Page 161 of What We Become

“You touched children,” she says. “You cornered them in locker rooms and storage closets and on away trips. You used authority and walls and timing.” Her head tilts, skull mask grinning while her eyes stay flat and human and far more frightening. “So here’s what happens next. You tell the truth, or I start removing parts.”

His whole body jerks against the line. Eli doesn’t let him go anywhere.

“I didn’t⁠—”

Fury drives the blade straight into his dick.

Eli claps his hand over his mouth before he can scream.

I haul on the rope.

He convulses so hard the recliner nearly tips.

The sound he makes behind Eli’s palm is animal. High, wet, disbelieving. Blood pours black in the TV light, soaking gray sweatpants darker and darker while Fury rips the knife free with a savage little twist that makes his whole body bow.

“Fuck, yes,” Eli breathes.

I don’t let up. Can’t. Waldock bucks under the rope, hands flying from his ruined crotch back to the noose, strength turning stupid and desperate now that pain has joined panic. He’s all instinct. No thought. Just survival.

Doesn’t matter.

I plant harder and drag the line back until the nylon bites so deep his chin jerks toward the ceiling. Eli keeps him pinned. Fury steps back fast, out of kicking range, blood speckled across the grin of her mask.

Waldock’s heels hammer the floor. Once. Twice. Then less.

I hold until Waldock’s hands stop clawing.

Hold longer.

Long enough that there’s no argument left in him. No twitch that means maybe.

When it’s done, we clean up and stage the scene. A note on the coffee table saying he can’t live with himself anymore. The rope tied high so his body dangles. A kitchen knife covered in his blood to sell his bleeding crotch as an act of self-hatred before the final deed. Then we leave the way we came in, crossing the yard and disappearing into the night.

When we get back to the car, the radio is popping off. “Team Kitten. Come in, Team Kitten.”

“Team Kitten?” Milo says again, but the humor’s gone out of his voice this time, scraped raw by static. “Please tell me you’re all dramatically making out in the getaway car and not dead?”

I grab the radio off the console. “Alive.”

The response detonates instantly.

“Oh thank fuck,” Milo blurts. In the background I hear movement, something metallic clattering, and Micah saying, “Give me that,” at the same time Holden’s voice cuts through.

“What happened?” Holden demands. “You missed two call windows.”

Eli slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. Fury is in the back with me, mask off now, gray eyes bright in the dark. She braces one hand on the center console and leans toward the radio like she can climb through it.

“Neighbor complication,” Eli says. “Unexpected civilian entry. We had to freeze in place.”

There’s a beat of absolute silence on the line.

Then Milo, “A civilian entry as in someone came into the house?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Oh my God.” That’s Micah, breath rushing out hard. “Everyone okay?”

I look at Fury. Her eyes are bright. Her hands are steady. The look on her face, satisfied. Sated.