Page 49 of Make Them Bleed (Pretty Deadly Things #1)

Juno

Morning tastes like pennies and toothpaste.

I pad out to the living room, making my way to the couch.

I lie on my side watching the way the new boom arm hovers over my desk like a helpful crane and pretend that’s why my heart’s racing.

It isn’t. Behind my eyes there’s stainless steel, an empty hand, a knife I never meant to hold like a future.

Arrow pads in from the kitchen, hair damp, mug in each hand. He sets one by my knee and doesn’t say how are you because I can’t afford to answer it honestly and he knows it.

“Bagels and truth,” he says, which is our newest church and also an agenda.

“Make it a double,” I mutter, pushing upright, hoodie cocooning me like a thief from his closet. He sits on the edge of the couch. We do the slow, careful lean until foreheads touch and breathing syncs. I say the thing I’ve been repeating in my head every twelve heartbeats since last night.

“I told him to stop.”

“You did,” Arrow says, steadily. “And you defended yourself.”

The words land and stick and also don’t. Somewhere in my chest, a cat kneads claws into soft fabric and purrs a mean little purr. I hate it. Also, if I’m not honest, I understand it.

We eat in silence, then pack the silence up and take it to Chloe Huxley.

She meets us in a conference room that looks like a high school tried to cosplay cop .

There’s a laminate table, styrofoam cups, and a whiteboard with a leftover EXTRADITE?

in fading marker. She wears a navy blazer over a T-shirt that says PAY YOUR INTERNS and an expression that translates to I like you, but don’t make me like you and lie for you in the same hour .

“Water?” she offers, already unscrewing a bottle like she can see the tremor in my hands through my pockets.

“Please,” I say. My voice comes out fine. Gold star, larynx.

Arrow lays down our paperwork like a dealer: printouts from Render (Nereus → agency → HOLO-BURST), the public DMs Gage scraped before they were memory-holed, Devereaux’s “shadow map” anonymized into “this is a cluster; look harder here.” Nothing illegal. Everything pointed.

Chloe reads in that flat cop way that keeps her face from becoming anyone’s mirror. “Nereus,” she says under her breath. “And Etta Hoy. I don’t love that name. I’ve actually met her before.”

“Gray-adjacent,” Arrow says. “Hires herself out as a funnel. Money goes in wearing a tux, comes out in athleisure.”

Chloe lifts a brow. “Colorful. Accurate.” She flicks her gaze up at me. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

“I held the knife up,” I say. “He ran into it.”

“Arrow called,” she says, like it’s a neutral weather report.

“Paramedics worked. Devin Pike was pronounced DOA at 9:17. You are not in my report, because you weren’t there when uniforms arrived and because an anonymous caller mentioned ‘a man hurt a woman’ and the woman wasn’t present.

Which, if you ever decide you’d like to give a statement, will make my job easier. ”

“Will I be arrested if I give a statement?” I ask, because I was raised by a woman who told me to ask for the sale and the policy.

“Not today,” she says. “Maybe not ever. The facts support self-defense.” She rubs her thumbnail along the edge of the printout. “The universe does not love two accidents in a week. Your enemies will write stories about it. Don’t help them write better ones.”

“Understood,” I say, because I do. My body does too. It tightens like a rope tied to a post that’s seen floods.

She taps the map. “Devereaux shadow-mapped for you, didn’t he? He and I sleep fine because we never mix business and family. But I will take this,” she says, slipping the anonymized cluster into a folder. “And I will ask a judge for a warrant that gets me the names you didn’t bring.”

“Thank you,” Arrow says.

Chloe leans back, studying both of us. “You have a talent for finding fires,” she says to me.

“I do not say that as a compliment. Stay out of living rooms.” Her mouth ticks, humor as dry as a police report.

“And for the record… I tell my spouse everything. You will not get Devereaux to betray a house rule. He will, however, protect his house from wolves.”

“Good,” I say, and mean it in a way that surprises me.

When we leave, Arrow squeezes my hand and doesn’t let go until we hit the parking lot. The sun is out in that autumn way that looks like sincerity and feels like a joke.

“Plan,” I say. “What’s next?”

He exhales. “Two fronts. Devereaux is pulling Marina cross-refs; Gage’s chasing Etta Hoy through LLC hay bales. Knight and Render will sit on Gray’s conservatory dinner. Ozzy will charm a Stonehouse bartender into telling us who drank what on Wednesday.”

“And me?” I ask. “Because I can’t just color all day.”

“You,” he says, choosing each word like it’s a piece of evidence, “are going to record a short. Something smart, not self-incriminating. You’re going to eat. You’re going to nap if your body lets you. Tonight we watch the conservatory and we do not start fights we can’t finish in daylight.”

I give him a look. “I’m not a toddler.”

“You also aren’t bulletproof,” he says. “I need you breathing.”

It’s not a romantic line, but feels like one anyway.

He drops me at my building with a kiss to my temple that feels like a signature and heads off to Maddox to print out paperwork. I ride the elevator up, unlock the door, and let the quiet rush me the way the ocean does when you insist on standing in the shallows.

I hit record.

The episode is a scalpel, not a scream. I talk about money disguising itself as philanthropy and sponsorships that arrive as “opportunities” and leave as knots.

I don’t say Devin’s name. I don’t say knife or blood or I will never not feel his weight in the air as he fell.

I say, “When a brand asks you to bid against your friend, that is not a game. That is a test to see if you’ll bleed for them.

” I end with, “Some of us learned to stop auditioning.” My voice doesn’t break. After, my hands do.

I make eggs. I do a page in my mandala book that looks like a bruise that went to prom. I change my hoodie. I stand at the window and watch Saint Pierce pretend it isn’t full of princes and parasites.

At 2:18 p.m., a text comes through.

Mom: On your side of town again! Thinking of grabbing a new lamp at the vintage place on Alder. Need anything?

My stomach does a ridiculous acrobat routine.

I’m home today. Love you.

Mom: Love you more. Call me tonight?

I put the phone down and breathe. A minute later, it buzzes again.

Etta: Juno. I believe we can help each other. If you’d like to meet somewhere neutral—public—I’m at Bower something hard nudges my shin; my heel connects with someone’s ankle and he swears softly in a language I can’t place.

“Juno!” Arrow again, closer, then muffled as someone does something to the door or the air or the rules. A car door slides open. A body shifts. A voice says now like it’s the end of something and the beginning of something else, and then the hood cinches and the world goes quiet.

I am picked up and packed away like a vase, like an apology, like a girl who will not be allowed to write her own exit.