Page 150 of What We Burn

Her finger moves to the next one. This bee is perched on the purple flower, wings folded.

“This one looks sad,” she says.

“Bees don’t have facial expressions.”

“This one does. Its wings are droopy.”

“They’re folded.”

“Droopy.” She presses her mouth to it. “It’s okay, Miss Bee. You’re doing great.”

I watch her kiss the tattoo as if it will make the bee feel better. She works her way across my chest. Each one gets a fingertip trace and a press of her lips.

When she runs out of ink, she keeps going. Her thumb follows the clean shrapnel ridge along my ribs before her mouth presses there too. Then she moves back over my heart.

“I can feel your heartbeat through your skin,” she murmurs.

“That’s how heartbeats work.”

“Shut up.” She bites me gently. “Let me be romantic.”

I put my hand in her hair and hold her against me, staring at the ceiling while she maps my body with her mouth.

The texts to Fury have tapered off. There have only been two in the last week, both from the spoofed Brock number, both deleted without showing any of us. She thinks we don’t know. Milo told me this morning. She’s swallowing the poison alone.

She’s wrong. But I know better than to force it. Fury fights harder when she feels cornered. The trick is to leave the door open and wait for her to walk through it.

I’ve been doing that my whole life. Waiting. The field taught me that. Twelve men in a ditch on the wrong side of a border, and the ones who made it out were the ones who could sit in the dark and not move until an opportunity presented itself.

Fury shifts against me. Her thumb moves in slow circles over the lowest bee.

“You’re tense,” she says.

“Mm.”

“More than usual. You’ve been grinding your teeth in your sleep.”

“It’s the case,” I finally admit. Because I don’t lie to her.

“Stephen and The Lodge stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re frustrated.”

“We’re waiting on Fenrir. Milo found an encrypted app on Jake Petersen’s phone last night. Before that, every lead was a dead end. Whoever this person is, they know how to disappear.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Her thumb stroking the bee.

“What if they’re not disappearing?” she says. “What if they’re waiting? Like you do.”

She could be right. Patience is a tactic. I use it. Whoever is out there might be using it too. Sitting in the silence. Watching us work.

Choosing their moment to act.

“That’s the thing. We just don’t know.”

My phone buzzes on the coffee table. I don’t move. Fury’s head is on my chest and her hand is on my ribs and right now, in this quiet, I can pretend the world outside this couch doesn’t exist.