Page 119 of Make Them Bleed

Juno watches him. She isn’t blinking much. I want to put my hand over hers. I press my shoulder against her shoulder instead. She leans into it a fraction.

Etta slices my ties herself, quick and efficient. The muscles bristle but stand down at her look. Blood surges back into my hands as pins and needles scream. I flex, catch Juno’s wrist, and squeeze once.

Bob speaks into the phone in his office voice. “Hi, Janette. I need to send a statement. Personal reasons. Effective immediately.” He swallows. He looks at Juno. “Yes. Today.”

He ends the call. He can’t even look at us.

Coward.

Coleman checks his watch like this bored him. “Take them off the boat,” he tells the muscle. “If they post anything in the next three days, we’ll finish this.”

Juno looks ready to kill. She doesn’t say a word, and Etta gives her a knowing smile. They think they’ve won. They think they can outrun this.

“Clock starts now,” Etta says, tone flat. “Don’t be stupid.”

They march us to the hatch. The world is gray and cold. The dock smells like rope. My legs remember how to walk. At the top of the gangway, Etta stops us with a hand.

“One more thing,” she says.

Juno turns her head. “What.”

“Stay away from Karen tonight,” Etta says. “Let Bob tell her without you in the room.”

“You don’t get to ask that,” Juno says.

“I’m not asking,” Etta says. “I’m telling you how to keep her safe from the whiplash you’re about to cause.”

Juno breathes once. “She’s stronger than you think.”

“I know exactly how strong she is,” Etta says. “It’s not the point.”

Coleman is already moving away, bored again, talking into his phone. The muscle guide us down the gangway and off the dock. No one runs. No one shouts. It almost looks normal.

On the walkway, Juno stops. She turns. She looks straight at Bob.

“You put a price on my sister,” she says. “You put a price on me.”

He shakes his head, desperate. “I didn’t?—”

“You did,” she says. “Go home. Tell my mother. Then call Detective Huxley and tell her everything, including what you just did to us.”

He nods, broken. “I will.”

“Good,” she says, and then she turns and we walk.

We don’t talk until we hit the parking lot. I text Knight a single pin. His car pulls in two minutes later. Render appears from nowhere and takes a picture of the stern ofLaurel Nine, casual as a tourist, then deletes it in front of me and nods. Gage texts:Signal lost at shop. You good?I send backaliveand nothing else.

In the car, Juno stares at her hands, then at me. “I thought we were going to die,” she says, voice small.

“I did too,” I say. “But we didn’t.”

She nods and swallows. “Seventy-two hours,” she says, like she’s putting a timer in the air between us. “Then we end them.”

“We do it clean,” I say. “No more rooms without witnesses.”

She exhales. “Okay.”

I take her hand. She doesn’t pull away. We drive, slow, quiet, out of the marina, into a city that has no idea how close it came to losing us today. We have a window. We’re going to use every minute.