Page 126 of What We Burn

He doesn’t say anything. But his fingers spread along my waist, anchoring me to him in a way that makes it impossible to look away or pretend it’s not true.

“I was raped before,” I say. “Before Brock. Before I moved here.”

Eli’s breath goes quiet.

“My uncle. By marriage, not blood—not that it makes it any better.” I trace a line down Eli’s chest, focusing on the movement of my finger so I don’t have to look at his face. “He started when I was fifteen. My mom was gone a lot—nursing shifts, doubles, then triples when the bills piled too high. He’d show up to check on me so she didn’t have to worry. Uncle Rick, being a hero.” The name tastes like rust. “He’d sit too close on the couch. Run his hands through my hair. Tell me I was pretty. Then one night it wasn’t the couch, and there was a hand over my mouth and his voice at my ear telling me not to scream—the TV still going in the other room, some late-night rerun with a laugh track. It escalated so slow I didn’t even know it was happening until it already had.”

Eli’s hand tightens on my hip.

“And when I told my mom—when I finally found the words—she didn’t believe me.”

Silence. His chest rises and falls under my cheek, but the rhythm has changed. Faster.

“She said he was just being nice. That I always had to turn everything into drama. That if I wanted boys to leave me alone, I should stop wearing tank tops at the dinner table.” I close my eyes. “That was it. One conversation. The whole thing—months of it, the fear and the shame and the courage it took to say the words out loud—dismissed in thirty seconds over microwaved lasagna.”

I press my face into him. He’s shaking.

“I stopped telling her things after that. Stopped telling anyone anything.” My voice has gone flat in that way it does when I’m talking about the parts of myself I’ve buried deepest. “Because what’s the point when the person who’s supposed to keep you safe would rather keep her life tidy?”

Eli’s arm tightens around me. Like his body is trying to protect me from the memories.

“The second I could, I left. Waited out the last six months of high school in my best friend’s basement. Got into a college two thousand miles away.” I pause. “But even that didn’t last. I went to one party. Got a little too drunk and . . . ” I let out a shuddering breath. “I got really hurt that time. The cops who took my statement swore they’d find him. But how? I didn’t even know who he was.” My voice trails off and I swallow it all down. “That’s the one in the file Holden pulled. The one you all know about.”

Eli’s hand stops moving on my back. Just stops, mid-stroke, like his body forgot the instruction.

I swipe the tears from my face. “Anyway, I dropped out not long after. I never went back home. I never saw my mom again.” My voice breaks, but I force it out. “I changed my last name officially, and got as far away as I could. I thought . . . if I started over, built something new, it wouldn’t be there anymore. I wouldn’t have to be the person I used to be. That I could leave it all behind, like a bad dream. The sick part is, it worked for a while.” I snort, a rough, ugly thing. “Until it didn’t.”

He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t try to fill the silence or fix it or tell me he’s sorry. He holds me, and in the quiet, I can finally say the rest.

“So, yeah. I want to kill again, Eli. I want to kill them all. All the time.”

He pulls me closer. Buries his face in my neck. I feel him inhale—deep, jagged, like he’s trying to breathe the pain out of me so I don’t have to carry it anymore.

I don’t know if I want him to. I don’t know if I’d recognize myself without it.

“You shouldn’t have had to survive that alone,” he says against my skin.

“It’s done now.”

“It’s not.” He means it. I feel the coiled rage inside him, the violence that’s always waiting for some direction.

“I won’t try to stop you,” he says, pulling away far enough that I see his face—open and raw and so beautiful. “When this is over, when you’re safe again, I’ll fucking help you. I’ll make sure it’s done right. Not just for you but for every fucking girl who had to live what you lived.”

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” I tell him. “Which probably says something about me.”

“It says something about me too.”

I should peel away, get up and pace, shake this off before I start to cry, but I don’t move. I let myself be gathered in for a few seconds more. Let him thread his fingers in my hair, draw circles on my back, put his mouth at my temple and stay very, very quiet.

“I love you, Eli,” I whisper.

“I love you too,” he says. “With everything I am, little savage. I’m yours.”

THIRTY-FIVE

MILO

Ipull into Mom’s driveway at eleven p.m., and the porch light is on since she’s expecting me.