42. Micah
FORTY-TWO
MICAH
“Three targets,” Holden says, spreading the folders across the kitchen table. “All connected. None of them are members yet.”
It’s almost midnight. The dishwasher is running its last cycle, the hall clock is ticking too loudly, and the television murmurs to itself in the next room.
Sage went upstairs an hour ago.
She hasn’t said much since we got home from lawn bowls. She laughed in the car. Leaned into Milo when he made another joke about the divot Eli tore in the green. But the anger she carried from the club to the green still came home with her.
Lawn bowls doesn’t cure a deep-seated need for vengeance. I know that feeling all too well.
Holden taps the first folder. “Fenrir sent this to Milo about thirty minutes ago. While he was matching usernames to people, he found a new thread in the onboarding section of The Kennel. Three applicants. One invitation. They’re applying as a group.”
“I printed it out so all you techno-strugglers could follow along.” Milo dips a celery stick into the jar of peanut butter balanced on his thigh. He offers it to me.
I shake my head.
He eats it with a crunch that makes Holden’s eye twitch.
“They’ve been given an initiation activity,” Milo says.
“Contribution before admission. No proof, no access to the main platform. Which is honestly very country club of them, except instead of a recommendation from an orthopedic surgeon and a questionable relationship with khaki, you need to commit a felony.”
“A planned assault,” Eli says. His voice has been rough since this afternoon. “At a party next Saturday.”
Knox sits at the far end of the table, shoulders filling the chair. “Three men on one woman.”
Holden fans out the files.
Three faces. Three names.
“Ryan Jeffries. Quarterback. Twenty-one. Two accusations at university level, both buried. One of the women kept the text messages he sent afterward.” Holden moves to the next photograph.
“Byron Sands. Wide receiver. One accusation. The university settled before it reached a hearing, and the woman transferred schools.”
His finger lands on the third.
“Devon McConnell. Offensive line. No formal complaint, but Fenrir found four separate accounts on a survivors’ forum describing the same man, the same dorm, and the same method. None of the women knew about the others.”
“They do now,” Milo says.
I look at him.
He swirls another celery stick through the peanut butter. His face is blank.
“Fenrir connected them and passed everything to Odin’s legal people. Anonymous introduction. Secure channel. They get to decide if they want to talk.”
The pressure in my chest eases by half an inch.
Holden nods. “The three men live together off campus. They’ve been given a prospective target and told to submit evidence from the party. That makes the assault imminent, which puts it inside the exception Odin gave us yesterday.”
“So the stand-down still holds,” I say. “We don’t touch the thirty-seven active accounts.”
“Correct. Fenrir’s managed to match only eight usernames to people so far—and that’s including Brock’s circle of abusers.
These three are outside that. They haven’t been admitted.
We remove them before they can complete the initiation and The Kennel has no reason to think we’ve identified anyone inside the network. ”
“How?” Eli asks.
Holden pulls a fourth sheet from the packet.
“Odin wants a suicide pact. Three men with existing accusations who panicked about exposure and decided they couldn’t face what was coming.
Their confession notes will cover what they’ve already done.
Nothing about the initiation. Nothing about The Kennel. ”
Milo raises his hand, celery included. “Before anyone asks, yes, I can build the digital spiral. Group messages. Search history. Drafted apologies. A slow descent into shared guilt with three distinct voices because I’m an artist and I refuse to let anyone describe what I do as administrative support. ”
“No invented victims,” I say.
His eyes flick to mine. “Never.”
Holden continues. “Fenrir will monitor the applicant channel. To the recruiter, three prospects got cold feet and took themselves out before they could become a liability. The active members remain untouched. The platform stays open.”
“And the woman they chose?”
“Odin’s team has already taken her out of play,” Eli says. “She received an offer for an out-of-state training program this afternoon. Fully funded. She leaves Wednesday.”
“Does she know why?”
“No.”
I don’t love that. I understand it, but I don’t love it.
Knox pulls the house plans closer. “They’re all home Friday after practice. No party. No other tenants.”
Holden points to the attached garage. “We stage them there. Alcohol in their systems, engine running, doors sealed. The notes are found inside the house. It reads as planned, private, and final.”
