Chapter 12
chapter twelve
NOT-KADE
Dusty Crowley doesn’t look like a man anymore. He looks like leftovers.
Willow made her tarot card trophy with his blood and tucked it away.
Together, we clean up her back room. Every ounce of evidence is wiped away.
Willow is terrifyingly efficient about it all.
I’m mostly here for the heavy lifting after we’ve got him rolled up tight in a gray tarp.
All the cleanup supplies went in with the body.
And now he’s got duct tape cinched around him like some kind of trash burrito.
The smell isn’t great—Dusty had that swampy cologne that clings even in death, mixed with a hint of piss because apparently his bladder gave up before he did. My brain, unhelpfully, files it away: notes of musk, despair, and Eau de Predator.
Without a word, because apparently, we’re at that level of understanding one another, we climb into the truck. I wasn’t along for this part of the ride last time, so there’s a tiny, twisted part of me that grins in excitement that I get to see the rest of Willow’s kill ritual.
She backs out of the alley and heads down the road, pointing out of town.
Lake Mead is quiet. Just the chirp of crickets, the hum of far, distant traffic.
No audience, no applause—just me, Willow, and a body that used to demand blowjobs for rent money.
I want to tell Willow that dumping a body in Lake Mead is horribly cliché, but damn.
Who the hell would ever, ever think to look in this godforsaken corner?
It might be the most obvious place to get rid of a body, but it’s also so damn remote and isolated, I don’t think even NASA would spot us here.
I haul Dusty to the cliff’s edge at Willow’s instruction.
And then, like a damn body disposal expert, she latches two cinderblocks to the tarp.
And then, together, we heft him toward the ledge.
My muscles strain, but Willow’s strength surprises me—there’s something almost ritualistic in the way she moves.
Like she’s done this before. (Spoiler: she has.)
“One last ride, Dusty,” I mutter. Gallows humor slips out when I’m admiring.
Then, without ceremony, we shove. The tarp burrito slides, bumps the rock edge, and last of all, the cinderblocks heave over.
There’s a heavy splash, then ripples, then silence.
We both stare over the ledge. A few bubbles rise up out of the black water.
But only thirty seconds later, the ripples die out.
And just like that, Dusty Crowley is gone.
Willow dusts off her hands. “Good riddance.”
I should feel sick. I should feel horrified. Instead, all I can think is: I’ve never met anyone more beautiful.
We walk back to the truck. Gravel crunches under our boots, the night air heavy with the scent of algae and crime. My adrenaline is still buzzing, but not from the body. From her. Always her.
When Willow slips into the passenger seat, staring out at the dark, I raise an eyebrow, but simply take the driver’s seat. I glance at Willow. Her profile is cut sharp in the moonlight, eyes focused ahead, jaw tight. She looks untouchable. But I know better.
I grip the wheel and shift into gear. The night is quiet as I make my way back toward the road. It’s a journey we take in silence, each of us lost to the dark, to the justice we had to deliver tonight because the system failed. Again.
I’ve just pulled onto the highway when the words I went into her shop with won’t be held back anymore. “I came to your shop tonight because there’s something I needed to tell you. I almost did at breakfast. I went to Phoenix’s institute yesterday.”
Her head snaps toward me.
And just like that, the body is forgotten. What’s left between us now isn’t Dusty Crowley. It’s the weight of everything I haven’t said yet.
“The institute?” Her voice cuts through the quiet like broken glass. “How? That place is practically Fort fucking Knox.”
“Yeah.” My knuckles flex on the steering wheel. The desert highway stretches ahead, yellow lines glowing under the headlights like a spotlight I can’t escape. “I wanted to see it for myself. So, I signed up for one of his group day sessions.”
She doesn’t respond right away. I feel the weight of her stare like a knife pressing into my ribs.
I keep my eyes on the road. If I look at her, I’ll start over-explaining. And if I over-explain, I’ll start talking about the blender. The organ smoothie. The fact that Phoenix has his disciples chugging down blended parts like it’s a detox shake. The memory alone makes my stomach flip.
“Why?” Willow finally asks. Flat. Cold. But there’s a tremor under it, like she’s testing me.
“Because you’ve been circling this guy and getting nowhere.
