Page 22 of What We Burn

SAGE

The private ambulance smells like antiseptic and fear.

Mine, probably. I’ve been in the back of this thing for fifteen minutes and my hands haven’t stopped shaking. The paramedic—a quiet guy with a shaved head and kind eyes—keeps checking the portable monitor clipped to my finger. He hasn’t said much. I get the feeling Odin told him not to.

Knox is beside me. His hand swallows mine completely. He hasn’t let go since they loaded me in, and every time the ambulance takes a turn and the equipment rattles on its hooks, his grip tightens.

“Almost there, Fury.”

I nod. Speaking still costs me. Every word scrapes through my throat like it’s being dragged over gravel, and by the end of a sentence I sound like a chain-smoking ghost.

The ambulance slows. I feel us turn, then stop, and the engine cuts.

“We’re here,” the paramedic says.

The doors open and evening light floods in. Holden is standing in the driveway in jeans and a gray T-shirt, arms crossed, waiting. Behind him is the house we all took refuge in when the noose was just a threat—what I wouldn’t give to go back to that moment now.

It’s been a week since I stood in his kitchen making coffee. It feels like a year.

It’s nothing like the apartment I never should have gone back to. No broken landscaping lights. No bushes where someone strung me up like an animal.

No. This house is a⁠—

“Welcome home, wildcat.” Holden reaches into the back of the transport and offers his hand.

I take it. My legs are unsteady when they hit the driveway—I’ve been horizontal for days and my body hasn’t recalibrated. But he catches my elbow before I wobble and tucks me against his side, solid and warm.

“I can walk.”

“I know you can.” He doesn’t let go.

Inside, the house is cleaned to sparkling. It smells like wood polish and coffee and the faintest trace of something cooking—Milo, probably, because Milo always cooks when he doesn’t know what else to do.

Speak of the devil—Milo appears from the kitchen doorway, holding a mug in one hand. He grins when he sees me, and for a second the knot in my chest loosens.

“Kitten! You made it. We’ve set up your room. There’s extra pillows, water on the nightstand, and I may have reorganized Holden’s dresser to make more space for your stuff, which he’ll find out about eventually.” He glances over his shoulder. “Also, I made soup. It’s the only thing you can eat, so I hope you like minestrone, because I made a vat.”

“I like minestrone,” I rasp.

“Great, there’s enough for a small country.”

Micah is on the stairs. He’s leaning against the wall, watching me with that quiet intensity of his. His eyes move to the bandage on my throat, then back to my face. Mine drop to the bandages around his knuckles—they’ve been there since I woke up. I’ll ask when my voice works.

He catches me looking, but he doesn’t say anything. He comes down the last three steps, takes my bag from Knox, and carries it upstairs without a word.

Eli is on the couch.

He’s in my peripheral. Sitting at the far end, elbows on his knees, hands laced together. He looks up when I come in and our eyes meet for a fraction of a second before I look away.

I’m still not ready for that.

Holden steers me to the kitchen table. Pulls out a chair. I sit, and Knox sets a bowl of soup in front of me.

The steam rises and curls and my stomach does a complicated thing that’s half-hunger and half-nausea. I haven’t eaten real food in days. Everything at the hospital came through an IV or in the form of room-temperature jelly that tasted like sweetened plastic.

I pick up the spoon. The first swallow is agony. The soup is warm and good, but my throat clamps down on it like it’s forgotten how to let things through. My eyes water. I force it down. Take another.

Knox watches from the counter. He doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to.