12. Sage
TWELVE
SAGE
“Nice jacket.”
Autumn eyes looks up from the menu, and for a second, we’re locked in a staring competition. Two people frozen in a diner on a Sunday morning—me with the coffee pot in my hand, him with those gold-brown eyes that have been living rent-free in my head since Friday.
“Thanks.”
“You know, I was sure I had one just like it?” I pour his coffee.
His mouth kicks up in a slight grin. “Yeah? What happened to it?”
I’m caught for an extra beat, mid-sarcasm, because that jacket—my jacket, since I’m feeling rather proprietary about it—looks even better on him than it did that night. His dirty-blond hair is still swept to the side, curling slightly into his eyes, and his face is still just as handsome.
What is it about these guys and their little group? Is the prerequisite that you have to be both hot and a little murdery? Is there an application process? A swimsuit round?
“Someone stole it,” I say, topping off his mug and setting my hand on my hip. “Walked right in and took it out of my apartment while I was in the shower.”
His eyes travel down the length of me then back up to my eyes. “Shame. Should have locked your door, then.”
“I did.”
He smirks. “Maybe you’ll get out of the shower one day and it’ll be back where it was.”
Only if you’re also in my apartment wearing it . . .
I clear my throat before my brain can turn that thought into a whole scene.
“So . . . Eli, right?” I say, flipping my pad and making a show of looking bored, even though my heart is in my throat.
“You ready to order, or are you just here to stare at me while wearing my jacket?” After everything I’ve been through, I should not be this into someone I know is willing to chase me down and pin me to the ground.
But here I am, wanting to touch the fire in his eyes and see if it burns.
“Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” he says, folding his hands around the mug. “And I have a strong case for adverse possession.”
I snort. “It was given to me. I want it back. Or at least visitation rights.”
His lip twitches, half-deflecting, half-pleased, and holy shit, his smile is devastating up close. “If you want joint custody, I’m open to negotiation.”
I hate myself for blushing, and hate it more when I realize I’m lingering at his table for no reason except the thrill of being close to him.
Someone two booths down clears his throat. “Excuse me, Miss?”
I turn to him. “Be right there.” Then my attention is back on Eli. “You want food or not?”
“I’ll take whatever you recommend.”
“Brave man,” I say, lifting my brow before walking away to serve the guy who called me.
After checking on my other tables, I drop the now empty pot at the counter and breathe, tongue pressed flat to the roof of my mouth.
What the fuck is wrong with me? He’s just a guy. A hot, feral, probably-off-his-meds guy who’s also a member of the weirdest boyband ever assembled. But still—just a guy.
I glance over, finding him reclined back in the booth, one arm stretched across the back. His eyes are locked on me, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his lips.
I take that back. How the hell am I supposed to deal with that?
I put in the orders then wipe down the counter, focusing on the little circles, willing my hands to soothe the hiss of static under my skin. Eli doesn’t look away. He watches me work, unhurried.
The bell dings and I head to the kitchen window for pickups. When I bring his breakfast—classic eggs and sausage with hash browns and a side of house salsa—he glances up at me and nods. That’s it. No “thanks,” no more flirtatious banter. Just a nod.
Okay, Mr. Hot and Cold.
“Can I get you anything else?”
He shakes his head. “No. This is good.”
He stays for four hours.
Four hours of coffee refills and cleared plates. Four hours of feeling his eyes on me every time I turn my back, a warm pressure between my shoulder blades that I can’t shake and don’t entirely want to.
He doesn’t try to talk to me again. Doesn’t flag me down or do any of the things normal customers do when they’re killing time. He just sits there, quiet and watchful, like a guard dog who’s chosen his post and has no intention of moving.
It should be creepy. It is creepy, technically. A man I barely know, sitting in my workplace for half a day, tracking my movements with those steady amber eyes.
But every time I glance over and catch him looking, something in my chest loosens instead of tightens. Like my body has decided, without consulting my brain, that this particular man is safe. That his presence means protection, not threat.
I hate how much I want that to be true.
I hate how much I want him.
It’s disturbing how badly I want to slide into the booth beside him, glue myself to his side, and shrink the space between us until there is nowhere for the wanting to hide.
Jesus Christ, Sage. Get it together! He’s a guy.
Just a regular guy . . .
Around noon, the breakfast rush finally breaks and my replacement, Rosa, shows up. I hang up my apron, grab my bag from the back, and head for the door.
