Page 209 of What We Burn

Knox is already pulling on his gloves. Black nitrile. He takes a smaller pair from another box and hands them to me.

“Are these kid-sized?”

“Extra-small. Needed ones that’d fit.”

“Because my hands are tiny?”

“Everyone’s hands are bigger than yours, Fury.”

Holden kills the interior light. “Masks on,” he says, and sends one word to the group chat.

HOLDEN:

Ready.

Thirty seconds later, the second vehicle rolls past us with its headlights off and parks at the end of the block.

Milo:

Ready.

Three figures climb out. Masks already on. They move through the shadows toward the back of the house like smoke—Eli in front, Micah behind, Milo bringing up the rear with the kit bag slung over his shoulder.

I pull the skull over my face. The world contracts to two eyeholes and the sound of my own breathing. I am no longer Sage Adams. I am something that moves in the dark and doesn’t flinch.

We meet at the back door. Six skulls in a weed-choked garden, standing in a row like a fucked-up nativity scene. Nobody speaks. Knox tests the door. The broken latch gives with a soft click and we’re inside.

The kitchen is dark. It smells like stale beer beneath chemical citrus—the evidence of two men who shoved their mess into cupboards before strangers walked through the open house.

Holden signals. The hallway opens ahead. Three doors, one bathroom, two targets sleeping off a dosed bottle of bourbon while Dave’s ex-wife’s account of what they did burns through my brain.

This is where we split.

Eli puts his hand on my shoulder. Squeezes once through the glove. Then he nods at Micah and Milo, and the three of them peel off toward the end of the hall.

We take the closer one.

The door is open. Dave is on his bed, face up, passed out. His breathing is shallow and mechanical. The room smells like bourbon and body spray and the staleness of a man who hasn’t opened a window in days.

Dave and Andrew raped Dave’s ex-wife in this house when she came back for the last of her things. Her name is Carrie. She teaches second grade two towns over, and she came back that day for a box of her grandmother’s dishes. She reported them, but a rookie cop mishandled the rape kit and broke the chain of custody. Without the DNA, the district attorney declined to prosecute. Dave called that proof she lied. Andrew laughed beside him on the courthouse steps.

Tonight, she’ll get the confession—the justice—she’s owed. And Dave and Andrew are going to get the sentence they deserve.

We move to the bed. Knox checks Dave’s pulse. Lifts an eyelid. He’s deep under, not waking up. He steps back, moving to the door.

Holden sets the forged note on the nightstand. Then he positions Dave’s arms so they’re wrists up, palms open.

Down the hall, Eli’s team is just as silent. Two operations running parallel, separated by thirty feet of hallway and a bathroom, synchronized by the trust that comes from doing this together for years.

When the staging is set, Holden straightens. He reaches into the kit and pulls out a knife.

My knife.

My breath catches. I knew the wrists were mine—we agreed on that during the briefing. I didn’t know Milo had recovered my blade from Stine’s motel room.

“You found it.”

“Milo did.” Holden holds it out, handle first. “Thought you should do this with your own blade.”