Chapter 6 Phoenix
Phoenix
The service elevator smells like metal and lemon and the bones of other people’s nights. I catch my reflection in the brushed steel: hair still damp from earlier, the throat bruise from the men who tried to kill me faded to a shadow…my mouth set.
I look like a girl who knows where she’s going. Or the final girl in a horror movie.
I don’t. Know where I’m going, that is. But I know where I have to go first.
The lobby.
The elevator spits me out like I’m a bad drink after a night of terrible decisions, and I get lucky.
The night desk boy looks up, reads the look on my face, and decides to be helpful by pretending I’m invisible.
Out through the glass. Savannah breathes damp and dark and river-cold even when the heat sits on the street like a man with his legs spread.
Less than a minute later, I’m scheduling a rideshare driver.
I can do a rideshare now. I used to walk this path, used to scuffle past drunks and homeless people more desperate than I was with my head down, praying they’d ignore me. I had nothing to give them and more to lose.
Now there’s an app on my phone that’s connected to someone else’s bank account, along with a DoorDash and a Spotify and several other things I don’t question.
This is the first time I’ve ever had to use the rideshare app.
But while I’m waiting for the driver to show up, the idiocy of what I’m about to do hits me like a freight train. Leaving the penthouse alone isn’t my issue. To hell with any of the Titans if they think they can actually control me in the long run.
No. The idiocy comes with the fact that I’m leaving in the middle of the night, while I’m actively being sent messages meant to get me alone. I’m giving them what they want, and I’m not the stupid girl who walks naively to her death.
Instead of being stupid, I do the smart thing and pull out my phone to ask a favor.
Me
I hope you’re still up. I need your help with something stupid.
“What’s stupid? You leaving on your own…or whatever you’re leaving to go do.”
I’m pretty sure my heart would be on the ground between Maverick and me if I was capable of taking a breath and actually looking down.
I don’t even remember slapping a hand to my chest, but I’m clenching Storm’s shirt in my first with one hand, and with the other I’m brandishing my phone like the weapon it isn’t.
“What the shit, Maverick? You scared the fuck out of me.”
“Well, Firebird. If you weren’t trying to sneak out and leave us high and dry, I wouldn’t be following you. But from the text you sent me, you realized your mistake before you actually made it. So tell me what’s going through that gorgeous little brain of yours.”
So I tell him. Everything about Scrappy. About him needing me, what my mean ass neighbor is doing, and the nice neighbor who gave me a heads up.
“I’ve got a rideshare coming, I just…don’t think I should go alone.”
The smile on his face is almost smug. “And you trusted me enough to ask me to help?”
“I mean.” Looking anywhere but at him, I try to hide the truth. Because if he knows, he can use it against me. “You’re here, and I don’t want someone to kill me over a spam call.” I use the cover I made up, badly, in the kitchen before. “So I thought I’d ask you to go with me.”
“Done.” He steps closer, standing at my side. “I’ll be the Batman to your Robin and help you rescue the pup. Hell, I’ll get puppy supplies sent to the penthouse while we wait.”
He’s already tapping away on his phone when the driver pulls up a few moments later.
The driver doesn’t comment on the fact that I’m barely dressed, practically swimming in Storm’s shirt with a pair of gym shorts and no bra.
Nor does he say anything about the fact that Maverick looks like he stepped out of a magazine and is ready to go out for a night on the town.
He clocks it, marks it down as Not My Business, and we go on our way.
We slice past the cranes that hold up the sky, past billboards pretending the law has teeth, past the neon crawfish and the bar that sells twenty-two dollar cocktails in mason jars to people who say y’all wrong.
The city peels back its polite southern skin and shows me the cheap underlayer I know by touch. But the entire way, Maverick is there. A silent reminder that I’m not alone. That I’ll never have to be alone again, as long as I’m with them.
“Here, please,” I say, and the driver lets us out where the asphalt becomes gravel and the lights become fewer. Palmetto Pines is still spelled wrong on the leaning sign: Palmeto. The trailers huddle like secrets, a solitary porch light glowing. The rest are out.
My key sticks before it finally gives, and the door opens.
The smell hits me—cheap coffee mixed with stale whiskey, laundry soap that never really rinsed out—and dog.