“I can get them home,” Milo says. “Jeffries gets a message from Sands. Sands gets one from McConnell. McConnell gets one from Jeffries. A perfect little circle of nobody remembering who started the conversation.”
“I’ll handle the garage,” Knox says.
“I’ll handle them,” Eli adds.
Holden nods. “I’ll control the scene and the timing. Micah, you monitor vitals and confirm. Milo handles devices and the digital trail. Which means we draw for who stays with Sage.”
“I volunteer as tribute,” Milo says immediately. “No need to involve stationery. I have a movie queue, snacks, and a highly detailed plan for—”
“I’m a short straw?”
We all turn.
Sage stands in the kitchen doorway wearing one of Milo’s T-shirts, black knee socks, and a scowl. Her dark hair is messy from bed, but there’s nothing sleepy about her eyes.
Holden straightens. “Wildcat—”
“Don’t wildcat me. I’ve been standing here since ‘three targets.’” She walks to the table and looks over the files. “Yesterday, I sat in Odin’s war room while he told me I was part of this. Twenty-four hours later, you’re back to planning around me.”
“We’re following Odin’s restriction,” Eli says.
“I know what Odin said. I’m not arguing that part right now.” She plants both hands on the table. “I’m arguing with the five men discussing who gets stuck babysitting me like I’m an inconvenient shift nobody wants.”
“Nobody gets stuck with you,” Milo says. “Staying with you is the winning straw. The entire system is corrupt because we all want it.”
The corner of her mouth almost moves. “Then stop calling it the short straw.”
“Fair,” I say.
She looks at me.
I hold out my hand. She takes it, but she doesn’t let me pull her into my lap. Instead, she steps between my knees and rests one hand on my shoulder.
I wrap my arms around her waist and press my mouth against her stomach, kissing her through the shirt. She’s warm. Tense. Her fingers settle at the back of my neck, and for a second, she lets me hold some of the weight.
Then she looks over my head at Milo.
“And we’re having the surveillance summit. Now.”
Milo freezes with a celery stick halfway to his mouth. “I was supposed to make slides.”
“You were specifically told not to make slides,” Holden reminds him.
“That doesn’t sound like something I’d agree to. Are you sure it wasn’t an evil twin?”
“Milo.”
The joke dies.
He sets the peanut butter on the table and wipes his hands on his pants.
“Okay, kitten. We’re listening.”
Sage touches her throat. She’s not wearing the choker, but we’re all aware she’s pissed about the tracker. “What exactly does the cameo tracker collect?”
Milo answers. “Location. Battery level. Movement state and the time of the last signal.”
“Movement state?”
“Whether the pendant is moving or stationary. It doesn’t know if you’re walking, driving, or being carried. Just that it changed position.”
“Can it tell if I’m wearing it?”
“No.” Milo spins the jar of peanut butter between his fingers. “The software knows where the tracker is. It doesn’t know where you are if you take it off.”
Holden’s jaw tightens. “That’s why we’re asking you not to.”
Sage ignores him. “Who can see it?”
“All five of us,” Milo continues. “Separate encrypted access through our phones.”
“Do you store where I’ve been?”
“Twenty-four hours, then the map wipes itself. The current location and last signal always remain. The raw GPS coordinates stay in a separate log until I manually clear it.”
“How often are you all checking my location?”
Nobody answers quickly enough.
Sage’s eyebrows lift. “That often?”
“It varies,” Holden says.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“If you’re where you said you’d be, I check at the agreed arrival time and again when you’re expected to leave.”
Knox shifts at the end of the table.
She looks at him. “And you?”
“More.”
Of course he does.
“How much more?”
“Enough.”
“That also isn’t an answer.”
“Every fifteen minutes,” Milo supplies.
Knox gives him a flat look.
“What? We’re doing disclosure.”
Sage takes a slow breath. “Okay. Here are my terms. While the threat against me is active, I’ll wear it when I leave the house.”
Relief moves through the room. Quiet, but visible.
“In return, I want to know how and why you’re watching me. Not later. Not if I catch you. Every time.”
“I can add an access alert,” Milo says. “You’ll get a notification whenever one of us opens the map.”
“Do it.”
His fingers twitch toward his laptop before he remembers she isn’t finished.
“No one adds any new surveillance to me, my clothes, my things, or my phone without telling me.” Her gaze moves over all five of us. “You don’t have to ask permission to be scared. You do have to tell me what you’ve done with that fear.”
