Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
PHOENIX
Aubrey was quiet. Maybe more quiet than he’d been since I’d met him.
I might have had something to say about it, if it weren’t for the fact that I kept slipping in and out of consciousness.
I’d known jumping in front of him like that would get me hurt—I’d known running into the theater after him when it was just the two of us was dangerous.
Even lying on the bed with the cover pulled up over my freshly stitched and bandaged chest, I couldn’t reconcile what had made me do it with the man I usually was.
Maybe it was just that the only person allowed to kill Aubrey was me?
I’d claimed him—he was mine. He wasn’t going to get out of it by running off on some suicidal mission in an attempt to escape me.
I could blame it on that stubbornness, and it would have been easy enough to write off, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to lie to myself.
I’d never wanted to lie to myself before, unless it came to the emotions that had flooded my chest when I’d met my mother.
But…
I pushed those thoughts aside and attempted to shove myself into a sitting position.
It instantly felt like fire ripping through my chest—the tight pull of stitches burned, and the dull ache along my ribs told me I’d bruised a few things.
The low groan that poured from my throat caught Aubrey’s attention.
“Phoenix?” His voice was careful when he said my name, and I watched his green eyes flicker up to my face—there was a brief moment of relief there, and then they instantly fell back to the door.
He was guarding us.
He was guarding me .
I hadn’t imagined the worry when he was patching me up, or the way he’d curled himself atop my body and trembled when I’d fallen.
His eyes were still clear of tears, but…
the panic had been evident. I tried to push myself up again, and he stood from his chair and came to the edge of the bed.
Aubrey’s fingers were warm when they smoothed along my shoulder, but he still pushed me back against the pillows.
“You need to rest.” His voice was firm—not a command, but the tone of someone who was doing his damn best to make sure that the person they’d patched up actually stayed alive. I frowned up at him.
“We should…” I trailed off, my throat dry. When I coughed to clear it, he moved without a word and brought me water. I kept my gaze fixed on him as I brought the canteen to my lips. He was taking ca re of me.
Aubrey didn’t take care of me.
I didn’t let people take care of me. It was my job to take care of the pack, and I’d never shown a moment’s weakness otherwise. The feeling was almost foreign. It was actually hard to trust, but I drank the water anyway, sputtering slightly at the medicinal taste of it.
“There’s some antibiotics I stole from the Order in there.
You were…” Aubrey didn’t look at me, just took the container when I offered it and sat it beside the bed before turning to busy his hands again—I heard the ruffling sound of packaging.
“You were really hurt. You are really hurt.” He turned to me again and offered up a bowl.
The smell that wafted from it was rich, heavy, and damn me if he didn’t help me shift into a sitting position so I could take it and bring the liquid to my lips.
The flavor bursting across my tongue made my stomach growl.
“How long have I been out?” The hunger tearing through me spoke of more than a few hours.
“Two days. After I bandaged you up, I wasn’t sure if…
” He stopped himself and shrugged. “You needed to rest. I don’t think there are any more raiders around the area, so we should be safe.
” Everything he said made sense, but I was still fixated on the way his voice sounded so soft when he spoke, and the concern that was still clearly laced in the cadence of his tone, as much as he tried to hide it.
“I’ve been hurt worse.” I finally managed a sentence without my voice sounding gruff. “I’ll be fine. How’s your shoulder?” He was moving like he wasn’t hurt at all. That should have told me a few days had passed more than my growling stomach .
Aubrey didn’t even glance at his bandage. “It’s fine. Just another scar.” He shrugged it off and let his eyes sweep my torso. “I need to check your stitches after you’re finished eating. Now that you’re awake, I can get more antibiotics into you and maybe we’ll be able to get out of here soon.”
“Aubrey.” He didn’t raise his head to look at me. Instead, he pushed himself off the bed and went back to his chair. It took me a moment to realize what he’d had in his hands when I woke up, what he was carefully putting to the side now. My clothes.
And a needle.
A thread.
He’d patched them up while I slept. From the way the bloodstains were almost gone, it was obvious he’d washed them out too.
What in the hell was this tender side to him?
Aubrey was angry and prickly—he fought and we fucked and he didn’t open up.
The person standing in front of me was like a total stranger.
I tried to sit up again, to push myself from the bed so I could make sure it was really him, and he whirled on me.
“Stop that,” he snapped. This time when he came to the bed, he sat beside me and put a hand firmly on my chest to push me down.
“We won’t be going anywhere if you pull a stitch before you’re better.
I didn’t have much in the way of healing meds.
” Aubrey pulled a syringe from the bedside table and held it up.
I recognized it as one of the things I’d seen the first night I went through his pack—the medication marked Order.
“And I wanted to make sure you were taking in the antibiotics first, because the last thing we needed was your wounds to heal up over an infection. ”
“I’m fine. Maybe you should—” I’d started to lean toward him, to touch the wound on his shoulder again, and a sharp, stabbing sting stopped me.
The syringe in his hand was now sticking from my abdomen, and Aubrey’s green eyes were bright as he pressed the plunger down and sent the medication spilling into my body.
I knew the Order had shit mixed specially from the scientists they were mercenaries for, things that made you heal a little faster than you could on your own, but I wasn’t sure if I appreciated the fact that he was using it as a way to shut me up.
I honestly didn’t know how I felt about anything that was happening. Aubrey pulled the syringe out and sat it carefully on the table, but when he tried to stand I reached out, tangling my fingers in the shirt I’d given him to wear the day after I’d torn his clothes to shreds.
