Chapter 42 Phoenix
PHOENIX
“Forget Kline and Associates, I’m going to need backup at thirteen-sixteen Sycamore,” I yelled into the phone, nearly deafened by the roar of hail pounding the roof of Gage’s truck.
Rustling and sirens crackled through Jagg’s end of the line. The chaos of whatever roadside nightmare he was handling painted a clear picture—hell was breaking loose across the county.
“Where are you now?” he shouted.
I glanced at the GPS, my pulse thrumming in my neck. “Heading east on Highway Twelve.”
“What’s the address again?”
I rattled it off through gritted teeth, barely hearing my own voice over the thrum of hail and screaming wind.
“I’ll be there as fast as I can,” he said.
I hung up and hurled the phone at the dash, my hands shaking as I looked over at Gage. “Dammit, Gage. Faster.”
He didn’t answer. He just pressed harder on the gas, his focus razor-sharp, guiding the truck through a storm that had driven every other car to the shoulder.
It was like plowing blind through a war zone.
We couldn’t see more than a few feet past the hood.
Lightning spiderwebbed across the windshield, a jagged streak slamming down just ahead of us with a ground-shaking pop that lit the sky like a battlefield flare.
Another hit—a fist-sized ball of hail cracked the glass. A second and third followed, spidering the corner of the windshield.
“Shit,” I muttered, heart pounding. “If one more hits like that—”
“This is the biggest hail I’ve ever seen,” Gage muttered, gripping the wheel so tight his knuckles were bone white. “This is bad, Feen. Tornado-level bad.”
“Here,” I said, spotting the turn on the GPS. “Snakepit Road. Take it—it cuts through the mountain.”
Gage slammed the brakes and veered off the main road, the tires skidding in the mud. The truck fishtailed before catching traction.
“Destination one hundred yards ahead,” the robotic GPS chirped.
The wind howled around us like a siren. Leaves and twigs pelted the truck, swirling in a chaotic cyclone. The barometric pressure dropped so sharply my ears popped.
“The wind’s picking up. I can feel it moving the truck,” Gage said, his voice low. Nervous.
But we didn’t stop. We couldn’t.
“Faster, Gage,” I snapped, not out of anger—but because I couldn’t breathe until I had eyes on Rose.
She needed me.
We crested a small rise when a deafening crack split the sky above.
“Gage!”
A massive oak tree fractured in half right in front of us, collapsing over the dirt road seconds before we barreled into it. Two seconds earlier and we would have been dead. Leaves rained down around us, the branches entangling around the crumpled hood of Gage’s truck.
“Dammit. Door’s wedged shut!” Gage shouted over the howling wind.
I looked at my brother and the branch that had pinned his door less than a foot from his head. Mine was pinned, too. We were inside the tree. I looked back at the trailer, still upright, then at Spirit bucking, just past the trailer door that had busted open.
“I’ve got to get out of here, Gage.”
He pulled a hammer from his tool bag in the back and handed it to me. “Bottom’s up, bro.”
I grabbed a jacket that had slid to the floorboard and tossed it to him. “Cover your face.”
I waited until he turned away, then took the hammer to the passenger window. Glass shattered around the cab.
“I’m right behind you…” Gage’s voice faded as I climbed out of the broken window and maneuvered my way through the tree like a spider monkey.
“Spirit!” I whistled.
A flash of white over the tree. I gripped the saddle and vaulted onto her back. We took off through the woods. Hail battered my face, my arms, one popping open the skin below my eye. I wiped the blood and hunkered down against the rain, flapping Spirit’s reins.
“Go, go girl, go!”
Rain swirled around us, winds beating into my side threatening to throw me off the horse. For all I knew, at that moment, I was in the middle of a tornado. The woods were as black as midnight.
We soared over a fence and took off across a field—sitting ducks for the lightning.
We didn’t care.
My breath came out in short puffs against the sudden drop in temperature, my heart a cool pounding reminding me of the moments before executing a raid.
Except with this one, I didn’t have intel, I didn’t have my team at my back, only my sixth sense, SIG, and the sheer resolve to save my Rose Flower’s life.
The outline of a large structure came into view. I pulled the reins and we skirted to the right, parallel with the side of the large house. My eyes darted from point to point, my brain putting together an internal layout based on the outside.
It was an old, decrepit colonial style mansion with four white columns running in front of a porch that led up to double doors.
Several shades of stain colored the white paint peeling on the sides.
Cracked shingles speckled a waved roof that led to a crooked chimney.
Tangled, dead bushes encircled the structure.
It looked like something from The Shining. Fitting too, for this mad doctor.
The windows were dark, with only a dim orange glow coming from somewhere deep inside the first floor.
I pulled Spirit to a stop and slid off.
“Stay here.”
Double-gripping my gun, I ducked my head into the wind and sprinted across the yard, rain lashing my face like shrapnel. I slammed my back against the side of the house, breath sharp in my throat.
I stilled, tuning out the storm, listening past the wind and hail.
And then I heard it.
A scream—high, raw, bloodcurdling. The kind that tears straight through bone. My skin went cold.
Rose.
Instinct took over. I bolted down the side of the house, mud splashing beneath my boots, heart pounding like a war drum. Another scream—this one strangled and distant, swallowed by stone.
