Chapter 47
Phoenix
I don’t hear what Ivy says at first.
I’m too busy watching the way her fingers trail over the wood grain on the table as if she’s trying to memorise it.
She’s been glowing all morning. I noticed it the second I walked into the kitchen.
She smells like sunlight and soil. Something that shouldn’t exist in this rotten place.
Zane sits across from her with a gentle peace in his eyes. Myles is still shirtless from working out earlier, halfway through a protein bar, also not paying attention.
Until Ivy speaks again.
“We planted sunflowers in the garden too. Did you know you can eat them?”
I freeze. The air thins as if someone cut off the oxygen.
Myles drops the bar. “What?!”
Ivy looks confused by the growl in his tone.
Zane lifts a brow. “We were careful. Just by the front steps, near the fence line. She needed some fresh air.”
Myles tilts his head as if he’s trying to gauge how far this went. “You took her outside? Without telling us?”
“She needs fresh air,” Zane repeats calmly. “She was supervised. It’s fine.”
“I’m not a child,” Ivy grumbles quietly, shrinking lower into her seat.
Myles opens his mouth, ready to argue, but Zane cuts in again, maddeningly steady. “We get to leave. Patrol. Hunt. Scavenge. She’s been locked in here since the night we found her. That’s not right.”
He’s not wrong. But I don’t give a fuck right now.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I snap, shooting to my feet, chair clattering to the floor behind me. “Not when we don’t know if there are still people looking for her.”
Zane’s eyes dart to me. Sharper now. “She deserves sunlight.”
“She deserves safety!” I yell, control fracturing as something tight restricts my breathing. “You think planting fucking tomatoes is worth risking her life?”
Ivy flinches, her hands disappearing under the table, shoulders curling in on themselves.
Fuck. My hands won’t stop shaking even when I clench them.
Myles notices too, and apparently that’s enough to cool him off. He mutters something under his breath as he simmers down. Lips twitching, he adds, “I don’t like that she went out without our knowledge. But Zane’s right. She should have some freedom.”
I stare at him, disbelieving. “Freedom?!”
I’m about to lose it. The urge to smash something crawls up my throat.
Zane stands now, calm but firm. “Come talk to me,” he says, motioning toward the hallway. “Before you say something you regret.”
I don’t want to move.
But Ivy still won’t meet my eyes. So I go.
We stalk down the dank hallway, tension simmering between us like the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
Pushing through the back door, we burst out onto the loading dock, far enough from the kitchen that we won’t be overheard.
Then Zane turns to face me, planting his boots wide on the concrete and folding his arms.
“I understand why you’re scared,” he says calmly.
“I’m not scared,” I grind out through gritted teeth. “I’m thinking rationally.”
He scoffs, quirking an eyebrow at me.
My chest won’t open. Ribs locked tight like there’s a weight crushing me.
“She’s defenceless, Zane!” I bark. “If they found a way past our perimeter once, they’ll do it again. She’ll get herself in trouble that we can’t save her from. If she thinks she’s allowed outside—"
“We’ll supervise her,” he retorts, shrugging. “And clear this block so she won’t hurt herself.”
“It’s not that simple and you know it,” I growl, heat flashing through my chest. “She’ll push to go further every day. Then it’s only a matter of time before she triggers one of our traps. Ivy’s too soft. She needs—”
“That’s not a weakness,” he cuts in. Again. “And it doesn’t mean she has to be caged.” His chest is heaving now, eyes burning into me like I’m hitting a nerve.
My nostrils flare. “It means she’s an easy target,” I grit out, raking my hands through my hair. “That kind of softness… it attracts the worst kind of people. You leave it unguarded, and someone will come and break it just to feel powerful.”
Wind rattles the wooden fence across the concrete dock, loud enough to drown out my rapid heartbeat. But Zane’s voice still cuts through.
“You think I don’t know that?!” he yells.
“I’ve seen it! Been part of it!” He releases as shuddering breath and turns to lean against the rusted railing.
“I lost someone too. I made the wrong call and my actions killed her. I know your scared that what happened to Gemma will happen again, but it won’t. We’ll protect Ivy.”
Her name detonates in my skull as my vision tunnels.
“Don’t talk about Gemma,” I snarl. “She wasn’t reckless like Ivy is. She did everything right. Stayed off the street. Doors locked. Curtains drawn. And she was still—” The words lodge in my throat. I dig my nails into my palms, trying to anchor myself.
“I know,” Zane says, softer now. “And this is the first time you’ve let anyone that you deem ‘vulnerable’ get remotely close to you.”
Turning away from him, I press a hand to the brick wall, willing the pressure to hold me together.
But the visions still flash behind my eyes—Gemma’s apartment door hanging open, the hallway dark and eerily silent.
The trail of blood dragging through the living room filling the dim, humid space with a vile smell.
Her body left naked, slumped against the bedroom wall.
Everything those bastards did to her, marked all over the walls in bloody handprints.
Only now, Gemma’s lifeless face morphs into Ivy’s.
The overlap makes me dizzy. Nauseous.
“I never should’ve let her stay in the city when I knew how bad things were getting. I won’t make the same mistakes with Ivy,” I croak out.
“This is different, Phoenix,” Zane says, voice full of understanding. “Ivy’s not Gemma.”