Eli is already standing, pulling cash from his wallet to leave on the counter. Way too much for his eggs and four cups of coffee.
“You don’t have to—” I start.
“I know.” He tucks the wallet away. “Ready?”
“For what?”
“I’m walking you home.”
The presumption of it should irritate me. It does irritate me, a little—this assumption that I need an escort, that I can’t navigate six blocks without a chaperone anymore. But there’s also something warm and inconvenient beneath that irritation that I refuse to examine too closely.
“Actually,” I say, pushing through the door into the bright afternoon, “I’m not going home.”
He follows me onto the sidewalk, squinting against the sun. “Where are we going?”
“I’m going to the park.” I hoist my bag higher on my shoulder. “I brought lunch. It’s too nice to be inside.”
I start walking before he can respond. After a beat, I hear his footsteps fall into rhythm beside me.
The park is a ten-minute walk from the diner, a small square of grass and benches wedged between the boardwalk and a row of tourist shops. There’s a bench under an old oak tree that faces the water, quiet enough to talk without feeling trapped.
I claim the bench and pull two sandwiches from my bag. Turkey and Swiss, nothing fancy, wrapped in wax paper because I’m not a complete heathen. I hold one out to Eli.
He stares at it like I’ve offered him a live grenade.
“It’s a sandwich,” I say. “Not a bomb.”
“You made me a sandwich?”
“I made two sandwiches. One for me, and one for whoever was on babysitting duty today.” I shake it at him until he takes it. “I figured you guys probably don’t eat enough, with all the stalking and hanging and whatever else it is you do with your time.”
He sits on the bench, leaving a careful foot of space between us.
“Thank you,” he says finally. “You didn’t have to—”
“I know. Eat your sandwich.”
He does. I do too. For a few minutes, we just sit there, chewing in silence, watching the water. The breeze is cool and salty, the sun warm on my face, and if I close my eyes, I can almost pretend this is normal.
God, I wish my life was normal.
Just two people eating lunch in a park.
No blood. No bodies. No rope.
“So,” I say, when half my sandwich is gone and the silence has stretched long enough. “Are you going to tell me how this whole thing started? The . . . I don’t know what to call it. The Suicide Squad? The Vigilante Book Club? Five Guys Who Hang?”
Eli chokes on his sandwich. Coughing, eyes watering, hand pressed to his chest. I thump him on the back, harder than strictly necessary, and wait for him to recover.
“Five Guys Who Hang?” he manages, voice hoarse.
“I’m workshopping it. You got a better name?”
“We don’t really . . . have a name.”
“Every club needs a name, Eli. It’s branding 101. How about ‘The Hangmen’?”
Eli barks out a laugh, the surprise of it making his shoulders jerk. “That’s—no, I hate how much I love that.”
“You’re welcome.” I scan the water and resist the urge to ask the eighty-eight questions burning a hole in my tongue.
Instead, I finish the last half of my sandwich, balling the wrapper in my fist, and say, “So, are you going to tell me anything, or do I have to piece together your whole tragic origin story on my own?”
He’s quiet a second, gaze fixed on the horizon. Something in him goes heavy, the lightness from before collapsing inward like a star. “It’s not really a story,” he says slowly. “It’s just a thing that got out of hand.”
“Go on.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You really want to know?”
“Color me intrigued.”
“Okay. How much do you already know?”
“Almost nothing.” I pull out a bottle of water, take a sip then swallow.
“Holden told me enough to know you do this a lot. From what I can work out, you hunt men who got away with . . . what Brock tried to get away with. You catch them and make it look like suicide. He said you’ve been doing it for a while. ”
He nods. “A few years.”
“How many is a few?”
“Four. Almost five.”
I do the math in my head. Four years of hunting. Four years of rope and planning and forged suicide notes. How many men? How many bodies?
“How did it start?” I ask. “I mean—you don’t just wake up one day and decide to become a vigilante death squad. Something had to happen. Someone had to . . .”
I trail off. Eli is looking at the water, his jaw tight, the sandwich forgotten in his hands.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I say quickly. “I’m just—I’m trying to understand. I’m part of it now, whether I want to be or not.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. The pelicans dive over and over. The waves continue to roll in. And somewhere behind us, a kid is shrieking with laughter, chasing seagulls across the grass.
