Page 89 of What We Burn

“Means what?”

It’s a monster. She’s tattooing a monster crawling out of a broken cage onto his back, and for one glorious second the read is exactly as horrifying as Eli’s bracing for—drunk Sage branding the man who called himself a monster with a monster, his own ugliest word about himself made permanent.

“Is it bad?” Eli asks. “Tell me it’s not a dick.”

“I thought you said you were fine with a dick,” Holden says.

“I am. I just want to know what it isn’t.”

“It isn’t a dick,” I say.

“The tone you’re using is not reassuring.”

“It’s a beautiful expression of trust and personal growth,” I say, which it absolutely is, because the monster is escaping its cage. And the artwork is freaking cool. But the way I say it makes Holden put both hands over his face.

Eli just groans.

Raven keeps going. Above the cage, above the thing dragging itself free—six small birds. Wings open. Scattering upward and out, each one a little farther from the wreck than the last, like the cage broke and what came out wasn’t just the monster. The whole flock got free.

“I like it,” Micah says, reaching out and taking Eli’s hand. “Raven’s doing a great job.”

Knox shifts a little closer and inspects the line work. From the way his eyes move across it, I know he’s counting. Six birds. Six of us. His mouth twitches. He nods once. Then steps back.

The needle works. Nobody says anything for a while, which for me is a medical event.

When Raven finally wipes it down and waves Eli to the mirror, Sage is vibrating on her stool.

“Hope you like it,” she says, and there’s a wobble under the bravado.

Eli twists, looking at his own back in the glass.

A broken cage. A monster climbing out. And six birds going free above it.

He stares for a long time.

“You gave me a monster,” he says. Quiet.

“I gave you a monster breaking free,” Sage says.

She’s not swaying now. The drink’s still in her, but her eyes are clear on his in the mirror.

“You keep it locked up. You think if you let it out, it ruins everything, so you cage it, and you cage you, and you call that protecting us.” She nods at his reflection. “But that’s not what happened. You let it out and the cage broke and”—she points at the birds—“we all got loose. All of us. Even you.”

The studio is dead quiet.

“I didn’t choose this as punishment,” she says, softer. “I chose it because I’m tired of hearing you talk about yourself like you’re something that has to be contained.”

Eli doesn’t move.

Neither do I.

There are moments when a room changes shape around what’s been said. This is one of those. Everyone stays still. Even Raven.

Sage wets her lips.

“I know what monsters look like,” she says. Her voice is still a little blurred by alcohol, but only at the edges. The center of it is razor sharp. “I’ve met them. Escaped them. You are not that. You’re just . . . ” She exhales, frustrated by the size of what she means. “You’re a man who built himself a cage and then forgot the door could open.”

Jesus Christ.