Milo goes very still.
It lasts less than a second.
Then he nods with the others.
“From now on,” he says.
“From now on,” she agrees. “If I’m going somewhere ordinary, you don’t sit outside unless we agreed to it or something changes. If you’re all on an operation, one of you can stay with me while Odin’s restriction is active. I don’t like it, but I understand it.”
Eli watches her carefully. “And if the threat escalates?”
“We talk again. You don’t quietly put me under house arrest and call it love. I need to live my life without feeling like I’m the prisoner of a ghost with a shitty username.”
“Agreed,” I say.
She glances down at me. Some of the tension leaves her hand where it rests against my neck.
Holden looks around the table. “Anyone have a problem with those terms?”
No one speaks.
“Good. Then there are no more short straws. We assign the person remaining with Sage based on the skills needed in the field, and we stop talking about staying with her like it’s the losing position.
” Holden looks at Milo. “Your part can be done remotely, so you stay here Friday. Everyone else has an on-site role.”
Milo raises his hand again. “Can the official record show I said that first?”
“The official record can show you were eating peanut butter with celery at midnight like a fucking psychopath.”
“Protein and vegetables, Holden. I’m a growing boy.”
Sage snorts.
It’s small, but I feel it through her body.
I tug gently at her waist. This time she lets me pull her into my lap.
“Show me these targets,” she says.
Holden turns the files toward her.
He takes her through the three men, the accusations, and Odin’s staging order. Sage listens without interrupting, one arm looped around my shoulders. By the time he finishes, the softness has left her face.
“They all look like they belong on a fucking billboard,” she says. “Or leading a TED Talk about how to exploit tax loopholes.”
“They’re athletes,” Milo says. “That’s the product package.”
She runs a finger along the edge of the photos. “And the victim? She was—’selected for athletic experience, physicality, and relative isolation.’” Sage’s mouth goes thin. “They wanted to prove they could break someone stronger than they are.”
“That’s the point of their whole system,” I say. “Every escalation is about power.”
She looks at me, then at Holden. “Take photos this time. I want to see them dead.”
She slides out of my lap and circles the table, reading the pages upside down as she moves. When she reaches Knox, her fingers catch the corner of a thin folder trapped beneath his notebook.
It’s dog-eared. Older than Odin’s packet.
Knox covers it with his hand.
“Who’s that?” she asks.
He looks at her for a long moment, then moves his hand and lets her open the folder.
The photograph shows a man in his forties. Heavyset. Trucker cap. A face built to disappear into a truck-stop crowd.
“Dale Stine,” Knox says. “Long-haul trucker. Six women assaulted at rest stops along the US-101 corridor in the last two years. Three reported. None prosecuted.”
Sage turns the page.
Maps. Fuel receipts. Photographs of a dark Peterbilt and a man walking into roadside bars. Knox’s handwriting fills the margins.
“Different states,” he continues. “Different jurisdictions. Nobody connected them.”
“But you did.”
Knox nods once.
Holden reaches across and closes the folder. “He isn’t part of this operation.”
Sage keeps her hand on the cover. “Why not?”
“Because the football cluster is an imminent threat and an Odin assignment. Stine is Knox’s private file. We don’t have the resources to run both.”
“But you’ll get him eventually?”
“Yes.”
“And if he hurts another woman before eventually?”
The question lands in the center of the table.
I hate that there isn’t an answer that won’t hurt her.
“Then that’s the cost of choosing where we put our effort,” I say. “We can’t be everywhere, baby girl. We work the most immediate threat first and live with the fact that the list keeps growing faster than we can shrink it.”
Her mouth hardens.
“That’s a shitty system.”
“It is.”
She looks down at Stine’s file for another second before Holden reaches over and slides it back beneath Knox’s notebook. Sage scowls.
Knox watches her.
“You okay, Fury?”
“I’m angry.”
“Good. Angry is useful.” He rises from his chair and steps into her space. “Angry keeps you breathing. Alive.”
Sage tips her head back to look at him.
The air changes.
Not softer. Hotter.
Knox lifts one hand and brushes his thumb across her bottom lip. She catches it between her teeth.
His eyes go dark.
“Need help working some of it off,” he says.