Page 114 of Make Them Bleed
Arrow: Wait. I’ll meet you.
Render: Hazel is a maze. I can be there in 12.
Ozzy: I am currently making friends with a fern. I can be a ficus by the door.
Knight: Do not go in alone.
I watch the dots bloom and die. The clock is a dare.
I’ll wait in the shop.
Arrow: I’m leaving now. Do not go outside with anyone.
Gage: Dropping a quick sheet to your phone—Etta’s face, last five calendar pins. Keep the phone face down on the table. She reads screens.
I shove my feet into boots and tell myself I’m just going to look at dried flowers and purchase something self-care-adjacent. I lock my door. I check it twice. I check it a third time because my mother lives in my bones. I text Arrowelevatorand thenstreetand tuck my hood up against the wind.
Bower & Bloom is a greenhouse disguised as a boutique. The air smells like petunias and effort. Dried bouquets hang overhead like fainting ladies. Vases sit in curated clusters that make me want to organize my feelings by height and color.
I spot her immediately. Etta looks like a painting someone insured for a lot of money. Mid-forties, hair in a blunt bob that could cut bread, a camel coat that understands the concept of nuance. She holds a ceramic vase in one hand and a phone in the other and wears the expression of a person who expects the world to lower its voice when she enters.
I move in her orbit without colliding. “Hi, Etta.”
She looks up. Her eyes do the scan—face, shoes, ring finger—file, retrieve, soften. “Juno. Thank you for meeting me.”
We take a table by the window. A teenager with bangs and a septum ring brings us tea on a tray so adorable it makes me suspect trickery. I keep my hands wrapped around the cup to hide the tremor in them.
“I don’t do this,” Etta says. Her voice is a cello. “Nereus doesn’tdothis. But someone used our channels to execute a series of transactions I do not appreciate.”
“Someone,” I echo, bland as sugar. “Like Gray?”
She smiles with just her eyes. “Gray is a sun that warms many things. I handle the weather.”
“Cute,” I say, and tuck my foot around the chair leg so I don’t step into anything I can’t afford.
She leans in a fraction. Her perfume is expensive and restrained. “Arby Kate was approached for a sponsorship. She declined—too many strings. Another content house accepted those strings, and the string-puller decided failure should be punished. That is not how I like to operate.”
“What do you like?” I ask.
“Quiet,” she says. “And gratitude.”
“And Bob O'Neill?"
Etta exhales. “You know?”
“Yes, I know. So you can stop your bullshit. I saw you both at Club Greed. Arby knew too, didn’t she? You wanted her to keep quiet, so when this little‘brand war’came up it gave you the perfect opportunity, didn’t it?”
She gasps, like actually gasps at my accusation. “How dare you.”
I sip tea to keep from biting the word. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
Her mouth curves, impressed at being called out. “You’re right.”
I glance at the door. Where is Arrow? How long did the elevator take? How far is twelve minutes in traffic? My phone ticks over a minute. I keep it face down like Gage told me.
She stands. The tea tray rattles, and the teenager with bangs tells a succulent it is doing amazing, sweetie. Etta smooths her sleeve and gives me a nod that lives halfway between respect and warning.
And then something at the door shifts.
