Chapter 13
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
AUbrEY
Who is we?
The question echoed in my head like a thousand tiny razor blades intending to cut me open and leave me flayed, to splinter bones and expose my heart.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him—it was going to be a fucking surprise for him to learn I didn’t have one anymore. Or if I did, it wasn’t beating.
But I could see it on his face. Phoenix had a look that told me he wasn’t going to let this go. There was a hunger behind his expression that said he was a cannibal of more than just flesh—he wanted to eat me whole, soul and all. This wasn’t the way I wanted to be devoured.
“I…” I started, my fingers clenching at my side. It would be easier to put a bullet between his eyes and walk away now. It would be easier to forget about the way it felt when he fucked me, the way I could forget when he had his fingers around my throat.
My hand came up, and the metal of the collar I wore was the same temperature as my skin.
Fuck.
Fuck .
“I grew up in a shit area with a shit dad. After I left, I roamed for a while.” I watched his face carefully to see if he’d accept the half lie.
“I picked up a few skills along the way. Eventually, me and a group of people were rounded up by those scientists who used to have a building on the south side of the city.”
“The one that burned to the ground?” His eyes widened in shock, and I took a breath to see if the fire in my lungs was spreading. When I realized I could still inhale without choking on the flames, I nodded.
“Yeah. When we escaped…” I clenched my hands again, because this was the we—the part of me I wasn’t going to give him.
Bishop wasn’t for anyone else. But… maybe I could work around it.
My nails dug into my palm until I felt the sharp sting of blood, and I took another shaking breath.
“When we escaped, we set the building on fire. Only half of us made it out. We got caught because the soldiers who rounded us up had guns and we didn’t.
” I jerked my chin up, defiant and inwardly hoping this was enough.
“Every person who left that building knew they needed to figure out a way to make sure it never happened again, or that they had an out if it did.”
He was silent for a moment, his gaze careful as he trailed it over me. I think he knew I was leaving out the worst of it, but…
“But you joined the Order?”
“Two years later. I realized as nice as a knife was, I could have killed the group that took us if I’d had their advantages.”
He smiled then and started toward me, and I stood my ground as he advanced, his fingers brushing up to the scar on my shoulder—the one he’d left behind with his teeth. The one he kept worrying at like he wanted it to sink so deep it would follow me into my next life.
“I’m guessing whatever makes you heal like a sonofabitch happened while you were with those scientists?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Another reason to join the Order. They were the soldiers who took us. Better the enemy you know, right?”
His thumb brushed the mark of his teeth one more time before it trailed up and tugged at my collar.
“Eat or be eaten, Aubrey. Better the enemy you kill .”
But he dropped his hand from my throat and started walking again.
I was safe.
Safe for now—safe enough to keep this, as selfish as it was. I wasn’t sure I could give up the way it felt to be this Aubrey. Killer. Pet. Raider.
Some part of me knew that my answer wasn’t going to be enough forever. I could see it now—the curiosity in his eyes. It was just a matter of time before Phoenix lit the little bubble of numbing comfort I’d built around his presence on fire and left me with nothing but the taste of ash on my tongue.
For all his strength, all the viciousness that ran through Phoenix and wrapped him up like a second skin, he seemed more than willing to let me plan every day that we woke up together.
He spent the first few hours trying to cajole me into eating some of the mystery meat that was cooking over the fire.
I’d started accepting fruits and grains from his crew, and I’d even started to expect the soft teasing from Blythe about how I was going to waste away if I didn’t start eating proper meals soon.
I only hated it when I had a chance to breathe, a chance to think.
I hated it when I realized I fit in more with a pack of violent cannibals than I had with anyone in the eight years I’d spent in the Order.
It had been two days since Phoenix had asked me about my past, and I could feel some strange tension building between us. When he dragged me to our room at night, his eyes were greedy as they looked at me.
His fingers were hungry where they touched me.
Curious.
We needed a distraction, and thankfully it came in the form of news brought by Cutter and Zero—Cutter had gone scouting, and when he’d realized there was a theater full of raiders, he’d grabbed Zero so they could assess the danger.
