Page 166 of What We Burn

Milo raises his hand again. “Can the official record show I said that first?”

“The official record can show you were eating peanut butter with celery at midnight like a fucking psychopath.”

“Protein and vegetables, Holden. I’m a growing boy.”

Sage snorts.

It’s small, but I feel it through her body.

I tug gently at her waist. This time she lets me pull her into my lap.

“Show me these targets,” she says.

Holden turns the files toward her.

He takes her through the three men, the accusations, and Odin’s staging order. Sage listens without interrupting, one arm looped around my shoulders. By the time he finishes, the softness has left her face.

“They all look like they belong on a fucking billboard,” she says. “Or leading a TED Talk about how to exploit tax loopholes.”

“They’re athletes,” Milo says. “That’s the product package.”

She runs a finger along the edge of the photos. “And the victim? She was—’selected for athletic experience, physicality, and relative isolation.’” Sage’s mouth goes thin. “They wanted to prove they could break someone stronger than they are.”

“That’s the point of their whole system,” I say. “Every escalation is about power.”

She looks at me, then at Holden. “Take photos this time. I want to see them dead.”

She slides out of my lap and circles the table, reading the pages upside down as she moves. When she reaches Knox, her fingers catch the corner of a thin folder trapped beneath his notebook.

It’s dog-eared. Older than Odin’s packet.

Knox covers it with his hand.

“Who’s that?” she asks.

He looks at her for a long moment, then moves his hand and lets her open the folder.

The photograph shows a man in his forties. Heavyset. Trucker cap. A face built to disappear into a truck-stop crowd.

“Dale Stine,” Knox says. “Long-haul trucker. Six women assaulted at rest stops along the US-101 corridor in the last two years. Three reported. None prosecuted.”

Sage turns the page.

Maps. Fuel receipts. Photographs of a dark Peterbilt and a man walking into roadside bars. Knox’s handwriting fills the margins.

“Different states,” he continues. “Different jurisdictions. Nobody connected them.”

“But you did.”

Knox nods once.

Holden reaches across and closes the folder. “He isn’t part of this operation.”

Sage keeps her hand on the cover. “Why not?”

“Because the football cluster is an imminent threat and an Odin assignment. Stine is Knox’s private file. We don’t have the resources to run both.”

“But you’ll get him eventually?”