It was clean too, freshly patched up. My eyes darted to his neck; the collar was still there.
From the soft line of blood on the edge of it, it didn’t seem that he’d taken it off when he’d rinsed everything else.
Something about that made my chest burn in satisfaction.
“Don’t,” I murmured, the demand coming out before I could stop myself.
“Don’t what?” Aubrey’s eyes were wary. Careful. But he didn’t pull against my grip, and I wondered if it was because he didn’t want to go, or because he didn’t want me to try to make him stay.
“Stay.” I said it like I had the strength to stand up and make him listen, but I had a feeling that Aubrey wouldn’t test it and risk me busting a stitch.
“Fuck, you’re needy when you’re hurt,” he sighed, but climbed back onto the bed. When I tugged again, he stared up at me through thick lashes, then followed the insistence of my fingers that brought him down against me.
When I wrapped my arms around him and molded him to my body, he didn’t struggle. He didn’t try to get up again. He just settled.
And if I wasn’t mistaken, some of the tension in his body slowly rolled out of him as he laid his head against my chest over the steady, thrumming beat of my heart.
When I woke this time, Aubrey was still sleeping.
He was propped on the bed as though he’d passed out while watching the door.
I’d noticed after that first night we were in bed together that he didn’t sleep very well—he talked in low whispers and made little pained sounds, like the past he was trying to escape wanted to claw from his throat and make a confession while he couldn’t keep it hidden.
For the moment, he was sleeping peacefully. The paint that I’d smeared across his face had rubbed off, and he’d made only a half-hearted attempt at reapplying it.
I leaned in close, my eyes drifting to the thin white scar on his lips again.
It was what had started all of this—it was the reason I was laid up in bed, why I’d have fresh scars of my own.
While a part of me was still furious with him for running the way that he had to begin with, another part was almost grateful for it.
I wouldn’t have seen how his eyes fell apart when I was hurt otherwise. That was another scar, though it was one that I couldn’t see, couldn’t touch.
It was one that I still wanted to own. I wanted all the pieces of him I couldn’t see.
My hand came out, and I traced that thin white line carefully.
I felt the moment that he woke beneath my fingers—Aubrey’s lids stayed shut, but his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and the sound of his exhale was shaky.
He was fighting a battle with his eyes closed, and I watched the minute expressions of each blow as it crossed his features.
I pretended I didn’t notice that he was awake, and I leaned forward—it only made my body strain slightly, pulling at the stitches on my torso.
I pressed my lips in an almost kiss to the corner of his mouth, and my tongue traced the ridge of that damn scar.
It spilled across his usually serious expression, brushed above and below his scowl.
I trailed the line of it over and over again until a low groan spilled out of my throat, and I had to admit it wasn’t from pleasure. My stitches were pulling.
Aubrey’s hand on my shoulder shoved me back. My arm darted up to catch him, to tell him he couldn’t run from me, from this… but his eyes were open when I looked at him.
He studied me cautiously, and I could still see it—the urge to run, the urge to do anything but give . Finally, he took a breath and brought my hand to his face. He trailed my fingers over the scar once and looked at me with a nearly blank expression.
“My dad was an asshole. He was an asshole my entire life.” It took me a moment to realize what he was doing.
I wasn’t sure if it was because I was injured and he didn’t want me to fight him, or if it was something about his reaction when I’d gotten hurt saving him.
Whatever it was, I kept myself still and quiet beneath his touch, against his words.
I didn’t want to break the spell. “When I was seven years old, he forgot to feed me for two days.” Aubrey’s mouth twisted into a wry smile, but I could see some demon fighting just behind his eyes.
“I had the audacity to climb up onto the counter to try to get something, but I slipped and fell. I took a bottle of shitty alcohol with me when I went.”
Aubrey wasn’t in the same room as me anymore.
His eyes were far away, like he was living in the moment he was telling me about.
If I were a less selfish creature, I might have told him that was enough.
But I wanted to know him, and this was the first time he’d shown me a part of who he was, who he’d been. I wasn’t going to interrupt.
“He caught me before I got out of the room and hit me in the stomach. God, he was such a bastard. His favorite game was trying to break me.” Aubrey’s voice took on a mocking tone.
“ What, you little bitch? Are you going to cry? ” His eyes flickered for just a moment, like he was seeing me past the cloudy haze of memory.
“The last time I cried was the day he killed my mother. He beat the fuck out of me for it then too. He beat me until I learned tears were a weakness I couldn’t afford.
” I’d noticed that about him, but I hadn’t been sure if it had just been since he was with me. Apparently, it had been always .
“Aubrey…”
His fist clenched, and my eyes trailed down to his hand—it was littered with jagged little scars, the same pale color as the one on his mouth .
His eyes raised to mine, and whatever spell was tethering him to the past broke.
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not when his expression took on one of pure dispassion instead of the half-dissociated, half-pained one it had been just a moment ago.
“He took the bottle that I’d broken and he cut me with it.
It’s not really much of a story, but there you go.
All yours. Happy now?” He finished with a soft sigh and let go of my wrist.
My fingers traced the delicate white dots on his hand, then I lifted my eyes to the matching scar on his mouth. Aubrey didn’t move when I leaned in and trailed the line with my tongue. Slowly. Carefully, as I murmured against his lips. “All right.”
That piece of him belonged to me now. Before I was through, I would take every single one of his scars. One at a time, a piece at a time.
I wanted to own every part of the man in my arms.