Page 263 of What We Burn

Knox:

Understood.

“Will that be enough?” I ask.

“It removes one path. I’ll keep watching the others.”

We pack in silence after that. Amy’s clothes, her books, her toiletries. The face mask kits that never got opened. The spray tan booth, deflated and folded into its carrying case and ready to return to the lady from Facebook Marketplace. Then we pack up my remaining things. The few pieces I haven’t already migrated to Holden’s.

Ours. To our home.

I take one last look at the apartment before we leave. The new carpet. The fresh paint. All the evidence scrubbed clean, all the violence erased. It looks like a place where nothing happened. A blank page.

But I know what happened here. Good things and terrible things, sometimes in the same night. Amy on the couch with her eyelash extensions and her Dunkaroos. Tyler in the doorway with his ruined face. Holden in my bed. Eli in my kitchen, trying not to love me. Milo on the counter, swinging his legs, making me laugh until I cried. Micah holding me through my nightmares. Knox on the couch, silent, a shadow that always feels safe.

I close the door.

“Ready?” Holden asks, boxes balanced in his arms.

I look at the door. At the man holding my things. At Milo’s truck in the parking lot because we borrowed it to take my things home.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m ready.”

Holden’s phone rings again.

He shifts the boxes against his chest and checks the screen. Whatever he sees wipes the softness from his face.

“Loki.”

He sets the boxes down and answers. “Tell me.”

I watch him listen. His jaw locks.

“When?”

A pause.

“Every device?”

Another pause.

“What did Fenrir save?”

His gaze moves to me.

“Is there any way back in?”

The answer makes his mouth flatten.

“Send me everything that survived. Does Odin know?”

He listens for another moment.

“All right. Keep me updated.”

He hangs up.

“What happened?”