Page 88 of What We Become

“You didn’t tell me,” I finally manage. My voice sounds scraped out, hollowed. “You didn’t tell me what she asked. What she expected.”

“Would you have wanted to know?”

“That’s not—” I stop. Press my palms flat against the table and feel the wood grain bite into my skin. “That’s not how this works, Holden. You don’t get to make that call. You don’t get to decide what I can handle knowing about my own fucking life.”

“I was scared, Milo,” he blurts. “Ever since that night. Ever since . . .” He clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head. “I have never been so afraid.”

“Holden—”

“Let me finish,” he says, holding up his hand. “I’ve never been afraid of what you became that night. I understand the why and the how. I’ve done the same thing in different rooms for different reasons, and I was fully aware the whole time. Hell, if we could be guaranteed to never get caught, going on a murder spree would be my favorite weekend activity.”

“Then what?”

“I couldn’t reach you.” His voice pitches upward. “Afterward. In the bath. It was like you couldn’t even see me.”

I stare at the table. There’s a knot in the wood grain that looks like an eye. I trace it with my fingernail.

“I’m sorry,” I say, quieter now. Less bite. More wreckage. “I remember enough of it to know I went somewhere ugly. I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It kind of is.” I shrug one shoulder, flimsy as a defense.

“No,” he says, pushing his hands through his hair like he wants to claw through his own skull. “It’s not about you being ugly. Or broken, or violent, or even what you did, Milo. It’s about me. About how I keep thinking I’m the guy who protects the people he loves, and then every fucking time, I’m not.”

He stares at the wood grain between his splayed fingers. When he speaks, his voice has that thin edge, almost trembling with all the things he never lets out until they start leaking through the cracks.

“First it was Sage in the bushes. Then it was fucking Tyler, right under my nose, and if Amy hadn’t been there, she’d have died on my fucking watch. You went catatonic, and I couldn’t bring you back, and now—” He cuts off, jaw working, his eyes flicking up to meet mine as if he’s daring me to stop him. “Now we’re all in hiding because some asshole bricked our girlfriend into a wall. And all I could do was fucking stand there. Make some fucking phone calls. Manage the scene.”

He’s still staring down, the muscles in his jaw locking and releasing as if the act of remembering requires insane, physical effort.

“I thought I’d be the one who knew how to protect her,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “I thought that was the whole point of me.”

“Holden.”

I move closer and hook two fingers around his. His fingers are ice-cold. I fold them into mine and wait until his eyes finally lift.

“Listen to me,” I say, my voice low and serious—something I rarely am. “The whole point of you isn’t being some infallible human shield. It’s that you’re the one who always shows up. Sage in the bushes—you took the heat off her. Tyler—you made sure no one went to jail for that. Me—you called my mother, which, for the record, is a bravery level no weapon on this mountain could match. You show up, Holden. Every single time. Showing up is the point.”

His jaw works. The forehead wrinkle is in full rebellion.

“And for the record,” I add, squeezing his fingers, “the guy who defines his entire worth by whether he can physically intercept every threat is setting himself an impossible standard—even Knox, the literal human wall, doesn’t expect that much of himself. You’re exhausted, and you’re sitting here at three a.m. monitoring empty cameras because duty is easier than rest, so kindly stop narrating our shared trauma like it’s a highlight reel of your own failures.”

“I should have⁠—”

“You should have told me about the pills,” I say. “That part, yeah. That part’s real. Hiding what she asked you to do—that was wrong, and I get to be mad about it, and I am mad about it. I’m just not going to stay mad, because you refused. You heard her pitch pharmaceutical stealth ops against your boyfriend and you shelved it. That’s the thing I’m choosing to hold on to.”

He exhales slowly. “I didn’t refuse her to her face. I just never used them.”

“That’s a refusal, Detective. She’s Gloria. Nobody refuses her directly. Even her gynecologist probably negotiates.”

That gets me the pre-smile, the one I collect like limited-edition stamps.

“I should’ve told you,” he admits, because Holden needs the absolution formalized, signed in triplicate.

“Yes. You still should have told me about the pills.” I tap the bottles resting between us with one finger. “No more managed secrets—between us or the group. We’ve all got enough loose threads without adding personalized pharmaceutical cover-ups. Deal?”

“Deal,” he says, and it sounds like a vow because he can’t do casual.