Chapter 19
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
AUbrEY
It was like I’d opened a fucking floodgate. Any chance Phoenix had, he cornered me and pressed his mouth against one of my scars, demanding the story. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, that I’d given him more than enough of me. Probably more than I’d given anyone, if I was being honest.
That last bit made me even more angry—I was giving him more in a few weeks than Bishop had managed to work out of me in two years.
More than Ben had ever even hoped to know.
Somehow, he was drawing it out of me, forcing the words to spill from my lungs like a plant starved for the sun, reaching toward the enigmatic shine that was his brutality.
He was going to cut me open and take the pieces until there was nothing left of the shield I’d pulled around me, until all that remained was the Aubrey I was trying so hard to run from.
We needed a distraction—maybe one that didn’t involve him nearly getting killed this time, because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t recover if I had to see him like that again.
That should have been a warning. I should have snuck out in the middle of the night and never looked back, because Phoenix was starting to become a thing I was afraid I couldn’t live without…
And I couldn’t do that again.
“Can we go check out that house on the island?” I got the words out as soon as we woke up, before he was aware enough to even think about asking me a question.
He looked almost cute, all sleep rumpled and confused as he let out a low grunt and looped his fingers through my collar.
Phoenix yanked me down against his chest with a low grumble.
“Can I fucking wake up before you drag me out into danger?” His voice was thick with sleep, and his fingers trailed through my hair like he was trying to drag me back under with him. The warmth of his arms was tempting, but I pushed myself up.
“You’ll probably be fine. Unless there are still tigers there.”
The thought made excitement spark in my chest. Tigers.
Bishop and I had talked incessantly about the tigers, and how amazing it would be to see one. Shit, that was half the reason we’d wanted to come to this place. Yeah, it was safe, and yeah, there was every chance we might be able to start a life here.
But…
Tigers? There was something about the thought of something wild, something so powerful still existing .
It was just a stupid dream and we knew it, but we held onto it.
“Tigers?” Phoenix grunted, but the word managed to get him out of bed.
He swiped a bag off the floor and started dumping things in there—canteens of water, some dried jerky that I wasn’t going to touch.
He stuffed the bottle of oil he used as lube into his pants pocket with a wicked grin in my direction.
“Do tigers make you horny?”
He snickered and grabbed something off the dresser beside the bed, tossing it to me. I caught the little wooden figure against my chest, instantly recognizing Blythe’s work. Even though I’d been trying my best to ignore the rest of the raiders, she and Zero were always around.
“Depends, I guess. I’ve always been at the top of the food chain. You’d have to tell me how it feels to be hunted.”
I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes anymore than I could stop the slight smile that tugged at the corner of my lips. I didn’t want to give him either of them, but like most things when it came to Phoenix, I was starting to feel like I didn’t have a choice.
“Fuck you. Let’s go.”
We’d done a damn good job clearing and reinforcing the resort.
There were still a few places left for us to look over—the little house in the middle of the island that we were trailing to, for one—but most of what we had left was isolated to their own areas.
If there were still things lurking around, we’d find them. We were almost finished.
And I wasn’t sure what I was going to do once we were.
I’d told myself from the beginning that once we were done, I’d find a way to leave.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Phoenix wouldn’t just let me walk out—even though he didn’t have me on a leash, the collar I wore felt like a tether, and the weight of his ocean eyes on me felt like a tidal wave pulling me out to sea.
That stare was the only thing keeping me afloat in a world where I’d forgotten how to swim.
How had a few weeks made me forget?
I had to figure it out again.
And as much as I should have started right away, I turned and grinned over my shoulder as we walked across the bridge that led to the house in the middle of the artificial lagoon they’d built.
I remembered this house advertised in the little brochure Bishop and I had found.
It was the most expensive, something you’d have to pay entirely too much to stay in.
In the faded picture, the water had been blue and clear, and there’d been animals swimming in it—fish and bigger things.
And now…
Now it was murky, and if I looked too hard, I was pretty sure I could see things moving beneath the surface.
I shook my head and focused on the way forward, but Phoenix brushed his hand against my arm with a grin.
“Want to go for a swim?” He sounded so pleased that he had the story to reference, and I let out a low grunt .
“You know, once upon a time we wouldn’t have been able to come here. Neither of us look like the sort who would have a ton of money.” I looked ahead, to the gate that stood with half-torn-down wire strung across the top of it, like it was meant to keep people out.
It really was a dream location if you were looking for something secure. Phoenix just lifted his head, turning his face to the cloudy skies. There was a storm brewing in the distance, and I could feel it trembling just beneath my skin in a soft threat.
Before the week was up, this water was going to run red with rain.
I slid my eyes back to Phoenix, who was staring at me like he could feel it too. My stomach clenched at the thought of him in the rain, red drenched and vicious. He was already brutal.
What would he do with no inhibitions? With nothing holding him back?
