Page 234 of What We Burn

“Kitten will be safe. We do this. Kitten can sleep.”

Pike Street is dark except for the single light over the warehouse lot. I kill the headlights half a block out and coast into the shadow of the building across the road.

We’re early.

Milo doesn’t notice. He keeps reading the replies, knee bouncing hard enough to shake the cab. Each new message jerks another hollow laugh out of him.

Vehicles arrive over the next eight minutes. I recognize some of them—Tyler’s buddies, the ones who gave us the app when Milo cloned their phones. Good. They need to go.

Doors slam. Shadows cross the lot and disappear into the warehouse. Some people carry things in. Others go in alone. Milo counts them under his breath, loses his place, then starts again.

By the time a Corolla rolls in last, the lot is full.

I count slow. Four pickups. Three sedans. Two SUVs. A hatchback. A motorcycle. A work van with a ladder rack.

Twelve vehicles.

Milo lifts his head from the phone for the first time since the apartment.

“Twelve.” He says it like a prayer. “Some of them ride together, Knox. Could be fifteen guys in there. Could be twenty.” He should sound scared. He sounds like Christmas morning.

“There are thirteen.”

A man crosses the lot from the Corolla. Quick steps, shoulders hunched, eager. He doesn’t check the shadows. Men like this never check the shadows. They think the dark belongs to them.

He pulls the side door and disappears inside.

“Make that fourteen.”

“They’re all dying tonight,” Milo whispers gleefully.

He’s out of the truck before I kill the engine, taking the kit bag with him.

“Fucking shitshow,” I mutter.

I leave the mask in the truck. Nobody here is walking away.

I get out and follow.

The warehouse has four exits. Roll-up door in front, the side door Corolla man used, a fire exit on the east wall, a loading dock out back.

We circle wide, off the gravel. Milo moves ahead of me, quiet for once, phone dark in his hand.

Fire exit first. I jam a wedge from the kit under the door and kick it flush. Loading dock next—chain through the handles, padlock from Milo’s bag. The roll-up door is chained from the inside. Fine. They locked themselves in for us.

Milo stops at the side door and types one last message.

“‘Two minutes out,’” he narrates as he types. “‘Pets are fresh and skittish. Have everyone ready. Things get messy with new stock.’” A giggle crawls out of him. “Messy. I wrote messy. Oh—Knox—’already undressed, lol.’ L-O-L. He’s laughing. He’s actually in there naked and laughing about it.”

I take the phone and drop it in my pocket. “Ready?”

He pulls two blades from his kit and smiles when the light catches them. “I was born ready for this exact moment.”

The bay is one big open space under a string of work lights. Folding chairs. A cooler of beer. A bare mattress on the concrete, stained old and new. And men. Naked men, standing around hard, laughing, passing a bottle, waiting for women to be delivered to them like takeout.

I count again. Fourteen. Some still shucking their clothes. Music plays off someone’s phone. The smell hits—sweat, beer, desire.

One of them turns. Jake Petersen. “Who the hell are you?”