Page 54 of Make Them Bleed
I drift to the kitchen doorway. “I can make tea,” I offer, because my hands need a job and my mouth shouldn’t have one. “Or coffee.”
“I’ve got it,” Juno says, without looking at me. She drops teabags into two mugs like she’s dealing cards to someone she doesn’t trust. “Mom?”
“Tea is lovely,” Karen says. She reaches over, touches Juno’s elbow. “How are you, really?”
Juno exhales through her nose. “Working. Eating. Coloring in circles so I don’t start screaming.”
Karen smiles, eyes wet. “The mandala book.”
“Yeah.” Juno sets the kettle down harder than it needs to go. “Balance.”
Bob straightens from the wall, points at a photo of a black-and-white motor yacht and a brass plaque:NEREUS MARINE LLC – Legacy Slip D4.“This one looks like a Bond villain’s Uber.”
Juno moves like she might block the view, then stops. “Just a lead.”
Karen follows his finger, mouth flattening. “Junebug, this isn’t your job.”
“It is,” Juno says. No heat. Just certainty. “If I don’t do it, I’m just sitting here with… nothing.” She flicks her fingers toward the couch, the air, the invisible weight of grief.
Bob scratches his jaw. “Let the cops do cop things. What’s that woman’s name? Detective… Huxley?”
“Huxley,” I say, seizing a lifeline I don’t believe in but might throw anyway. “Chloe Huxley. She’s good.” Smart, careful, and wholly hamstrung by a caseload and a department that likes metrics more than messes.
“See?” Bob says, as if I’ve closed the argument. “Let Huxley find the bad guys. You are… what’s the word… biased. You got skin in the game. And when you have skin in the game, you do dumb things.”
Juno’s mouth curves in something that isn’t a smile. “When you have skin in the game, you’re alive,” she says. “When you don’t, you’re watching from the bleachers.”
Karen flinches like that landed too close. She looks at me, pleading for backup. I wish I had a script that ended with everyone fed and safe.
“I don’t think you should do it alone,” I say carefully. “That’s all.”
Juno finally looks at me. Her eyes are flint. “Noted.”
Karen squeezes her mug. “Arrow’s right, Junebug. If you insist on—” she gestures helplessly at the wall, all the red threads twisting into names “—then…do it with help. Please.”
Juno takes a breath like she’s about to jump into cold water and exhales it as steam over the sink. “I have help.”
I try to catch her gaze, try to tell her with mine that my definition ofhelpisme, isnot abandoning you even when you bolt the door. She slides past it like a fighter slipping a punch.
Bob wanders back to the wall and tries to read without touching. “HOLO-b… HOLO-blast?”
“Burst,” I correct, and immediately wish I hadn’t.
“Ridiculous name,” Bob declares. He points to a blurry still of a man in a cobalt suit with his mouth shaping the wordfuneral. “This one looks like the guy at the country club who complains about the temperature of the sun.”
“Valentino,” Juno says softly, as if naming a snake.
“Valentino,” Bob repeats with relish.
Karen reaches for a dishtowel like she needs to hold onto something. “Could we sit? Maybe… talk about anything else for five minutes?”
We move to the couch. Karen takes the end seat like she’s bracing for a deposition. Bob perches on the ottoman, teabag string hanging over his thumb like a kite. I settle on the arm of the chair, a safe amount of not-next-to Juno. She finds the seam in a cushion and picks at it like if she worries it long enough, buttons will appear and fasten things shut.
“How’s Bob’s new beagle?” I ask, because small talk might be the life raft we need.
“Still alive and loudly so,” Bob says. “We named him Dennis because he menaces the mailman.”
Karen gives him a fond side-eye. “Dennis ate three socks. He looked me in the eye while doing it, too.”
