Chapter 19
Anoise upstairs jarred me, and I looked up, pulling my attention from what Dina had just written.
What was that? Dina’s journal entry hadn’t been dated.
She had gone from we were working hard and I’m not pregnant to I’m leaving my husbands?
I rose. I would deal with that in a second. I wished she was there to ask.
The door to the bedroom opened, and Phoenix came out. He was dressed, which was strange because he hadn’t been when we went to bed. Outside, the snow fell. It was starting to really pile up, to stick on the ground.
“Phoenix, you okay?” I rubbed at my arms. I was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, but there still was a little bit of a chill in here. I didn’t know if the main house or Gran’s house did better in the winter. It seemed like maybe this one was really designed to be comfortable in a warmer climate.
He didn’t answer me, coming downstairs. His eyes were practically squinted. I grabbed his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Alatheia…” His voice trailed off. “Gotta go. Not here. The beach. Back there. The door.”
I stared at him, my mouth falling open. Phoenix wasn’t on any substances that I knew of. But he was really not with it right now. He pulled out of my hold and headed toward the door.
“No.” I grabbed him again. It was too cold out there. He didn’t even have a coat. “Phoenix.” I shook him just a bit. “Come on. Are you on something?”
He blinked, staring at me. “I know you don’t understand, but I have to go now.”
His brown eyes were so faded, so distant.
And he wasn’t really answering the question I’d posed.
Yes, he was on something. I was sure of it.
We could deal with that tomorrow. He turned, once more pulling out of my hold, and I made a snap decision.
If he was going, and it seemed he was unless one of his brothers could tackle him or something, I was going with him, and he was going to put on a coat.
“Here.” I ran to the coat closet and sort of half handed him, half dressed him in his winter jacket.
In the meantime, I shouted upstairs. “Barrett.” He always woke the easiest. I shouted it twice, and the sound of feet hitting the floor and the door swinging open echoed in the quiet.
“Sweetheart?” He sounded groggy. “What’s going on?”
“Phoenix is leaving. He’s not really with it, and I’m not sure what’s going on. Says he has to. I’m going with him.”
“What?” He practically shouted, but I didn’t have time to answer him since I was going with Phoenix, and he was walking out the door.
I grabbed my shoes and my jacket, which I only had half put on as I sprinted after him into the snow.
My sneakers were still wet and soggy from getting soaked during the hot tub fantasy I’d gotten to live in.
Anxiety made my chest tight. What if I hadn’t been awake? Would I have woken up or just sort of thought that Phoenix was going to the bathroom?
I chased after him.
The wind lashed against my face while it whipped snow in wild circles across the frozen lawn.
Phoenix moved ahead of me, his silhouette blurred almost somehow like a phantom in the storm, his winter jacket flapping against skinny jeans that he’d dressed himself in.
I hadn’t noticed before but now I was pretty sure they were Jeremy’s and not his.
Not that it mattered right then. I slipped my arms fully through my own sleeves and ran after him, hoping I didn’t face- plant in the attempt.
“Phoenix!” I called, my voice snatched away by the wind.
My sneakers squelched in the snow, my toes already numb.
The snow wasn’t just falling—it was swirling, angry, stinging my cheeks and stealing my breath.
House lights glowed faintly behind us, a golden haze dissolving into the storm.
I could barely see the outline of Phoenix, let alone the driveway or the distant curve where the road met the edge of the Lent s’ property.
Phoenix didn’t pause. He just trudged on, shoes crunching, leaving a trail through the drifts.
I caught up to him as we reached the scraggly dune grass where the yard, in better weather, became the manicured haven that led toward the beach.
You really wouldn’t know that now. I reached for his arm, fingers clumsy with cold because I hadn’t thought about gloves and neither had he, and he half turned, eyes wide and unfocused.
For a moment he looked past me, toward the dunes, as if something was calling him from someplace else.
Maybe some other time. I just didn’t know.
“Wait, Phoenix, please—” But he just shook his head, lips parted, breathing hard. His hair was already dusted with snow. I imagined mine was too.
We kept running. Or as best we could considering things.
It was more like trudging quickly. This was dangerous.
I knew that. The world shrank to whiteness and my heart beating too fast. My lungs burned.
I could barely hear anything above the howl of the wind, but then—like a miracle—I picked up the rumble of a car engine.