“I’d like to think that even if we’d lived in those times, we’d still take what we wanted.
This could still be ours. And fuck—” He grinned as he stepped forward, looping his finger around the edge of my collar before tracing my lower lip.
“If you’d really wanted it then, I would have taken it for you.
I would have taken this entire place. Now…
then… The rain doesn’t matter, Aubrey. I’d still burn the world down to get you whatever you wanted.
” Then, like he realized what he’d said, he added, “Whatever we wanted.”
The intensity in his words reaffirmed the fact that I had to figure out a way to get out of here soon… because shit, as much as he tried to cover what he’d said, I knew he meant it. Th e impending rain was making us both restless, and apparently it was making him honest.
That honesty was more dangerous than the axe strapped to his back, which he pulled free as we came to the gate and shoved it open.
It was gorgeous. Impressive. Maybe a little frightening. It was exactly like it had been described, only gone wild from years and years of the rain feeding the plants. They snaked in front of us, barely contained by the fenced barrier that rose up on either side of the path.
To keep the animals in, I was sure.
Because that’s what this place was. An experience. Animals in cages on either side as you followed the trail up to the house. It was supposed to make you feel like you were in the jungle, but I wasn’t sure if they’d ever meant for it to be this untamed.
“Fuck, some of those flowers look like they’re as big as your head.” Phoenix’s voice was a low, impressed whisper. When I looked back, he was staring around us with a wide-eyed wonder that he probably would have been embarrassed to realize he was showing. I couldn’t blame him, though.
You didn’t see things like this in our city. Most places were full of dilapidated buildings and run-down camps where people were just trying to survive. I’d grown up in a broken-down apartment building that didn’t have electricity.
But this…
It really was paradise.
It was everything I’d thought it would be.
I turned to Phoenix, and the warmth in his eyes was almost too much. When I turned away and started toward the house in the distance, he jogged to catch up to me.
“Do you think there’s anything behind the fences?”
My eyes flicked to the trees, and my chest felt a little tight when I answered. “Who knows? We’ll find out soon enough.”
Soon enough was going to be after we got settled.
It only took a few minutes to sweep the house and realize there was nothing there.
Maybe the gates we’d pushed open had kept the majority of the infected out, though I was pretty sure I’d seen something huge and twisted swimming in the water from the little viewing window in the basement.
I was sweaty, and Phoenix was antsy. I knew it was because of the impending rain.
“We probably need to hole up here until the storm passes.”
Phoenix turned to me with a confused expression. “Why? My favorite time to hunt is when it rains.”
I shuddered. I’d heard stories of that—raiders who came after you during the storm, men and women who didn’t give a shit if they turned more animal than human. We were all children of the rain in the end, long-haul carriers.
They just took advantage of it more than most.
I guess I’d been hearing stories of Phoenix all along.
“Why don’t you go work off some of that energy before it starts, then? I want to spend a night pretending I’m some rich asshole who could afford this place back when the world wasn’t shit.”
He laughed. “Right. You do that. I’m going to explore.”
“Look what I found.” Phoenix’s voice was full of almost boyish excitement as I came out of the bathroom.
The solar here was even better than it was back at the hotel—the water was actually a little warm.
They probably had an entire filtration system stored under the island.
The brochures had mentioned that—self-sustaining houses.
He sounded so thrilled that I half wondered if he’d found a stash of weapons.
Instead, there was something white and sun-bleached in his hand.
“I opened the gates and looked in. It’s mostly just plants, but look at this.”
I knew what it was. My fingers were shaking when I stepped forward and took it from his outstretched hand. Sun-bleached bones, though if I looked close enough I could see years of red staining along the little cracks.
Of course, the tiger was dead.
No one had been here to feed it, and humans had fucked it up like they fucked everything up—they’d left it caged when it was supposed to be wild.
They’d left it to die when the rain fell.
Fuck.
It was dead. As dead as the world around us—as dead as hope.
As dead as…
“We were never going to see it, were we, Bishop?” Heat stung at my eyes, and I forced the tears back .
I couldn’t. Not now. Not when…
“Who the fuck is Bishop?”
Fuck.
Fuck. No. I could give him everything—everything else.
I couldn’t give him this.
“Phoenix… please… don’t. Not this.”
Outside, the sound of thunder rumbled above us—I could feel it prickling along my skin, driving into my bones. The rain was going to be red, and everything inside me was screaming that I needed to run, run, run.
When I looked at Phoenix, I saw the opposite.
His eyes were lit up with one word.
Kill .
And I knew if I let him, if I gave him this, he might do just that. Kill my soul, devour what was left of me.
I couldn’t do it.
I shoved past him, the skull in my hand falling from numb fingers. Something in my chest split wide when it cracked on the ground, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
The tigers were dead, and the real predator—the only kind that could ever survive—stalked toward me as the rain started to fall outside.