Page 26 of What We Become

The room goes still.

Milo looks at me. Without the grin, without the shield, without any of the ten thousand defense mechanisms he wears like body armor.

“We almost lost you,” he says. “Again. And I know everyone in this room is thinking it and nobody wants to say it because we’re all doing the stoic-badass thing and that’s fine, that’s our brand, but I need to say it out loud because if I don’t it’s going to eat me alive.” His voice wavers. Steadies. Wavers again. “I love you. I love all of you. And I’m so fucking scared that one day I’m going to be the smartest person in the room and it still won’t be enough. That someone will find a gap I didn’t cover. That I’ll be staring at a screen when I should’ve been staring at the door.” He swallows. “I should have caught him. Jamie. Stephen. Whatever. He was sitting in our girlfriend’s diner eating pie and I ran a background check and it came back clean and I said cool and went back to my code. I should have⁠—”

“Milo.” I reach for him. “Come here.”

Knox shifts back to give him space. Milo sits on the bed like I’m made of glass, which is the least Milo approach to sitting on anything. I take his face in both hands, bandages and all.

“You didn’t miss him,” I say. “None of us figured it out. He was just that good.”

“I missed him too,” Holden says. He doesn’t look at anyone when he says it.

“Me too,” Knox adds.

Milo shrugs. “No offense. But I’m supposed to be better than you two.”

“You built the tracker that found me,” I say. “You built the system that got them to the house. The only reason I’m breathing right now is because of something you made.”

His bottom lip trembles. He bites it. Doesn’t look away.

“I made fuck pit 2.0 too,” he says, voice cracking. “And you haven’t even slept in it yet. So you need to not die. Because I also got a custom mattress that has a warranty, and I can’t return it without the original packaging.”

I pull him in. He folds into me—carefully, mindful of the IV and the bandages and the oxygen line—and buries his face in my neck the way he did the night he killed fourteen men and fell apart in the bathtub. I hold him and feel him shake and I whisper, “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” until the shaking stops.

When he pulls back, his eyes are wet but the grin is trying to reassemble itself. “For the record,” he says, “the stuffed cat is named Milo Number Two. It’s a comfort animal and should not be separated from the patient at any time. I’ll fight the nurses.”

“Noted.”

A knock at the door cuts through the moment. Dr. Shahid steps in, takes one look around the crowded room and only lets his brow quirk slightly before returning to his normal white-coat composure.

“Good morning, Miss Adams. I need to check your vitals, change your dressings, and listen to your lungs.” He glances around the room again—Knox taking up roughly forty percent of the available floor space, Milo perched on my bed, Holden looking like he slept in a dumpster, Micah on the mattress edge, Eli right beside me. “I’m going to need the room. One of you can stay.” He checks his clipboard. “Her spouse? Next of kin?”

“We’re all her spouse,” Milo says, without hesitation.

Every head in the room swivels toward him.

“Family,” Micah says. Loudly. Looking directly at the doctor and trying to steer the conversation away from a cliff. “He means we’re her family.”

Dr. Shahid looks at Milo. Looks at Micah. Looks at Knox, who is not helping. Looks at Holden, who has closed his eyes like he’s praying for the floor to open. Looks at Eli, who is studying the ceiling tiles with sudden, intense fascination.

“Right,” Shahid says, in the tone that says he’s decided this is none of his business. “One of you only. The rest—there’s a waiting area down the hall. Coffee machine on the left.”

Holden looks at me with eyes that are still raw but functional—his brain rebooting after last night’s hard crash. I was out of it for the most part, but I’m pretty sure most of them either slept in the visitor chairs or the waiting room.

“We could all do with coffee,” he says. “That bakery didn’t have any, and I’m running on fumes.” He leans down and kisses my forehead. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours, wildcat. You need anything, you call.”

“I’ll stay,” Milo says, already reaching for the iPad in the basket. “We can stream Mormon Housewives and⁠—”

“No.” Holden wraps a hand around Milo’s wrist. “You’re with me.”

Milo blinks, then slowly smiles. “In a boyfriend capacity?”

Holden sighs.

“Get outside before I change my mind about ever feeding you again.”

“That’s not a no,” Milo whispers to me as he slides off the bed, grabbing Milo Number Two and tucking the cat in beside me. “Love you, kitten. Wear the pajamas. I’ll know if you don’t.” He blows me a kiss from the door, and I attempt to blow one back.