Page 11 of What We Burn

My body decides before my brain does. The same way it decided to claw at the rope, the same way it decided to fight when the dark closed in. I’m pulling at the IV, trying to sit up, trying to move, because the last thing I saw before everything went black was Eli’s face and I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if he was saving me or⁠—

“Sage. Sage!” Knox’s hands are on my shoulders, gentle but immovable. Pinning me without hurting me. “Stop. Look at me. Look at me!”

I look at him. I’m panting, each breath a jagged whistle through my wrecked throat. The heart monitor screams.

“Eli,” I force out, the word tasting like fire and blood.

“He saved you,” Knox says slowly, leaving no room for doubt. “Eli was outside. He’d been keeping an eye on your building—on Amy—and he heard you. Cut you down and gave you CPR until Micah called 911. He even rode in the ambulance holding your hand.” His dark eyes hold mine. “He’s the reason you’re alive, Fury.”

I stare at him. My chest heaves. The monitor beeps too fast. My throat burns.

He’s the reason I’m alive.

Knox nods at the space past the foot of my bed. “He’s right there.”

I follow his gaze. Slowly, because my head is heavy and my neck feels packed with gravel. The room resolves in slow, grainy increments—a closed door, a rolling tray, a plastic pitcher. And in the corner, on a battered orange chair squeezed between the wall and a cabinet, is Eli.

He’s sitting forward, elbows on his knees, watching me with raw, unblinking focus. Days of stubble cover his jaw, dark against skin that’s paler than I’ve ever seen it. His shirt has blood on it—dried brown, streaked across the chest and sleeves. He looks like he’s been dragged through the streets.

“He hasn’t left since they brought you in,” Knox murmurs. “Hasn’t changed his clothes. Security tried to kick him out and he told them they’d have to arrest him. You’ve been surfacing on and off since this morning—he’s tracked every second of it.”

Our eyes meet, and the moment my gaze catches and holds his, his composure breaks.

“Hey, little savage.”

The corner of his mouth kicks up and pressure builds at the back of my eyes. All I can see is the beautiful face that grounded me in my panic that very first night. The face that looked down at me when I tried to run, when he’d cleaned the blood from my skin and given me his jacket.

The face that sat across from me and called me easy.

That said we were just passing you around.

I look away. Blink.

Breathe.

The monitor beeps. Somewhere in the hallway, a nurse is paging someone and a cart is rattling past. The world is doing its regular, indifferent thing, and none of it touches whatever is happening in the space between his chair and my bed.

He doesn’t say anything more. Doesn’t move toward me. Just . . . sits.

I turn my head back to Knox. Slowly, because my neck is a disaster. I let my eyes close. Knox’s hand tightens around mine as he leans in close.

“You need him gone?” he asks, right next to my ear in a voice so quiet I’m the only one who could possibly hear it.

I shake my head, force out a whispered, “No.”

He can stay.

It’s not forgiveness. Not yet, maybe not ever. But I don’t tell him to leave—that’s the closest thing to grace I can offer.

FOUR

MILO

For a guy who likes to talk shit about women, Tyler Kavanagh screams like a tea kettle.

I wince as he lets out another shrill scream—the kind of sound that makes dogs howl. It makes me want to bash my brains in with the nearest blunt object.

Fucking baby.