Page 51 of What We Burn

“Yeah. Haven’t I mentioned him?”

“No,” the entire car answers.

He flaps a hand. “We don’t get along.”

“Dare I ask why?” Micah says slowly, wincing.

“My sister, Tyrah, is an artist—super into roller derby and shit.”

“How does that make her weird?” I ask.

“She’s not weird. It’s her values. Both she and my brother completely rejected the family unit. Gabe went so far as to tell Mom that if she ever contacted him again, he’d open an investigation into her—like loving multiple partners is a crime.” He scoffs then shakes his head sadly. “He’s a criminal prosecutor for the state. Super successful. Ultra judgy.”

Nobody laughs. I sit back and pinch the bridge of my nose.

Then Milo takes a left for absolutely no reason, and we drive the long way home.

FIFTEEN

SAGE

Ican’t sleep.

It’s not the bed. The bed is fine. Milo is starfished across seventy percent of it, one arm flung over my hip, dead to the world with the unbothered serenity of a man whose mother definitely hasn’t murdered anyone.

It’s the banana bread.

Gloria pressed it into my hands on the way out, wrapped in foil and still warm, and said, “I made this just for you, sweetheart. My special recipe.”

I thanked her, because what else do you do when a woman who may or may not have bodies in her backyard gives you baked goods? You say thank you and you take the banana bread and you put it on the kitchen counter and you go to bed and you lie there at one in the morning thinking about whether you’re an accessory after the fact for accepting a loaf.

The house is quiet. Milo’s breathing is slow and even. I slide out from under his arm, ease my feet to the floor, and creep toward the door.

I need to see that banana bread. I need to look at it and decide if I’m eating it or calling the police.

The hallway is dark. I pad down the stairs in bare feet, one hand on the railing, trying not to wake anyone.

The kitchen light is already on.

Eli is sitting at the island with a glass of water and a thousand-yard stare, wearing a T-shirt and boxers. He looks up when I come in and we stare at each other for a beat.

“I can’t stop thinking about the banana bread,” I say, my eyes moving over the still-fresh cut on his cheek.

“Because you want to eat it? Or because you’re afraid it’ll eat you?” he asks. This is the first bit of “normal” banter we’ve had for weeks, and I feel myself almost smile, the expression rippling up like an aftershock.

“I’m not sure,” I say, standing in the doorway. The foil-wrapped loaf sits ominously on the counter between us. “Little bit of column A, little bit of column B.”

Eli gestures at the bread. “We could dissect it together,” he offers.

I step closer. “Do you want the honors, or should I?”

He shrugs, but he’s watching me with that peculiar intensity, like he’s memorizing this for later reconstruction. “Your banana bread. Your move.”

I pull the foil off. It smells incredible. Walnuts, brown sugar, a hint of cinnamon. It smells like something a grandmother would make, if your grandmother didn’t have a collection of shock collars and a yard full of suspiciously coffin-esque garden beds.

“Do we think it’s poisoned?” I ask.

Eli considers this. “If she wanted to poison us, she would’ve done it at dinner. She had access to all the food, and she controls three men who would’ve helped her hide the evidence.”