You told me that yourself. I did some digging into him after you asked me about him, and…
” I shake my head. It feels like there’s a centipede crawling up the back of my neck, that’s how much Phoenix gives me the creeps.
“There’s something fundamentally wrong about the asshole.
I went because…” I bite the inside of my cheek.
Because I can’t stand the thought of him breathing the same air as you. “I wanted to help.”
Her mouth presses into a line. She doesn’t like it. Independence is written into her bones. She’s been running this bloody justice crusade solo for years. Me charging in like some knight? Not her style.
But then she sighs, and it’s not annoyance—it’s something softer. “I don’t like it,” she mutters, eyes back on the road.
“I know,” I say. “But it worked. I got in. I saw his setup. I even got close enough to shake his hand, look him in the eyes.”
That gets her attention. She twists in her seat, black hair brushing her cheek. “And?”
I keep it clinical. No mention of the fridge humming with plastic tubs.
No mention of the blender. “He’s exactly what you said.
Polished predator. Smiles like a saint, talks like a prophet, stinks of rot underneath.
The people there? They worship him. Blindly.
And he stares. At the younger women. And touches, though he tries to make it seem innocent. ”
Her jaw clenches. “I’ve been trying to get close to him for years. He knows me, though. And he’s so damn careful.”
I risk a glance. Her profile is cut against the neon glow of Vegas on the horizon, eyes burning, but not at me—at him. At Phoenix. “This one’s personal, isn’t it?”
She looks out the window, deliberately not looking at me for a moment. She sniffs, wipes at her nose, and takes in a steadying breath.
“My best friend, Jules, found out she had colon cancer a few years ago. What twenty-five-year-old gets colon cancer?” Her words are rough, and I hear the pain in them.
“The doctors didn’t give her much hope. It was bad.
It was moving fast. She got desperate, and then she came across some of Phoenix’s videos online. ”
Fuck.
My grip on the steering wheel tightens.
“He sold her on all that bullshit he preaches. That her body could heal itself. That she just needed a radical diet change. That she could starve the cancer. And what I hate most? Is that she was doing better for a while. She did everything he told her to, and for a few months, it was looking like she might beat it.”
Willow tugs at the hem of her shirt, picking at a loose thread.
Her jaw is set hard, anger radiating out of her pores.
“But then she started looking like death. She was wasting away. I begged her to go get checked out, to go back to the oncologist. But she said she had more work to do with Phoenix. He’d been promising something that would rid her body of the cancer once and for all.
” Her words go rock hard, cold as ice, as she stares out the windshield at the dark desert. “Sexual healing. Release. With him.”
My jaw is clenched so tight my teeth might crack.
Dammit. Why? Why do so many bastards have to do this shit?
“Jules didn’t know what she was walking into.
But he sold her. He manipulated her. He made her believe.
In him. Always in him. He took advantage of her.
Got her in his bed. And did it heal her?
Of course it fucking didn’t.” The rage in Willow’s voice makes her words shake.
“She came back with tears in her eyes, with humiliation saturating her entire body. And guess what? By that point, the cancer was everywhere. It was too late for her to try any other treatments. She was gone three months later.”
A curse slips out of my lips, and I strangle the steering wheel.
“So, yeah,” Willow whispers. “It’s personal with Phoenix.”
“You don’t have to do this alone anymore,” I promise her. “Phoenix Marrow will pay for what he’s doing. And I’m going to help you.”
That lands. I feel it. The way her breath hitches, the way her shoulders dip. Conflict rages in her—fury that I’d dare step into her territory, gratitude that I did.
She finally says, “Tell me everything.”
So, I do. I talk through the clinic’s layout, where the guards stand, how the rooms are arranged.
I tell her about the calm menace in Phoenix’s handshake, the way his eyes slid over me like I was already catalogued, labeled, stored away.
I don’t mention the blender. That detail is mine to take to the grave.
When I finish, Willow sits back, arms crossed. “Did you see any ways for me to get to him?”
I barely contain a groan from escaping my throat. I feel like a failure, because the truth is—no. “It won’t be at his clinic,” I admit with defeat. “There’s too many people. Guards. Employees. Worshipers.”
“And you have to pay to even get in the door,” she says, frustrated as ever. She sighs, and I can practically hear the gears turning in her head. She stares out the window for several long moments before I feel her eyes return to me. “Thank you. For doing what you did. It means everything.”