Page 211 of What We Become

Milo is on the ground, Dennis pressing a wad of gauze against his thigh.

“Hey, big guy,” Milo says. His voice is thin. “Nice of you to show up. We were just hanging out, waiting. It was a great bonding experience.”

“Jesus,” Gene mutters from where he’s lowering Holden, who lands hard and immediately reaches for his side.

“How bad?” I ask, limping closer.

Holden peels his hand away. Blood slips between his fingers and spreads a sticky mess across his shirt.

“I’ll live.”

Gene puts a dressing into his hand and helps him settle against the post. “Hold that there.”

Holden winces as he pulls his shirt away from his wound and presses the dressing against it. “Hurts like a bitch, though.”

Micah is next, Ray easing him down gently. He sways on his feet, catches himself on the post, and stands there for a second with his eyes closed and both hands flat against the wood. Then he opens his eyes and looks at me.

“I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me. Go to her.”

Gene cuts Eli’s rope as I reach Fury’s end of the row. He lands in a crouch that turns into a stumble, and I catch his shoulder before he goes down.

His hand closes around my forearm. For a second, neither of us lets go.

“Brother,” he gets out.

I nod because anything else is going to fucking break me.

He steadies himself, then turns toward Fury, putting himself between her and Stephen’s unconscious body.

Ray slides an arm behind her back while he works at the rope. I get my hands around her waist before the last strands part, taking her weight as her knees buckle.

“I’ve got you.”

She looks up at me. Blood at the corners of her mouth. Rope burns circling her wrists. A bruise forming along her jaw. Her face is streaked with dirt and tears and blood.

“Knew you’d come,” she whispers.

It’s the same thing she said after we pulled her from the foam. After she started breathing again.

My arms close around her. I hold her the way I’ve held her every time—too tight, too much. I know what it feels like to reach for someone and find empty air, and I never want to live a life like that again.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” I mutter into her hair.

A startled laugh bursts free, followed by a hiccuping sob.

“Fury.” My mouth is against her temple. I hold her, rubbing her arms, knowing they’ll be numb and aching. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t⁠—”

“No. No,” she whispers. “Don’t talk like that. You’re here. You found us.” Her fists knot in my jacket. “That’s all that matters.”

I hold her until her shaking stops. Or until mine does. I’m not sure which comes first.

When I finally lift my head, Ray has Holden’s shirt off and a kit spread on the ground beside him. Dennis hasn’t left Milo. He’s cut a section out of Milo’s pants and is stapling the wound closed while Milo bites his knuckles and tries not to cry out. Gene settles Micah on an overturned bucket, tucks a blanket around his shoulders, then turns to Eli’s wrists to start cleaning and wrapping.

Gloria stands in the center of it all. Shotgun crooked over one arm. Reading glasses still on her head. She’s surveying the room like a general who has managed worse before breakfast.

Four people who owe us nothing, working a room full of other people’s blood without anyone raising their voice. I grew up in a house where nobody made a sound either. It wasn’t this.

Fury shifts against me and winces. My attention catches on the blood at her mouth again. The cut at her throat.