I saw the stairs. A narrow set of moss-covered stone steps, disappearing beneath the foundation.
The basement.
Then came the third sound—muffled, broken, not a scream anymore but a cry of pain.
Adrenaline detonated in my bloodstream, overriding every ounce of logic and training. There was no time to think. I had one mission: get to her.
I launched down the steps, water cascading around my feet, and reached a thick wooden door, chained and bolted shut.
Without hesitation, I backed up, raised the SIG, and fired.
The blast was deafening. The doorknob exploded into splinters. I didn’t wait. I barreled through the shattered wood, and straight into hell.
Decades of executing hostage raids could not have prepared me for what I saw.
The first thing that registered was the smell.
The scent of burning flesh. Under the dim glow of a single bulb, Rose was bound to a table that reminded me of where death-row inmates took their last breath.
Her eyes were shut, her skin a waxy pale.
A wired, leather helmet was strapped to her head.
Syringes, vials, and a few blue-handled scissors sat on a silver rolling table at her feet.
Next to her, June Massey, bound and wired as well.
And on the other side stood Theo, draped in a stained lab coat, with a nine-millimeter pointed to my head.
“Drop the gun,” he said in an eerily calm voice.
“Step away from Rose.”
His lips barely moved. “Drop it, or I turn up the voltage. You’ll get to watch her die slowly.”
He raised one hand from the pistol and casually skimmed it along the edge of a humming black power box. His fingers hovered near the dial. Unshaken. In control. And completely deranged.
I’d faced suicide bombers, cartel enforcers, and war criminals with less menace than the man in front of me. At least they had predictable triggers. This guy? There was no telling what he’d do. And if I had to guess, neither could he.
My heart thundered. My finger hesitated.
Then I lowered the gun.
“Kick it to me and raise your arms above your head.”
The gun slid across the basement floor. My eyes flickered to Rose, still motionless. Whatever the guy had done to her had incapacitated her. She needed immediate medical attention.
“She’s a strong one,” Theo said, with a mad twinkle in his eye.
“I’m stronger. Let her go and take me.”
His brow cocked. “Well this is an interesting twist.”
“Let both women go and take me.”
“I don’t know Mr. Steele, I think Rose is the strongest of you two.
The flush of your cheeks and shortness of breath tell me you’re verging on a panic attack.
Your adrenaline is being compounded by an inner anger so fierce, it’s clouding your judgment and preventing you from making solid decisions.
You can’t control your emotions, even before getting shot in the head.
Your anger—your pride—is your biggest weakness, Phoenix.
It’s stronger than you’ll ever be. So, while you stand here, all two hundred and thirty pounds of muscle, you are quite possibly the weakest person in the room. ”
The words cut me like a knife, exactly as he’d intended.
Head games. He was playing a game with me.
A wicked smile crossed his face. “Let me prove it to you.”
My heart slammed against my ribcage as I watched his fingers turn the dial.
Rose’s arm jumped on the table.
“No!” I lunged forward.
“Stop or I’ll do it again!” Theo bellowed.
I froze and stared down the barrel of the gun inches from my face.
“See?” Theo cackled a laugh. “See, Phoenix? You’re so overcome with panic, you just made a decision that would not only end your life, but hers as well. I’d electrocute her to death and shoot you between the eyes. You’d both be dead. You lose, like always.”
The words pierced me. Not because they were true—but because he wanted them to be.
He was toying with me. Psych warfare. A game.
He backed up, breathing harder now.
“The question is…” He tilted his head like a deranged puppet. “What am I going to do with you now?”
But I saw it. Behind the manic confidence, the smug smile—there was something fraying.
Everyone had a weakness. And I’d found his.
“If you want to talk about weakness, Theo,” I said, steadying my voice, “let’s talk about yours.”
His eyebrows lifted, amused.
“You’re not the only one who’s done research,” I said, taking a slow step forward. “Your lovely ex-wife, Lillian. No one’s seen her in a while.”
There it was. The flicker. A muscle twitch below his eye.
“I made a few calls. The local PD is conducting a welfare check at her house right now. Should be combing through her property any minute.”
His eyes rounded. Blood drained from his face.
“They’re going to find her body, aren’t they, Theo?”
He blinked, shaken. Swallowed. His hand faltered slightly on the trigger.
“You killed her. You loved her, maybe even more than you loved this sick experiment you built. And when she left you—when she rejected you—you cracked. She filed for divorce, shattered your delusion of control, and you snapped.”
He said nothing. But his silence said everything.
“She was your first kill, wasn’t she?” I kept going. “You regretted it. But not enough to stop. No, you turned it into something else. You kept doing it, trying to feel that rush again—or kill the guilt. ‘Do the thing that scares you until it doesn’t,’ right? Isn’t that what they say in therapy?”
His breathing hitched. Hands trembling now.
“You kept killing to desensitize yourself. Like a ritual. But the truth is—you never stopped missing her. Never stopped punishing the world for what she did to you.”
His body began to shake.
“Give me the gun, Theo,” I said, low and calm.
His chin quivered. “No.” Tears streaked his face. “No, they won’t get me.”
And as he turned the gun on himself, I threw myself over Rose’s body to shield her from the spray.