Swallowing back my emotions, my molars grind. “Exactly,” I mutter, kicking a pebble across the dock and watching it skitter into the shadows. “It’s worse. She—she’s already under my skin. It’s more than just curiosity. I lost control of it a while ago,” I confess.
Exhaling hard, I drag a hand down my face before turning back to face him.
“If something happens to her, Zane… there won’t be anything left of me.
I knew she was trouble, but I didn’t know I’d feel like this.
She’s blindsided me. What kind of person stays as innocent as she is, in a hellhole like this?
If I let my guard down again—if I lose someone like Ivy—”
Zane lays a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch before the tension in my spine eases.
“We won’t,” he promises.
The air out here smells like rust and diesel, a cold wind whipping around the side of the building.
But some part of me is still kneeling in that apartment—still being dragged away by Myles with blood soaked through my shirt, staring down at the one thing I was supposed to protect.
“I can’t let it happen again,” I say, my voice dropping to a whisper. “Not with Ivy.”
Those same kinds of men are still out there in droves. And she’s already fallen into their hands once.
Zane’s expression hardens, voice even but edged with something darker. “It won’t. I’ve seen you hunt guys like that plenty of times. Guys like… the one Ivy escaped.”
His choice of words catches me off guard. My brow furrows as I study his expression. “You know something, don’t you? What has she said?” I question.
He meets my gaze with a deadly look in his eyes. “His name is Bennett,” he says, voice rumbling like thunder on the wind.
A beat passes and the world narrows as a squealing tone deafens me.
Bennett.
Bennett.
Zane’s voice shatters through my murderous thoughts.
“She told me his name this morning while we were gardening. The fucker was trying… to knock her up. He killed other girls because they weren’t getting pregnant.
” His jaw clenches, eyes glazing over as a vein in his forehead bulges. “He’s using them like breeding stock.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. But I don’t say another word. Because I’ve made promises before… and I still see the blood when I close my eyes.
The silence feels heavier than gunfire. It hangs in the air, making it hard to breathe. A crow lands on the fence, caws once, then takes off again. My eyes track it without meaning to while the name echoes in my skull.
Grit grinds under Zane’s boots as he shifts beside me.
“I want to kill him as much as you, Phoenix. But how can we leave Ivy? What if something happens while we’re gone?
We need to get her out of this area. I know you care about her, I do too.
But leaving her alone could break her. She’s clung to us since the day we found her. ”
The fuckers name still claws at my insides, makes my teeth ache with the need to rip him apart.
But Zane’s right. If we hunt them now, Ivy’s the one left exposed. That thought makes my pulse race.
I see Ivy’s small hands tracing the table again, freckled cheeks kissed by sun, voice soft. I wish I could’ve seen the moment she first felt the sun on her face. That innocence feels like something fragile enough to crumble in my fist—or in Bennett’s
Gripping the dock railing, I refocus on the cold rusted metal before answering. “I might know a place.”
Zane glances sideways. “Yeah?”
“It’s a ranch,” I say, running my thumb over a dent in the railing. “Belonged to my sister and her husband. They were the off-grid type even before all this. The whole damn survivalist package. When the world went to hell, they barely even blinked.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You think they’re still there?”
“I don’t know,” I admit with a sigh. “Haven’t seen them in four years. We were supposed to take Gemma. Get her out of the city. But, well… you know the story. We went without her.”
He knows what we found instead.
I had been planning to break up with Gemma. She wanted something monogamous and the guilt of my explorations with Myles was weighing on me. But I wasn’t going to kick her out of my place when civil unrest was building—her parents lived hours away.
She was my responsibility.
When Myles and I deserted our post, we didn’t know that the military had already lost control of the city. We stole one of the military trucks—a huge six-wheel vehicle. Drove for miles to reach her but… we were already too late.
Civilians had broken into groups, looting, killing. Raping.
I didn’t even get to hold her hand while she died.
Picking at the flaking rust on the railing, I continue. “When we got to the Ranch, my sister and her husband took us in. No questions. No judgment. Gave us a barn and helped us renovate. But I couldn’t stay there knowing what was happening everywhere else.”
The kind of things that was happening to Ivy—and Zane too. My chest aches thinking about what she must’ve been through.
He studies me for a long moment. “The Ranch sounds perfect... What’s the catch?”
“It’s far,” I warn, pursing my lips and shaking my head. “And the truck won’t handle the journey without repairs.”
“But it’s safe?”
“Safe as it gets in this world. Acres of wide-open land, hidden by mountains and forest. Not a soul for miles.”
“Then it’s the right call,” he agrees, nodding. “She needs a place where she can be outside without looking over her shoulder. Once she’s settled, we can come back here and hunt those fuckers knowing she’s safe and not alone.”
The way she’d looked at me this morning when she was talking about sunflowers—before I crushed it—that sparkle in her eyes when she smiled. I’ll do anything to restore it.
I nod, looking down at my boots as if they might have an answer for what I’m feeling. My chest still feels like it’s splitting open, but a plan is something I can hold onto.
Zane’s voice is so steady, unshakable. I cling to that steadiness more than I let on.
“We need to start on the trucks repairs,” I say, mind racing through a checklist already.
“I’ll find a new battery today.”
“Good,” I reply, my breaths beginning to even out. “I’ll break it to Myles. He’s not gonna like the change of plans.”
We both fall quiet again, the rustle of trees clearing the air around us.
For the first time in years, I feel certain of one thing: revenge can wait. Ivy comes first.