“For me, it started with my sister,” he says finally.
I don’t say anything. Just wait.
“She was a freshman in college. Went to a party, had a few drinks, woke up the next morning in a stranger’s bed with no memory of how she got there.
” His voice is flat, reciting facts. “She reported it. Did everything right—went to the hospital, did the kit, talked to the police, identified the guy. He was a senior. Popular. His family has money.”
I know how this story ends.
“They didn’t prosecute?”
“Oh, they prosecuted. It went to trial and everything. Lots of news coverage. Her name got leaked somehow and suddenly she was getting death threats. Rape threats. People showing up at her dorm, screaming at her that she was a liar, a slut, that she was ruining a good man’s life.”
His hands are shaking. A tremor in his fingers that he tries to hide by ripping the crust from his sandwich and tossing it to the seagulls.
“He got off. Jury couldn’t reach a verdict. Mistrial. The DA declined to retry, said there wasn’t enough evidence, said it would be too traumatic for her to go through it again.” A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Six months later, she tried to kill herself. Pills. I found her in time, but . . .”
“Eli.”
“She’s alive,” he says, like he needs to clarify. “She’s okay. Better, now. But she’s not the same. She’ll never be the same. And he. . . he kept living his whole fucking life like nothing ever happened, while my sister couldn’t sleep without . . .”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. It doesn’t need finishing. We both know what comes next.
“So you went after him,” I say, almost a whisper.
“Not at first. At first, I just . . . watched him. Followed him. Learned his routines. I told myself I was gathering information, that I hadn’t decided what to do yet. But I think I knew. From the moment the jury came back, I knew.”
“What happened?”
“I beat him to death in a parking garage,” he says simply, without drama.
“Didn’t plan it, didn’t plan for anything.
I saw him walking alone one night, and next thing I knew, I was smashing his head into the concrete.
I didn’t stop. Even when I knew he was dead.
I kept going. For her. For me. For every goddamn story like hers. ”
I don’t realize I’m crying until Eli glances over. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’m probably scaring you.”
“No.” I wipe my nose on my sleeve. “I’m not scared. I’m just . . . I wish someone . . .” I clamp my mouth shut and shake my head because I don’t want to go there. Don’t want to wonder what would have happened if someone had cared for me the way he cared about his sister. “What happened after?”
“Knox happened. He and I have been friends since high school. He’d noticed something was off—I’d been distant, angry, disappearing for hours at a time.
He figured out what I was planning and showed up to stop me.
” Eli’s mouth twists. “Except when he saw who I was beating and why, he didn’t. He kept watch until I was done.”
I try to picture it—Eli, wild with rage, fists bloody, and Knox standing in the shadows, watching, waiting.
“And then?”
“Knox made a call and Holden showed up. They cleaned everything away and drove me home. That’s how it started. The three of us. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t even planned. But after that night, it was like a switch flipped. There’s no going back, you know?”
“I know,” I say, and I do. I don’t realize I’m twisting my hands in my lap until Eli reaches out, gentle, and covers them with his own. His palm is warm and his fingers are rough, callused along the sides, but his touch is so careful it makes my eyes sting again.
“Listen,” he says, “what you did—what happened on the beach? That’s not something to be ashamed of.”
“But it is,” I blurt. The words burn on the way out.
“It is, Eli, because I wanted it to hurt. I—” I stop, try to collect myself, my lungs fluttery with the effort.
I want to say more, but the words keep hanging up somewhere in the back of my throat, twisting until I’m choking on the shame instead of talking about it.
The thing is, it wasn’t just survival—it was hunger.
They call it rage, but that’s not what it feels like. The rage is gone the second you feel the blade hit the bone. After that, it’s just . . . release. Like I was built for this. Like it’s the only thing that’s ever fit.
Eli’s silent for a long moment. His thumb moves—barely a scrape across my knuckle, almost nothing, but I feel it everywhere.
“People always want a clean story.” His voice is quiet but, somehow, stronger than it was before. “Target or hero or monster. But it’s never like that. Sometimes you’re all three. And sometimes, you have to become a monster to be the hero.”
“I don’t feel like a hero,” I whisper. “I feel like a monster.”
“I know.” His hand tightens on mine. “Me too.”
We sit there as the afternoon shifts around us. His hand stays on mine. I don’t pull away, and when we get up to leave, he puts his jacket around my shoulders.