on their own now. Rigor’s doing me a solid.

“Cheers, mate,” I say, faking an Aussie accent as I tap my glass against his. “To your last night out.”

I eat the nachos. They’re not bad. Brock watches me and, honestly, as a dead sack of meat, he’s better company than most of the living people I know.

I pull out his phone and snap three shots. “That’s it, work the camera, Brock-y.”

I reposition him a little, candid-style, him looking across the bar like he’s contemplating the meaning of life, which I guess he is, in a way.

“Beautiful, Brock. Very pensive. Very ‘man considering his place in the universe.’” I check the shots. “That third one’s actually good. Really captures your dead side.”

At the eleven-minute mark, Holden catches my eye from the bar and taps his watch. I hold up a loaded nacho chip. He discreetly flips me off, which I choose to interpret as encouragement.

I help Brock out of the booth and back into the wheelchair. Getting Brock out is easier than getting him in because I’ve had practice now and also because Rhonda is twirling her hair while engaged in a flirtatious conversation with Holden at the register.Perfect, perfect, perfect.

I drop some cash on the table and push Brock back through the corridor. His shoe catches on the bathroom door and comes loose. I jam it back on, shove his sunglasses up his nose, and keep moving before his arm can swing into anything dramatic.

“You are the worst,” I tell him. “Truly. Zero help.”

Holden appears while I’m loading Brock into the backseat. “Rhonda gave me her number.” He scrunches up the slip of paper and tosses it. “Don’t ever make me do that again.”

“But you’re so good at it, sexy mullet man.” I flash him a grin while I buckle Brock’s seatbelt—safety first—and slam the door.

Holden rolls his eyes and gets into the driver’s seat, starting the car as soon as I’m in the passenger seat beside him. “How do you think that went?”

“Nailed it. Besides Rhonda being besotted by you, she also thinks Brock’s a lightweight. We took pictures for Instagram, and I got nachos. Overall? Nine out of ten. One point deducted because I think I got concealer on your headrest while I was putting him back.”

Holden swivels to glare at the offending smudge. “The fuck, Milo?”

“I’ll pay for the detail,” I say quickly. Then pause. “Actually, I’ll ask Loki to.”

He growls, pulling out of the lot without another word.

I pull out my phone and check the encrypted group chat. Knox texted twenty minutes ago to say Sage was home safe. Eli asked if she was any trouble, and Knox said “nothing I can’t handle” which is practically a TED talk from him. Nothing from Micah. But that’s not a shock. He’s currently being eye candy for the one percent.

Micah will have clocked in at Unholy Desires by now, the invitation-only kink club where he bar tends. Knox usually works security there when he isn’t parked outside a murderess’s window. Which means tonight the place is running without its most intimidating security guard, all on account of one dark-haired girl with a knife. Though honestly, that one’s on us.

Unholy is where this merry band of murderers usually connects with Odin and Loki—our bosses—but that’s a bigger story than I have time for while Brock is leaking fake life intoHolden’s backseat. This whole life is Snow White’s apple: one bite and you’re down the rabbit hole.

Wait. Is that the right fairy tale?

Anyways, speaking of Cinderella and her long-ass hair, now is the perfect time to plan my approach on Sage.

Sage.

Just thinking her name gets me hard.

I respect the hell out of a woman who can be covered in blood, shaking apart, and still somehow look like she might bite God if he got too close.

She’s going to need us. Not because she’s broken—she’s not—but because the thing she did under that jetty changed her at a molecular level and the aftershock hasn’t hit yet. When it does, it’s going to be bad. I’ve seen it before. The high wears off, the horror moves in, and the person you thought you were starts to dissolve like sugar in rain.

She’ll need someone who doesn’t flinch at what she is.

I don’t flinch at anything.