Page 77 of What We Burn

“But when this is over.” He doesn’t blink. “You’re in. All the way in. We’ll all fight for it if we have to. I swear it to you. I’ll even stand there and hand you the knife.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling as the tension drains from my shoulders.

“Don’t celebrate yet,” Milo says, half-smirk. “We still have to survive the meeting with Odin. And if you badger him like you did Holden, there’s a real chance he’ll have you killed.”

Holden chuckles. “If she uses the same tactics as she did in the car, he’ll more likely send her to Lilith and get her on stage.”

“You know, I probably wouldn’t hate that,” I say, laughing as Holden rolls his eyes dramatically.

Micah reaches across the bar and takes my hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“We know what you are, baby girl. That’s why we’re saying not yet instead of no.”

I look down at his hand on mine. His thumb traces a slow circle on my knuckle.

“I know,” I say.

Knox straightens off the wall. “Meeting room. Odin’s waiting.” He looks at me. “Let us speak to Odin. Get his okay. It’s his gig, after all. Are you okay to wait⁠—”

“At the bar?” I nod with a wry smile. “Yeah. That’ll be fine.” I waggle a finger at all of them. “But I expect each of you to make the argument that this should be the last time.”

The men start moving. Milo sliding off his stool with a wink, Micah coming around the bar and pressing a kiss to my temple as he passes, Eli standing and walking past me without looking, though his hand brushes the back of mine in a way that could be accidental but I’m betting isn’t. Holden leads the way toward the door behind the stage.

Knox is the last to move. He waits until the others have entered the meeting room then stops beside me.

“I’m sorry, Fury.”

I fold my arms. “It’s fine. Whatever.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. He holds it between us, handle first.

It’s a knife.

The knife—the one from the beach, the one I pulled from his boot when the world went red and my hands stopped waiting for someone else to save me.

“It’s yours,” Knox says. “Has been since that night.”

I take it. It fits my hand like a missing finger. The memory of how it felt sinking into flesh, the resistance and then the give, the sound Brock made and the way Eli’s jacket smelled when he wrapped me in it after—all of that lives in this handle.

“You’re giving it to me?”

“Keep it on you,” he says. “All the time.”

I look up at him. Six foot seven of quiet, steady, unbreakable man.

“In case I get strung up again?” I joke, but it falls flat.

Knox’s answer is to lean down and kiss the side of my head before walking past me through the door.

I stand at the bar alone. The knife warm in my hand. The club silent around me.

I tuck it into my waistband, pull my shirt down over it, and sit on the stool to wait.

TWENTY-TWO

MICAH