Page 91 of Make Them Bleed

We leave him in his chair with a glass of water because we aren’t monsters; we’re just tired of how many the city manufactures. Outside, the night is clean and empty.

In the car, Ozzy peels off Arthur and groans. “I’m sweating in places I didn’t know had pores.”

Gage sets Polk on the dash like a dashcam mascot and clicks his pen once. “Coleman. Rook Salazar. Beau Latham. Merritt Voss. Devin Pike.” He ticks the names like a rosary. “We have a nice little boy band.”

My phone buzzes again—two texts this time. I flip it over.

Juno: I’m awake.

Juno: You alive?

I type and erase three versions ofI’m with the presidents getting names, then settle for:

Me: Alive. We got movement. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.

Dots. Stop. Dots.

Juno: Bagels and truth. 8 a.m. Don’t be late.

I stare at the screen until my reflection looks like a different man.

Ozzy nudges me, gentler than he acts. “You going to tell her you played CIA with Bob’s coworker?”

“Yes,” I say. “And I’m going to tell her I’m sorry I didn’t tell her first.”

Gage buckles in, voice quiet. “You picked the speed that kept her out of an arrest. You tell her that, too.”

“Names to Huxley tonight?” Ozzy asks, already composing the anonymous courier plan he will tell me is extremely legal and absolutely not.

“Tonight,” I say. “She gets a present on her desk that says ‘follow the ring.’”

The masks stare at me from the seatbacks like disappointed history teachers. I flip Hoover around so he doesn’t have to watch me figure out how to be the man I promised Juno I’d be.

We pull away from Pinecrest, the city opening its usual maze of roads and bad decisions. Ahead of us: Stonehouse, Cicely’s, a warehouse with a keypad and a blind spot. A saint named Gray who doesn’t like sharp edges. A ferry with a ring. And five menwho waltzed into Pride like they owned the room and finger-gunned a public servant like it was a joke.

“Let’s go write names on mirrors,” Ozzy says.

“Let’s go teach tassel loafers what humility looks like,” Gage adds.

“Bagels at eight,” I say, and the promise sits in my mouth like something I can keep.

31

Juno

At 7:59 a.m. I’m standing in my doorway like a haunted doorman, pretending I’m not. The apartment smells like sleep and lemon cleaner. I’ve straightened the throw pillows twice, which is hilarious because I never cared if they were straightened or not. That was always Arby’s thing.

I shut the door, my nerves getting the better of me.

Bagels and truth. That’s what he promised. I’ve been repeating it like a spell since midnight:bagels and truth, bagels and truth.I want the second half so badly my teeth ache, and the first half because sesame is the only religion I practice.

Three knocks. Our code. My spine turns into a tuning fork.

I open the door.

Arrow’s on the mat with a paper bag, two coffees in a carrier, hair still damp from a shower he must’ve sprinted through. He is all clean clothes and warm eyes and the kind of tired that looks better on him than it has any right to. For two seconds he just… looks at me. Not past me. Not at the houseplants or the crimewall or the way my hoodie is half-zipped and doing nothing to hide the fact that I slept maybe three hours.

Then, simply, like he’s saying his name for the first time, he whispers, “I love you.”