“I’ve never seen raiders with so many shiny new weapons.”
I frowned. “I mean, sometimes groups of the Order get attacked and looted, same as anything else.”
Zero shook his head, his cool voice sounding sure. “This was more than that. There were at least fifteen of them I saw, and they all had something. Maybe they’d intercepted a shipment, but there were big guns.”
Big guns.
I knew the Order seized all the weapons from the old world they could find, and they recruited anyone who seemed capable of rebuilding them. Fuck, I wondered what it was like to live on a different coast where those assholes didn’t exist, didn’t take everything they wanted.
Then again, there’d always be someone fucking you over, someone wanting to seize control. It was human nature.
“Maybe. Either that or the Order handed them over, and I doubt that happened. So…” I cut my eyes to Phoenix. “We should check it out.”
Distraction. It was a perfect distraction, if I was being honest.
“You probably want to take some people with you to fight them.” I would have usually listened to the logic in Zero’s words, but…
“I mean, we don’t have to fight. But if Phoenix and I go check it out, we could clear the surrounding area so we’re not fighting raiders and rabids all at once.” I turned my gaze back to Phoenix and watched the blossom of excitement cross his features.
“Sounds good to me. If we’re clearing around the area, we want to be quiet and quick. We can come back once we’re through to get the pack and take the building.”
I didn’t miss the doubtful expression that crossed Zero’s face, but he nodded. There was something almost fascinating about the way the group seemed to trust Phoenix implicitly.
It was the kind of blind trust that came when someone had saved your life enough times that you knew they were capable.
The kind of trust you gave to someone you loved. To family.
I…
“Let’s get some stuff packed and we can head out.”
Phoenix was a cannibal—a vicious raider who didn’t care about anything, who hunted me down and put me on my knees in the dark.
As much as I didn’t want him to look past my surface to see who I really was, I needed to make sure I didn’t look past his and realize that beneath it all, he might actually be more than just a monster.
Paradise was enormous. Of course, it had been advertised as a place where you could come and stay for the summer if you wanted. It was like its own little community, so it made sense that there was so much space.
But still, we’d ended up running into an entire herd of rabid deer on the way to scouting the theater. Some of them looked soft, almost normal, but they were all following along together, and the giant buck that led them had chunks of fur missing, and its teeth were…
Sharp.
We ended up ducking into a building that looked like it used to be a small coffee shop while we waited for them to pass. Fighting humans was one thing, even former humans turned monster.
The fact that this place was overrun with animals made it more dangerous.
I had to assume some of them had escaped their enclosures when the rain first fell and found a way to thrive in the safety the resort offered, or maybe the people living here had let them out when they realized there was no saving the world around them.
I had no way of knowing, but it made this place sustainable.
Any other time, I might have tracked them, picked off the ones that looked almost normal for meat. At least then Blythe could stop giving me shit about my dietary needs. “How long do you think it’ll take before they’re all too rabid for the meat to be useful?”
Phoenix flicked his gaze to the door and shrugged. “I’ve been playing in the rain my entire life and I’m not rabid yet.”
My eyes cut to him. Just because the people around our area were long haulers didn’t mean we needed to take risks in the rain—it was the same way I avoided getting bit if I could manage it.
If we made it past twenty without turning, I always assumed the world would kill us before the infection caught up.
That didn’t mean it didn’t happen sometimes.
The rabid we’d been killing were proof of that.
Though who knew how many of them were people who’d come from other areas looking for a safe haven because they’d heard our little city on the coast had fewer infected than other places.
They didn’t realize we had less infection because we didn’t get infected the same way.
“I’d rather avoid turning feral during storms. You know, most parts of the world avoid infection like it could kill them, as far as I’ve heard,” I finally deadpanned, and he arched a brow.
“Look at the way those deer are still doing fine. Living. Thriving. They’re following their leader and roaming the land like the world hasn’t gone to shit.
