Chapter 20 #3
We crash into the counter. A plate shatters. Phoenix drives a knee into my ribs; I slam him back into the wall hard enough to rattle the wood. He grabs for a knife on the counter. I catch his wrist. The blade slashes the air between us.
I knee him in the groin, and Phoenix doubles forward. I knock the blade from his hand at the same time Phoenix shoves me back into the cabinet, the back of my head smacking against the hard surface.
We’re both breathing like animals when I hear it.
A whimper.
From the back of the cabin.
“Willow.”
My head turns before I can stop it.
Phoenix takes his chance. He drives an elbow into my jaw. Pain detonates. I hit the edge of the counter, stagger, nearly go down.
He rushes for the knife again, shouting something incoherent. I barely hear it. The sound of Willow’s pain fills everything.
And something inside me snaps.
The edges of the room blur. My vision narrows to a single point—him.
He swings. I catch his wrist, twist, and feel the knife drop. I don’t stop. I shove him back, fists flying—one, two, three. He tries to guard, but I’m faster, stronger, meaner. Years of quiet control tear open all at once.
He clips my ribs; I don’t feel it. I drive him down onto the floor, my hands closing around his throat.
“You’re too fucking late to save her,” he chokes out, his eyes bulging.
The door crashes open behind me.
“Lucky!”
Dad, Henrik, and Einar flood in, weapons drawn. Mom and Vivi are right behind them.
I don’t look away from Phoenix. “Back room,” I shout. “Go!”
They run. Mom’s voice breaks when she sees what’s inside.
I don’t hear the words.
Phoenix’s hands claw at mine, but I tighten harder, pressing him into the floor. He’s going red, gasping, still trying to speak.
For one perfect, awful second, I want to end him. I want to feel everything he took from her stop beating.
Then I hear the sound again—a broken, breathless sound.
My grip falters.
I can’t.
Phoenix did this to Willow. He was her target.
It’s Willow who needs to get retribution for everything Phoenix has done.
So, somehow in the blind, red haze of death and destruction, I find the willpower not to kill him.
I lean forward to stare him straight in the fucking eyes. “She gets to finish this,” I whisper. Then I drive my forehead into his face.
He goes limp instantly.
I’m instantly climbing to my feet, shoving Phoenix toward my father and my uncles. Adrenaline is burning through my blood as I stagger toward the hall.
The room at the end is small, windowless, wrong.
Willow’s lying on a bed, but her wrists are raw like she was tied to something earlier. Her face is white as chalk. Her clothes are soaked through. Sweat beads down her neck.
“Willow?” I breathe out as I collapse at her side. I press my hand to her face, pushing her hair off her forehead. She’s so damn cold.
She doesn’t even open her eyes. She just takes a ragged, labored breath in, and it slowly escapes her lips.
Her body is burning, fevered; she smells of metal and vinegar and terror. I press my forehead to hers, and the world narrows to the sound of her ragged breathing and my own pulse, which is a war drum.
Mom is right at her side, wiping at Willow’s neck with a blanket. “Her pulse is weak. Lucky, something is really wrong.”
“Fuck,” I breathe out, the word broken. I stand and scoop Willow up into my arms, lifting her against my chest. She’s weightless. Burning and freezing at the same time.
“I’m getting you out of here,” I say into her hair as I turn and dart down the hall.
Back in the living room, my uncles are binding and gagging Phoenix with ropes and tape.
“Go,” Dad says as he hauls a gas can in from the front porch. “We’ll keep him contained until she’s ready for him. And take care of all this evidence.” He splashes the gas out onto the floor.
“Thank you,” I mutter. And then I run.
The desert air slams into me as I burst through the door. The stars look too sharp. The world feels tilted.
“Mom!” I yell. “You’re driving!”
She’s already behind me, aimed for the driver’s door of my car.
Mormor watches from the passenger seat as I climb in back, Willow in my arms. “Hold her, boy. Don’t let go.”
I slam the door closed and adjust Willow’s head against my chest. “Drive!”
Gravel sprays as the tires catch. The car fishtails once, then launches forward.
Behind us, the first flickers of orange light climb into the sky.
I look back through the window. Dad and the uncles walk out the front door, dragging an unconscious Phoenix between them, silhouettes against the growing blaze. The cabin goes up fast—dry wood and gasoline. Flames roar through the roof, eating every secret inside.
The road stretches ahead like an open wound. Blacktop, sand, stars. Nothing else.
Mom’s behind the wheel, jaw locked, eyes burning holes through the windshield. She drives like the law doesn’t exist—like the whole world narrowed to one command: don’t stop.
“Twenty-four minutes to the hospital,” she says, voice flat with focus.
“Make it fifteen,” I say quietly.
Mormor mutters a prayer in Norwegian, fingers flying over her beads.
I look down at Willow. Her skin is slick and cold, her lips pale. Her chest rises in shallow jerks.
“Hey,” I whisper. “Stay with me, yeah? You hear me?”
Her eyes flicker, unfocused. A small groan escapes her lips, but not words.
Her breath rattles, shallow and uneven, and every sound she makes feels like the universe tearing one stitch looser.
“Hey—hey, look at me.” I try to find her through the blur. I hold her face, trying to be exceptionally gentle, but my hands are shaking so damn bad. “You’re going to be all right. We’re almost to the hospital. Just hold on, Willow.”
She tries to answer, but it’s just a hiss of air, a faint sound that might be my name or a curse. Sweat slicks her skin, her hair is matted to her temple.
Every bump in the road is a hammer blow. My chest aches with every one. I can feel her slipping.
My mother’s voice cuts through the noise of our frantic sprint through the desert. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s not—” My throat locks up. “She’s not okay.”
I press my forehead to Willow’s. “Stay with me,” I whisper. “You don’t get to check out now, you hear me? You’ve got a list. Think of all the assholes that are still out there. You’ve got blood left to spill.”
But for one awful second, everything inside her goes still. I freeze. The world folds in on itself.
Then she breathes—a shallow, gasping drag of air—and I start shaking harder than before. Relief and terror taste the same.
“She’s fighting,” Mormor mutters with sympathy from the passenger seat. “Brave girl.”
I look down at her face, pale beneath the fever-flush.
And suddenly, I can’t see anything beyond this car.
I try to picture life without her—me, the empty penthouse, Hattie waiting in the living room, the neon lights outside—and there’s just static.
Nothing. A hole. I can’t see it because it can’t exist. Without her, there is no world.
I kiss her forehead, her temple, anywhere I can reach. “Don’t you dare,” I whisper. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me.”