Headlights sliced through the storm, slow and searching, casting monstrous shadows across the snow. Phoenix faltered, squinting against the glare. We were maybe fifty yards from the house, the beach close, just over the last rise of snow-blanketed grass.
The car pulled up fast, tires skidding slightly as it stopped at the edge of the road.
The doors flew open and, in a rush of voices and bundled figures, Barrett, Jeremy, and Julian poured out.
Barrett reached us first, panting. Considering things, he had gotten here fast. I was grateful.
More so than I’d ever be able to say. He took in Phoenix’s bare hands, the snow covering my wet and useless shoes.
“Are you kidding me?” Julian yelped, voice sharp with panic. “Get in, you idiots, it’s freezing!”
Barrett caught Phoenix by the shoulders, steadying him, while Jeremy wrapped a blanket around both of us, his arms strong. I let myself sag against them, every muscle trembling with cold, adrenaline, and something dangerously close to tears. The storm swirled around us.
Phoenix grabbed his head. “I have to go. You have to let me go. The kids are there waiting for me.”
He didn’t sound like himself and not because his teeth were chattering but more as he must have sounded as a little boy.
“Shit.” Jeremy clapped his hands in front of Phoenix’s face. “Are you on something? What the fuck is going on?”
“I think he is.” I was amazed I could talk at all. “But I think we need to let him go. I think… I think he’s remembering where he was kept. We’re here for that.”
Julian shook his head. “He can’t go wandering out there.”
“No, obviously not. Maybe we could drive there.” I put my cold hand on Phoenix’s face. “Could we drive there or do we have to walk on the beach?”
He stared at me and blinked slowly. “I think we can drive. But we have to get to the kids.”
“I don’t love that either.” Barrett pounded his hands on the steering wheel. “None of this is safe.”
Julian frowned. “It’s not. But what if he can’t remember where this is tomorrow? Don’t we kind of at least need to find it now?”
“Fuck. Okay. Everyone buckle in. Phoenix, whatever this is, you’re a dead man tomorrow.”
Barrett put the car in gear, tires crunching over the snow as we lurched onto the icy road.
We all needed to learn to drive; it wasn’t fair that Barrett always had to do this.
The SUV felt cramped, the heater blasting stale warmth that didn’t quite touch the nervous chill that had taken over my whole body.
Nobody spoke. Phoenix sat hunched in the front passenger seat, his breath fogging the window, fingers kneading his knees as if he might spring through the glass if we took too long.
“Which way?” Barrett said as we reached the end of the driveway.
“Left.” Once again, Phoenix sounded so young. I stroked my cold hand through his snow-melting hair.
“This could all be just an elaborate nothing.” Jeremy shook his head. “He’s not necessarily even seeing what we think he is seeing. Or remembering. He might be just totally out of his mind.”
That was also possible. “This doesn’t seem like Phoenix on ketamine or anything I’ve seen him on before.”
“Well unless he’s been possessed by a demon or something he has certainly done something tonight.” Jeremy glared ahead at the road in front of us.
Julian popped him in the back of the head. “Not helpful.”
“Not trying to be.”
Headlights tunneled through the darkness, catching the flakes and the vague suggestion of trees beyond the ditch.
Every few hundred feet the SUV slid, a gentle fishtail that made us all catch our breath, but Barrett kept us steady.
The only other sound was the faint shudder of Phoenix’s teeth and the steady tick of the hazard lights.
Thank the universe that Barrett was such a good driver.
Like most things he did in his life Barrett did this really well.
Two miles never felt so far, but that was roughly how long we drove with Phoenix giving us directions before he told us to stop.
In the distance, a house finally appeared, rising out of the storm like something conjured: three stories, black shutters, a wide porch buried in drifts, and all its windows blank and dark.
The driveway ate the car nearly to the axles, but Barrett forced us through, the engine whine echoing against the massive, silent house.
We sat for a moment, breathing, waiting for someone to make the decision to move.
Phoenix finally seemed to stir. He opened his door, letting in a bitter blast of snow, and stepped out without looking back.
I dashed after him, Julian right behind me.
We were all going to die of frostbite or lose a toe or whatever happened in these situations.
Seconds later, Barrett and Jeremy were with us, too.