Scrappy’s nails click on the floor before I can whisper, and then he’s there, a fast, skinny streak of mutt who can out-love a saint. He skids, remembers himself, sits, his entire back half wagging.
I sink to my knees. He’s okay.
“C’mere,” I croak, and there it is—the crack in my voice that lets the air in.
He launches, catching himself at the last second because he’s a gentleman, and noses his way up under my chin.
I press my face into the top of his head and breathe dust and sun and biscuits that someone’s been giving him.
I’ve been so scared that something would’ve happened to him. He doesn’t belong to me—Scrappy isn’t ‘owned’ by anyone—but I’ve always considered him mine, all the same. It’s the hole in my floor that he wriggles his way through, after all, my blanket that he curls into at night.
“I know. I know,” I tell him into his fur, because he understands English better than most men I know. “You’re coming with me, little guy. I think I need a friend. What do you think?”
I set water down, watch him drink like he invented the concept, then move on autopilot while Maverick watches me.
A piece of laundry line I can use as a temporary leash.
Blanket that used to be my blanket and is now his throne and I know will help him adjust to his new home living like a king in the penthouse where he belongs.
My phone hisses in my pocket. I steal a glance at Maverick, see that his attention is on the dog, and take a look.
Unknown
Debt isn’t money. It’s a leash.
Dock C. Storage 14.
Be sensible.
I stare at the screen until the words blur. The trailer light turns everything a little yellow, like the world caught a cold. Scrappy’s nails scratch the floor when he looks up, checking my face for what his reaction should be.
“Later,” I whisper to the phone. “Not now.”
I take screenshots anyway and dump them into a hidden album I name something stupid: Recipes.
Because shame likes camouflage. I lock it down even more—three taps to open, four to make it forget I was ever there.
Atticus taught me how. He didn’t mean to give me that little bit of kindness, but he did.
Maverick is running a hand over Scrappy’s head and murmuring to him, crooning to him and calling him “little man,” like they’ve been best friends their entire lives.
“Scrappy’s a dumb name for you. You’re not a mini thing just trying to piss people off. You’re a badass and you deserve a real name.” He glances at me, bemused. “I hope you didn’t give him that dumbass name, Firebird.”
Dad’s voice echoes, the one that lives in my molars: Earn your keep. Make yourself useful.
My stomach goes hard, then hollow. I shrug.
“No. I actually heard my neighbor’s kid call him that one night. He’s just sort of… always around. I thought that was his name, but he doesn’t really answer to that, or anything else.”
Plus, Maverick is right. Scrappy is a dumb name and this little guy deserves a name fit for a king.
“Hmm.” Maverick keeps scratching behind Scrapy’s ears. “What about Zeus? You may seem small, but you’ve got total big dog energy. And if you’re gonna be rolling with the Titans, you need to fit in.”
I snort out a giggle. If I wasn’t already on the way to being head over heels for this man, his care for this little runt of a dog just about does me in.
“Zeus is perfect,” I say.
I’m ready to go. I need to leave before the memories of my life here in this trailer drag me into their own version of hell.
On the table, a photo of last Christmas in this same kitchen. Paper crowns, gas station cake, me laughing at something that wasn’t funny because I wanted it to be. Dad’s thumb in the corner, big and clumsy and everywhere.
The phone buzzes again.
Unknown
Ten minutes.
I set the phone down like it burns and clip the makeshift leash onto the dog formerly known as Scrappy.
He doesn’t jerk. He leans into me, puts his shoulder against my shin like he’s bracing me.
I lock the door like there’s anything in here to protect besides my bullshit memories while Maverick holds the leash.
Outside, someone’s TV burps a laugh track. A neighbor smokes on a step, embers the only glow, eyes skimming over me and away because she knows the difference between curiosity and suicide. The cicadas are loud enough to count as a crowd.
Dock C is south and right and down and then left again. Ten minutes means they’ve done the math and want me to see that they’re watching me. Ten minutes means they expect me to run.
I don’t.
And not just because Maverick is with me.
Because I’m not going to give them the power to control my life.
I angle the other way, toward the road and the app and a driver with a car that doesn’t look like potential to be walking to my grave.
Scrappy-Zeus rides with his front paws on my thigh, watching out the window next to Maverick, panting into the glass and fogging a circle.
Neither Maverick or I say a word, but we don’t need to.
