Page 56 of Make Them Bleed
“Nico,” Bob repeats like it’s a code word he will absolutely misuse later. “You take a person with you. Preferably a person with biceps.”
“I have pepper spray,” Juno says, defensive out of habit.
“Pepper spray isn’t enough,” Karen says softly.
Juno stares at the ring of tea in her mug and finally looks at me. It’s quick—like checking a mirror—but it’s there. Something passes between us that isn’t just anger, or at least isn’t only anger. A reluctant acknowledgment. A truce on a battlefield no one likes.
I take the opening. “I meant what I said,” I tell her, careful not to upset her. “I haven’t looked at your stuff since you told me to stop. Not your Ring. Not your laptop. I’m not in your air.”Render is, a little,I don’t say. “But I can stand a sidewalk away. I can sit in a car around the block. I can be the person with biceps.”
“Your biceps are fine,” Bob says, like an impartial judge offering a ruling.
“Please,” Karen says, tiny and fierce at once. “Let him stand the sidewalk away.”
Juno’s jaw flexes. She inhales. “I’ll… think about it.”
It’s not a yes. It’s not the door slamming. I’ll take it.
We visit for another fifteen minutes that feels like a slow-motion relay—topic tossed, caught, fumbled, rescued. Bob tells a story about a beagle bath that ends in a flooded hallway. Karen asks about the podcast and doesn’t push when Juno says she recorded a new episode and then didn’t upload it because hervoice sounded like a stranger. I offer to fix her leaky sink because fixing tangible things is a thing I know how to do.
When they stand to go, Karen holds Juno’s face in both hands and kisses her forehead. “Call me when you get home tonight,” she says. “Even if it’s very late.”
“I will,” Juno says, and for once I believe a promise none of us can enforce.
Bob hugs her like she’s made of glass and then turns to me. “You watch her,” he says, no humor.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
In the hall, I hang back while Juno kisses her mom’s cheek again. I want a word. Thirty seconds. Anything. As Karen and Bob start down the stairs, I lean toward Juno and lower my voice. “Can we talk? Just us?”
She shakes her head, eyes flicking toward the stairwell like there’s a timer running. “Not now.”
“When?” It slips out sharper than I intend.
She meets my gaze full-on, and for once there’s no fence in it. Just a tired, honest ache. “When I’m sure you’re not going to lock all my doors for me.”
My throat tightens. “Okay,” I say. “Okay.”
She grabs her bag, slips past me, and follows her parents down one flight, then stops and doubles back. She pokes her head around the corner, finds me still in the doorway. “Arrow?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for not telling them,” she says.
“Which part?” I ask, because there are so many parts.
“All of it,” she says, and is gone.
I stand in her doorway for a long beat, staring at the blank eye of the Ring like it might blink. Then I lock up, slip my phone out, and type a message I have to get exactly right.
To: Render—If J heads anywhere near Atlas or the marina today, text me. I won’t crowd. Just don’t let her be alone in a dark corner.
The dots dance.
Render:Copy. She’s aiming at Nereus. I’ll keep you a block away, Boy Scout.
Me:Appreciate it.
I slide the phone away and take the stairs two at a time, the way Bob threatened his knees not to. Outside, the air has the clean bite of a storm that can’t make up its mind.
