51. Sage #2
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into his hair. “Not for wanting to be my own person. But for making you grieve me in advance. That was cruel, and I didn’t see it until right now.”
He nods against me. Doesn’t let go.
“New rules,” Holden says, and finally pours the coffee. He sets a mug in front of each of us like he’s dealing cards. “Milo builds the catch today. And nobody reads her other messages—Milo, that includes you—unless there’s a threat.”
“Agreed,” Milo says. Then, quieter, “Sorry, kitten. The boot thing was genuinely just love. And I’m not going to stop doing things to keep you safe. It’s just not in me and I won’t agree to it because that would make it a lie.”
“I know,” I say. “That’s the disturbing part. And the part I love about you.”
“I am a genuine delight.”
“And you.” Holden looks at me. “No more solo fieldwork. You want a target, you bring it to the table. We vote. You’re bound by the vote like the rest of us.”
“Like a real Hangman?” I say.
“Like a real Hangman.”
“But the choker goes back on when you leave the house,” he says, eyes moving to the collar.
“Okay. The choker goes back on. Every time I leave. I promise.”
I release Eli and move back to my cushioned chair, running the terms back in my own words while Holden deals out mugs. Nothing gets deleted. Targets go to a vote and the vote binds me. The choker goes back on. In exchange, I’m in the room for every decision about my own life.
I can live with that. I might even be able to live like that.
Knox’s hand finds my knee under the table and just rests there, heavy and warm. Micah is smiling like he’s watching his favorite movie end well.
“Also,” Milo says, pulling a folded and creased piece of paper from his pocket. My note. Please don’t panic. I love you. “I’m keeping this forever. It’s the most romantic felony I’ve ever received.”
“Give me that.”
“Never. It goes in the wedding slideshow.”
I laugh so hard I fart, and then everyone’s laughing—the ugly, honking kind of laughter that hurts, that folds me in half over the table while Milo shouts “SHE’S HUMAN!
” like he’s just won a bet with God. Knox’s hand stays on my knee through all of it, steady, and when I finally surface, wheezing, there are tears on my cheeks that have nothing to do with the fart.
Mostly.
“Okay,” Holden says, smiling as he gets up and finally brings the coffee to the table. “Okay. Drink up. Then everyone showers and gets horizontal before we all start hallucinating.”
“I already hallucinated once tonight,” Milo says. “Turned out it was just Dean’s face, and he got real mad when I poked him in it.”
Micah fills my mug and adds a splash of milk before sliding it back. “Eat some crackers first, baby girl. You haven’t eaten enough.”
“I ate half the cheese plate at the club,” I say.
“Explains the gas,” Milo points out, and the laughter starts again.
It takes its time dying and keeps reigniting—Milo says “cheese plate” under his breath and Eli snorts coffee through his nose, which sets Holden off, which is genuinely unsettling because I’ve never seen Holden laugh with his whole face before. He has a nice face. He should use it more.
Then the exhaustion lands all at once, like someone cut the power to the room.
“Bed,” Knox says.
“Shower,” Milo counters.
“You showered at the scene,” Holden says.
“I still have blood in my ear, Holden.”
“Shower it is then.”
Milo stops and narrows his eyes at Holden. “You can’t come.”
Holden just laughs.
When I try to stand, my legs file a formal complaint with management. Knox doesn’t ask. He slides one arm under my knees and one behind my back and lifts me out of the chair like I weigh less than the cushion.
“I can walk,” I say.
“Sure, you can.” He heads for the stairs anyway.
Behind us, chairs scrape. The whole flock follows—Eli close enough that his hand finds the back of my calf and squeezes, like he needs the contact point, Milo narrating our ascent like a nature documentary.
“And here we observe the Hangmen migrating toward the communal nest. The female of the species is feral but docile when carried—”
“Shut up, Milo,” five voices say in unison.
“Rude. Accurate, but rude.”
We shower in shifts, and when I finally come out—hair wet, skin raw, wearing one of Holden’s T-shirts that hits me mid-thigh—the bed has already happened.
All of them. Settled across Holden’s barely big-enough-mattress like a crime scene of limbs.
Milo is face-down in a pillow again. Eli is sitting against the headboard, eyes open, waiting.
For me. He’s been waiting for me.
“Phone,” Milo mumbles into the pillow, one hand extended.
I hand it over. He sits up, suddenly brisk, thumbs flying across the screen, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. Two minutes later he hands it back with a flourish.
“Catch is live. Anything routed through Brock’s number hits the group chat instantly. I named it Project Dead Man Texting.”
“Of course you did.”
I crawl over Knox and fold myself into Eli’s side. His arm closes around me immediately, his mouth pressing into my wet hair, and I feel him exhale—some of the day’s terror finally leaving his body through mine.
“Stay put,” he murmurs.
“For at least eight hours,” I agree. “Maybe nine.”
The lights go off. Bodies settle. Knox’s hand finds my ankle. Micah’s fingers tangle with mine over Eli’s stomach. Somewhere to my left, Milo starts breathing like a hibernating bear, and Holden says, “Snore and I’ll make a call to Dean about putting you in the morgue.”
“Joke’s on you, I’ve slept in a morgue before and I find it very restful.”
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Then Eli’s. Holden’s. Micah’s. Knox’s. All six, one after another, a little chorus of chimes in the dark.
I reach for mine.
GROUP CHAT — PROJECT DEAD MAN TEXTING
MILO:
TEST — You killed me. You buried me. You blocked me. But I’m still breathing down your neck. Jk. It’s Milo. System active. Also I love you. All of you. Even Holden who is super grumpy and just threatened me.
HOLDEN:
Go to sleep, Milo.
MILO:
Noted. Logging off to dream about the murder kitten. Goodnight, sweet freaks.
I set the phone down, and Eli pulls me closer, and the last thing I register before sleep takes me is the collar snug at my throat and six heartbeats in one room, and not a single one of them asking me to be anyone else.