Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
PHOENIX
“Fine. Let me go get some new ones for you. You can have those.”
It sounded to me like Aubrey wanted the world to make him bleed.
I followed after him, letting out a low grunt when I found the door locked. I wasn’t familiar with the sudden clench in my chest that forced me to back up and ram my shoulder into the wood, splintering it on the hinges.
If people were fucking stupid enough to run off on their own and get hurt, that was on them. If they didn’t have the sense of survival and self-preservation to stay together, they didn’t deserve to be part of the pack.
I rammed my shoulder into the door again, taking off at a run when it flung open. There was only one place I could think of that he’d go to find enough trouble to get hurt.
Zero had mentioned that he and Cutter noticed the raiders had weapons from the Order—guns that were just as likely to blow up in your face as they were to kill your enemy. It was dangerous.
Aubrey was being reckless.
My fingers clenched and unclenched at my sides and I stopped, freezing in place like my body recognized the fact that I was doing something other than my normal.
It would be easy enough to leave him to his own devices. It’s what I would have done if anyone else thought about pulling this shit with me.
There was even a chance he’d come back just as he’d promised, covered in new scars that he was willing to share—he’d find the release and relief that he usually found with me through the slaughter of the raiders.
The group that we were supposed to take out together .
The group that would do everything within their power to kill him.
My hand clenched one more time, blunt nails digging in so hard that I felt the sting of them slicing against my palm. With a low growl, I took one step forward… and then another.
And then, before I realized it, I was running again.
If I caught him before he reached his destination, it wasn’t the raiders he would need to worry about.
The problem was, Aubrey was fast. I’d learned it over the days we’d spent together working through the resort—I’d learned it the night he’d tried to run from me. If he hadn’t ducked into that building, there was every chance he would have been able to get away.
And now …
Now I was pretty sure he was running into a firefight that he had no hope of winning to prove some kind of point.
I knew he was into pain—fuck, I was pretty sure he was addicted to situations that could kill him.
But this was different.
It was different because I wasn’t there to make sure he made it out the other side.
The thought made me pump my legs harder, run until the theater finally came into view.
Aubrey wasn’t playing this smart, but the anger when he’d left told me that he’d never intended to.
The fact that the front doors of the building were flung wide open proved it.
He was completely capable of sneaking around, of getting a proper vantage point, but he’d gone in through the fucking front door like he wanted to make sure they saw him.
Maybe I hadn’t made it clear that the only thing that was allowed to hurt him now was me. The hurt I gave him was something he wanted, something his soul seemed to crave the same way his lungs demanded air.
This…
This wasn’t the same thing at all. This was suicide.
The thought made something in my chest spark, a strange agony at the prospect of Aubrey hurt in a way that I hadn’t caused—hurt because the thought of giving me a piece of himself was so impossible that he’d rather take on an entire group of raiders.
It twisted in my chest and sent me crashing into the theater, chasing the familiar sound of a pistol firing.
It would have been a lie to say that seeing a pair of green eyes flashing furiously at me from beneath a mask of blood didn’t bring about a wash of relief.
It was short-lived.
The theater had two levels, and most of the men on the ground floor with Aubrey were dead. He stood half hidden behind the corner of the stage, though the men on the balcony had the high ground.
It wasn’t a good position to be in.
Aubrey was hurt, that much was obvious from the blood streaking down the front of his shirt, across his brow. As another group of raiders rounded the corner and came after him, I noticed the way half the seats in the front row had been blown to pieces.
Who the fuck let raiders have explosives ?
“Aubrey.” My voice was a sharp bark when I drew my axe up and came at the group around him at a run. I felt the blade sink home into a stomach, and the hot gush of fluid and thicker things told me the man wouldn’t be bothering us again. But that didn’t matter. This was…
Not an ideal situation.
There was a dark gash on Aubrey’s shoulder, tearing across his collarbone.
One hand hung limp at his side, and the other held a pistol with fingers that shook.
I didn’t know if the shaking was from blood loss or the emotions that had sent him fleeing from me to begin with coming back to the surface now that I was near him again.
“Get out of here!” He snarled the demand, but I could hear an edge of something other than anger beneath the cadence. His eyes flickered around the room.
Maybe he realized that this was more than he could handle on his own… more than we could both handle. That his impulsiveness had gotten us into a situation we might not come out of in one piece.
“Fuck that. I’m not leaving without you.”
Aubrey barely glanced at the man he shot, his eyes darting back to me in desperation.
“Get out of here before you get hurt, Phoenix.” He sounded so angry, but the keening edge of desperation chasing that heat tore through the air. Maybe he understood that I didn’t take orders, that I didn’t leave my people to die alone—and he was mine.
“You can’t do this alone. We need to?—”
“Phoenix, get down.” I ducked without missing a beat, rolling forward as he unloaded the clip of his pistol over my head. I heard a body fall, and then another. My eyes stayed fixed on him.
“Aubrey, we need to go. Now. We can come back for this later.” Even as I said it, one of the men he’d shot staggered forward and flung open a door before collapsing onto the ground, like he was determined to fuck us both over in some last ditch effort to make his life mean something.
Rabid.
At least four of them. Like they’d locked them away in case of an emergency. The desperation and anger pouring through Aubrey was definitely an emergency.
My gaze swung to them and I stepped forward, trying to get to his side, maybe to get in front of him.
“You need to get down. I can take care of them. Just watch my back.” I didn’t understand the way his expression was slowly melting from fury to fear .
“No,” he said, but it didn’t stop me from shoving him behind me. His fingers instantly dug into my shoulder. “No, no .” I didn’t understand his panic.
But I did see it out of the corner of my eye—one of the raiders on the balcony above us.
Holding something metal.
It wasn’t a gun.
“Aubrey.” Danger flared in my chest. “Aubrey, move .”
“You don’t get to die for me. You can’t . I can’t do this, I?—”
“Aubrey, get down .”
The words weren’t just a command, they were a warning. He was too lost in whatever panic had started to claw its way across his expression when I’d stepped between him and the group of rabid. Too distracted to realize that we worked better when we were in sync.
“Phoenix—” He saw it on my face then, but it was too late.
He didn’t have time to move when the man on the balcony smirked and threw the metal device in our direction.
And I didn’t have time to think. I grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him hard behind a row of seats.
I didn’t understand the pure agony on his face as I tried to roll out of the way too, but didn’t quite make it before the sound of an explosion made my ears ring. The pain radiating along my body left me with one final vision.
Aubrey’s face full of wide-eyed panic and terror as darkness dragged me under.