I trusted him enough to ask for help, and he trusted me enough to give it. That’s gotta mean something, right?
We slide back into the city’s good side like we actually belong there, the hotel rising before us like a diamond against the night sky.
When we stop under the portico, the three of us look like a bizarre family climbing out of the rideshare.
The night guard does not, under any circumstances, see my dog.
The night desk boy does not, under any circumstances, ask whether pets are allowed.
My smile says that Zeus is my service animal and that I’m headed to the penthouse, and the Titan at my side means that there’s nothing wrong with our scenario.
And that’s enough for all of us.
Service elevator. Zeus sits like a prince when I tell him to, tongue lolling and gaze shifting curiously about the little metal box. The doors close. The elevator hums. My heart tries to climb into my throat and then thinks better of it.
Up.
The doors open, and we walk without conversation down the carpet that always makes my feet feel like I’m floating.
I hold the leash short, not because Zeus needs it, but because I don’t know what will happen when I take him inside that suite, and regardless of what Con or Atticus have to say… Scrappy-Zeus is staying.
Outside the door, I bend and pick him up, then set him down again once we’re inside.
The suite is dark and watchful. Conrad’s door is closed. Atticus left his legal pad face-down again. Storm’s jacket sleeps over a chair in a shape that says he’s still ready.
Zeus’s nails tick once on the wood and then quiet when he hits carpet.
He sniffs everything curiously, his tail wagging furiously.
I lay his blanket down beside the long window and he circles three times because ritual is good for some people and apparently my new dog.
He sighs and drops, stretching one paw to touch my foot.
I put a hand on the glass and look down at the river. Somewhere past all that black is Dock C, a row of doors, and Storage 14.
And a man who wants me to pay an impossible debt.
“One day, Firebird.” Maverick steps behind me and presses his body against mine. Not sexually, supportive. “One day, I’m going to know all your secrets. But tonight you should get some rest. Zeus here looks good, and I’m sure we’ve got another long ass day to come.”
He kisses the top of my head and then leaves me there alone with my thoughts and Zeus.
I set my phone down on the coffee table, where the screen immediately comes to life with another text.
Unknown
Clock’s ticking.
I kneel and take the puppy’s face in my hands and breathe warm dog smell and absolute trust, the kind that doesn’t require paperwork. I never get trust without a contract. It’s new. It’s wrong. It’s mine.
“Quiet,” I whisper. “You’re my secret, remember? At least until after the rest of them have had some sleep.”
He thumps his tail once, a soft muffled sound against the carpet.
I should go to Atticus. Show him the texts, the email, the whole leash they’re pulling.
He would make a flowchart and a firewall and a plan.
I should wake Storm and tell him to hold me down before I go running at something with teeth.
I should climb back into Conrad’s bed and say his name like I mean it and watch him try not to mean it back.
I do none of those things.
I can hear them in the hall of my head anyway.
Conrad’s you’re a liability.
Atticus’s if I know, I have to report.
Storm’s knife quiet on the table, the blade a hymnal only he knows the words to.
Maverick’s laugh when he turns a problem into a party.
Clock’s ticking.
They would call this choice reckless. I call it math. If I tell them, it becomes evidence. If I keep it to myself, it’s just paper and a dead man’s shame. Paper burns and shame lives forever.
I fold my body onto the end of the couch with my feet tucked under and the dog against my calves. The suite breathes with us. I close my eyes and map the walk to Dock C in my head, step by step. Elevator. Hall. Loading bay. Ramp. Ten minutes to get there.
Not tonight.
Tonight, I will keep the only things that belong to me. My truth and my secrets are all I own.
I try to breathe through the rising panic.
In for four. Hold. Out for six.
By the time the first smear of morning rubs at the river and the sky does that cheap trick where it says it might be gentle today, I’m back under Conrad’s comforter, hair damp with window-cold, dog curled on his blanket by the glass where no one will trip over a secret, and my hand tucked under the pillow around a phone that pretends to be asleep.
Conrad’s arm finds me by muscle memory and pulls me close like he always does. His breath touches the back of my neck like a future I don’t trust. I make my breathing slow. Even. Innocent.
One-two-three. I count in my head. One-two-three.
Somewhere below, Dock C waits open-mouthed and ready to snap.
I keep my mouth closed and swear that Maverick is wrong. All my secrets die with me.