Maybe feral isn’t so bad. Maybe the whole world should be more like the animals.
At least they aren’t hiding away all the time.
” He started toward me as he spoke, and something in my stomach clenched.
We were here, stuck in an enclosed space and…
Something was off.
“They’ve probably passed now. We should start moving.” I didn’t like how desperate the suggestion sounded, and I didn’t like the way he ignored it.
“Why are you always hiding, Aubrey?”
Fuck, I didn’t like the way he said my name.
“Because I don’t want to turn into a mindless horny killing machine in the rain?” I knew that wasn’t what he was talking about.
I knew it, and I started for the door in a vain attempt to escape what was brewing in the air around us. He caught my shoulder, spinning me to face him.
“The rain doesn’t make us feral. It just shows the world who we really are. Is that what I need? A storm? Is that the only way to peel back this bullshit mask you’re wearing? ”
I closed my eyes. I’d known this was going to happen. I needed to get out of here. I needed to get away from him.
I needed to do something to protect myself—to protect the little bit of sanity I’d carved out in our time together. It felt too good being here, and he was going to ruin it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just a dog, remember? I bark when you ask. You don’t need rain to see that.” As I spoke, Phoenix trailed his fingers along my collar, and I fought the urge to jerk back—what if he tried to take it?
What if my lies weren’t enough anymore?
What if?—
“I want to know you .”
Not enough. Not enough and too fucking soon for this to end.
“I told you?—”
“You told me some bullshit story about growing up in the same world we all grew up in, Aubrey. I want more than that. I want to know the first life you took, the first person you fucked. I want to know who you are.” He raised his hand and trailed his thumb along my lower lip.
No, not my lower lip. The faint white line that ran across it.
“I want your scars.” Phoenix’s voice was raw, rough, a growling demand that reached bone deep and tried to hook claws and teeth into my soul.
It made me jerk back, gave me the strength to break his hold when I’d spent most of my time letting myself fall into it because it was better than letting myself feel. I knew this couldn’t last. I fucking knew it from the second I’d slipped up and said we.
I just didn’t realize I’d be so mad that he fucked it up so soon after .
“No.” His eyes widened at the defiance.
“What do you mean, no?”
Shit, had anyone ever denied him anything? Judging by the incredulous look on his face, I doubted it. Or maybe it was just that I’d folded for him so fucking fast, and suddenly I was back to defiance, to the man who’d tried to run from his tent that first night he’d found me.
“I mean no. You can fuck me, Phoenix. You can bite me and mark me, you can put a collar around my throat, but that doesn’t mean you get to know me.
You made me a dog—you don’t get access to the man.
” It came out a little more angry than I meant it to, but shit.
It was true. I’d given in to the thought of giving my body over to Phoenix completely, because letting myself get lost in feeling was so much better than being lost in thought.
And now he was ruining it.
I was furious. I almost pulled out my pistol and aimed it at his head.
“Is that what you think?” The way his eyes narrowed to slits of fury surrounded in dark paint made my nerves prickle, but this wasn’t going to end the way I wanted. This wasn’t going to end the way either of us wanted.
The desperation clawing at my chest was almost too much. I could see the want blazing in that stare… the desire to know.
To know me.
But knowing meant I would have to give him my past. I wasn’t here with Phoenix to remember; I was here with him to forget. I let him fuck me to forget . I needed to forget. Why did he keep trying to crack me open to see my broken pieces ?
“You want my scars?” The words came out vicious, and I shoved angrily at his chest. It didn’t make him stumble, but it gave me enough space between us that I knew I’d have a head start. “Fine. Let me go get some new ones for you. You can have those. ”
I turned and ran, slamming the door to the little building we were in behind me and flipping the lock as I went. It wouldn’t keep him at bay for long, but I didn’t need long.
I just needed long enough to run—long enough to find danger, because the danger he was offering now, the kind that could rip my soul open and leave me broken again? I couldn’t face it.
I’d rather face death.
A theater full of raiders sounded like the exact place I could find what I was looking for.