Page 241 of What We Burn

“How quick?” I ask Knox.

“Four minutes from first contact to last.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Milo’s still shaking against Sage, his fingers white-knuckled in her shirt. She’s murmuring something I can’t hear, her cheek pressed to his blood-matted hair. The choker gapes and the rope scar at her throat catches the security light.

I need to think. Protocol. Containment.

“Dean,” I say. “How many can you handle?”

He doesn’t blink. “This place got a massive upgrade during the pandemic. So the number isn’t the problem—getting this done without drawing attention is.”

“Can you do it?”

He shrugs. “I’ve got services booked through the weekend, so they can only run after hours. But if I run both retorts through the night, and we stack them.” He pauses while he calculates. “I can be done Tuesday morning.”

“All those bodies?”

Dean nods. “It’s what we burn.”

“Okay. Let’s get moving then.”

I look at Amy, who’s watching us the way you watch the nurse prepare a needle—braced but not yet hurting. “You don’t have to be here for this part,” I say to her.

She doesn’t answer. She just pulls her blanket tighter and moves to sit on the metal step beside the door. Then she watches as we carry fourteen bodies into the morgue.

SIXTY-ONE

HOLDEN

The apartment clean took three hours.

New door hung, bloody section of carpet ripped out, couch cushion bagged, blood scrubbed away with the emergency supplies I keep in my kit for exactly this kind of situation. Micah and I didn’t talk through the clean. There was nothing to say that the work wasn’t already saying.

This is my fucking fault.

I should have been here. Should have stationed myself outside her door instead of across the fucking parking lot. I should have anticipated that Tyler—or any number of those fucking guys—would find another way in. The should-haves pile up like bodies, and I carry each one with the same precision I use to lift the stained carpet section into the contractor bag.

Once everything is scrubbed clean, we take the evidence to the burn bin, then head back home. Micah falls asleep in the passenger seat before we’ve even hit the highway. Then he’s up the second I turn onto my street. His internal clock is a precision instrument. I envy it.

The house is dark. I pull into the driveway and cut the engine and sit for a moment in the silence, hands on the wheel.

“Eli’s car is here, but Knox’s truck isn’t,” I say. “He’s probably still at the funeral home helping Dean.”

Micah nods, rubbing at his eyes. “No lights on inside either. The rest are probably asleep. I’ll put on some coffee if you want to wait for Knox to get back.”

“Sounds good.”

We head inside.

The moment the door swings shut, I hear the shower running upstairs.

Under it, Sage’s voice.

“Milo. Come on. I need you to help me.”

I’m halfway up the stairs before I realize I’ve moved. Micah follows.