Page 119 of What We Burn

“Oh, we’re absolutely doing this⁠—”

“Not. Here.” His voice drops, low and final. “Car. Now.”

I want to argue. Every fiber of me wants to plant my feet and have this out right here, right now, in front of the concession kid and the mop bucket and the cardboard standee of whatever Marvel movie is coming out next. But Eli’s already walking, and my feet are already following, because apparently my body decided to cooperate even when my brain is screaming mutiny.

We don’t speak in the car. The silence is thick and pressurized, the kind that makes your ears pop. Eli drives with both hands on the wheel, eyes forward, jaw set. I sit in the passenger seat with my arms crossed and my burgundy nails and my fury and I stare out the window and think about all the things I’m going to say to him the second we stop moving.

I don’t recognize the route until we turn onto my street.

“This isn’t the way to Holden’s,” I say.

“No.”

“Why are we going to my apartment?”

He pulls into the lot behind my building and kills the engine. Sits there for a moment, hands still on the wheel.

“You obviously want your space and don’t give a fuck about risk,” he says, looking at me for the first time since the cinema. “And while we’re here, you and I need to have a talk about boundaries.”

The word boundaries coming out of his mouth while looking at me like that does something to my insides that has no business happening when I’m this angry.

“You want to talk about boundaries?” I say. “You? The man who watches my every move, and stalked me through a mall?”

“Yes.”

“That’s rich, Eli.”

“I know.”

“You’re a hypocrite.”

“I know that too.” He gets out. Comes around to my side. Opens the door. “Upstairs.”

I should tell him to fuck off. I should slam the door and walk to Holden’s and let him sit in this parking lot, alone with his audacity. That’s what a sensible person would do.

But I’ve never been sensible. And the way he’s looking at me—dark-eyed, coiled, barely contained—is the way he looked at me the morning at the club. Right before he broke open.

I get out of the car.

He reaches into the back seat and pulls out a duffel bag I didn’t notice before. Dark canvas, heavy enough that the strap digs into his shoulder when he lifts it.

“What’s in the bag?”

“Upstairs,” he repeats.

I follow him into the building and up the stairs, stomach a tight ball of rage and curiosity and—traitor that it is—want. I’m hyperaware of every step, every breath, every thud of my heart against my ribs. He steps aside when we reach the landing, and I unlock the door. The apartment is empty—Amy’s still at the mall with Jamie, and the silence inside is absolute.

Eli closes the door behind us. Locks it. Then he sets the duffel on the kitchen counter and unzips it slow, deliberate, like he’s giving me time to watch. Inside, there’s a coil of soft rope. Silk, not nylon. Black.

“I’m going to say this once,” he says, and his voice has dropped to that register that makes my knees unreliable. “You snuck out of a building I was watching. You left without telling anyone. As far as you knew, you spent four hours with no protection, no backup, nothing between you and whatever is out there except a man with a backpack and good intentions.”

“Jamie is my friend⁠—”

“I know who Jamie is. That’s not the point.” He steps closer. “The point is you ran. And you did it because you thought I’d say no.”

“You would have said no.”

“You didn’t give me the chance to say yes.” Another step. We’re close enough now that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. “That’s the part that matters, Sage. Not that you left. That you didn’t trust me enough to even clue me in. There’s no way you would have pulled this shit on the others.”