Page 181 of What We Burn

Milo shuts up.

Holden turns to me, that flat, professional mask already in place.

“Are you hurt?” he asks.

“No.”

“Is any of this blood yours?”

“No. Well . . . he got a hit in. Side of the head. But I’m fine. I don’t think he drew blood.”

“Her back and her knee,” Milo calls from the other room, not looking up from the wall panel. “And there was blood in her ear.”

“Traitor.”

He crosses the room and tilts my chin up, checking my temple with his thumb. There’s a tender spot where Stine caught me, but no cut. Holden’s touch is clinical. Professional. Then his eyes drop to my hands—the blood under my nails, the tremor I can’t quite control.

“How many times did you stab him?”

“I lost count.”

“Ballpark.”

“A lot, Holden.”

He exhales through his nose. Drops my chin. Steps back and does another slow rotation of the room, hands on his hips, cataloging the disaster with the quiet fury of a man whose operational standards have been personally violated.

“Walk me through what happened.”

I do. I explain the bar, the drugs in the drink, the way I played possum. The knife in his eye. The way he screamed and reeled back. How he hit me, drove me to the floor, pinned my wrists and started dragging down my jeans.

Holden goes very still.

“I got one hand free. Got the knife back. After that, it gets a bit hazy.” I swallow. “I kind of just kept going until he stopped moving. Then he fell on me.”

“And then I got her off,” Milo adds.

Holden’s gaze slides toward the bed. “I’m aware.”

Holden exhales again. Long. Slow. Torturously slow. I mean, how much air does one man have in his lungs?

“I’m sorry,” I say when I can’t stand it anymore. “I know you’re mad⁠—”

“I’m not mad. I’m . . . ” He pauses, drags a hand through his hair as his eyes land on mine with a look I can only describe as hunger. “Okay. I am mad. I’m mad I wasn’t here for it. Fuck.” He turns away, surveying the scene again. “This is so much better than what we did tonight.”

Milo’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well, yeah. Three staged suicides versus a bloodbath . . . ” He holds his hands out like he’s weighing the air. “No contest, really.”

“Wait, really?” I ask, a sliver of pride glowing in my chest. “I mean. How’d the suicide pact go?” Like I’m asking about his day at work.

“Clean. Efficient. Textbook.” Holden’s eyes return to me. “Boring.”

“And this is . . . ?”

“Glorious.” The word comes out rough. He catches himself, shakes his head, and the mask slides back into place. “Messy, reckless, fun that goes against all protocol and is probably going to take six hours to clean up and could have gotten you killed or arrested. But . . . it’s fucking beautiful. You created art, wildcat.”

I shouldn’t feel proud. I’m sitting in blood-soaked clothes next to the man I lured and killed, and one of the five men I love just called my murder art.

I’m glowing.