Wild Card (The Titans #3)

Chapter 1 Phoenix

Phoenix

My palms slam against the metal door that stands between me and freedom.

The sound ricochets around the…box? I’m locked inside a fucking metal box.

I stuff that terrible thought down, deep down, where I don’t have to think about it, not right now, and pull in breath the way I know to do to keep from panicking. I think of Maverick, and I make a box.

One…two…three…four.

When the box is built, and I’m somewhat even, I smack my palms against the door again, the sound loud and flat—BANG—BANG—BANG—a hollow echo that laughs back at me.

The door doesn’t budge. It’s not a hotel door with a lock you can sweet-talk or jimmy with a credit card and a prayer. It’s steel and cold, moisture sweating through the layers of metal.

I press my forehead to the seam where the door meets the wall and suck air through my teeth.

All I get is the scent of diesel and salt and the coppery taste of my own panic.

Somewhere below, engines churn a steady thrum that sets the floor to a faint vibration.

It travels up my shins, into my knees, and through my spine until it settles at the base of my skull.

Nausea is a faint accompaniment to everything else tormenting my senses.

I don’t want to think about what all this means. Thinking about it makes it real, and right now I need to move past that terror and figure out an escape.

There’s a cuff around my right ankle, cold metal attached to a short chain bolted to a D-ring sunk into the floor.

Eight feet of movement, just enough to let me walk maybe half the length of this box, and roughly its width.

Maybe one or two more if I’m willing to lose some skin by yanking. I tested that already.

I step back and take stock again, because if I don’t pretend I have some kind of plan, I’m going to go feral and lose my mind. I don’t know how long it’s been since they grabbed me at the hotel, but my body clock is screaming too long.

Hunger gnaws in the pit of my stomach.

My senses are dull and numb, like I’ve been sleeping too long.

I need to pee.

Jesus, how could I have been so stupid? I knew better than to even look at those stupid text messages, let alone do what the man in them told me to do.

Walk out of the hotel lobby.

No more games.

If I had just waited for the guys, just shown them the message and the video of my dad…

But what? What would they have done? They’d have known then exactly how much I was worth—just enough to cover my dear old Dad’s gambling debts.

I swipe the tears that well up at that thought—that, not my predicament, go fucking figure—and turn my attention back to getting out of this mess, my fingertips tapping a frantic SOS against my hip.

Four corrugated metal walls, all the same gunmetal gray, beaded with condensation in places that I can’t reach.

No windows I can use to assess my location or try to come up with an escape plan.

There aren’t any vents I can reach or hide a weapon in, just a couple up at the very top designed to circulate air and keep me alive.

Heaven forbid I suffocate before I’m trafficked. So bad for business.

A clamp lamp throws a mean cone of yellow light over a wobbling wooden crate that passes for a table. The clamp bites crookedly into a metal cross-rib; every third second the bulb hums and flickers like it’s deciding whether or not to die.

Please don’t die.

A sob chokes halfway up my throat. I don’t think I could stand being trapped in this stupid metal box without any light.

Across from the crate, a field toilet stares at me, white plastic from the five gallon bucket turned nicotine yellow with age and use. A shallow metal sink the size of a casserole dish is bolted to the wall above it, goose-neck faucet dripping with every movement.

I hesitate, eying the door warily, and then make my way over to it, drop my pants, and hover. My chain just barely allows me to reach the makeshift bathroom.

There’s a drain in the floor, rust bleeding out from the grate. The seams at the corners are sealed with a lumpy silver caulk.

The mattress is a crime scene all on its own—the springs loud, the padding thin, its surface covered over with highly suspect stains. I flip it and find more stains on the bottom than on the top.

Swallowing, I lift the pillow, bare of any cover, and sniff. It smells like…I toss it back down. I don’t think I want to know.

Until my stint with the Titans, I’ve never lived with even the smallest of luxuries.

I lived in a trailer with a hole in the foundation, peeling Formica countertops, and water that was cold when it was running.

But this… Everything necessary for survival is here, if they bring food.

But none of what surrounds me is humane by even the barest of standards.

On top of the crate sits a tape recorder.

It’s not digital, not modern, but one of the old analog ones—the kind with the plastic buttons that punch down with a small, satisfying bite, and a little window where reels should be but aren’t.

Someone took the reel covers off, or they were never there.

I can see the black tape like a thin tongue waiting for me to pull it out.

The recorder has been here the whole time, which is somehow worse than if it had appeared mid-panic like a magic trick. Whoever brought me here wanted this moment. Wanted me to press PLAY.

I hover my hand over the button. I don’t want to listen to whatever it is—obviously I’m playing right into their hands, whoever ‘they’ are—but at the same time…

Curiosity is a siren song. I have to know why I’m here. How I’m going to get myself out.

And I have nothing better to do.

A slick of sweat slides down my spine. I sit in the metal chair, adjust my ankle chain so it doesn’t bite, and press PLAY.

Static scratches. The tape whines. And then my father’s voice fills the container, echoing off the metal walls and shattering the rest of my composure into smithereens.

“Hey, Nix… it’s Dad.” A shaky breath rides the tape.

“I don’t— I don’t deserve the peace that is gonna come from you listening to this. But I need you to hear it from me, not from some asshole who… Nix, I did something I can’t undo.”

A pause. Paper rustles, or maybe he’s just twisting his fingers the way he does when he lies.

“I got in deep. Deeper than I told you. Wasn’t a friendly marker, not something a good week could fix. There’s a man who calls himself the Broker—he’s not a rumor. He’s real. And he…he doesn’t take money the way banks do. He takes leverage. He takes what you’ll bleed to get back.”

The tape whirs. He swallows.

“I thought I could outplay him. One night. One hand. I told myself I was due for a change in luck. Due for a win. You know how I am.” A hollow laugh; it breaks into a cough.

Silence stretches until I hear the tremor in his breath.

“I signed a paper I didn’t read. I signed because I was losing and I had ta do it. I told myself it was just collateral—just something to hold the debt until I won it back.”

Another breath, ragged now. A tear slips down my cheek, and I swipe it away. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, but for some reason it hurts worse now. I don’t know why. Maybe being in this box makes it worse?

“I’m so sorry, Nixie,” he sobs. “I thought I would be able to win it all back. But then he made me sign the contract. I’m so sorry, my little girl. I had to give him you.”

A choked sound, like he’s trying not to cry and failing.

“I failed, baby. I failed you in a way I can’t fix. He gave me seven days. Seven. I begged him for a buyback. He said there’s always a price. But now you gotta pay up.”

A click—maybe from him shifting in a chair; I picture him in the kitchen, light off, talking to a red voicemail eye.

His breath hitches.

“I should’ve protected you from men like me. I should’ve been the wall, not the reason you needed one. Your mother would’ve known what to do. I loved her, even when I lost every other good thing. I love you more.”

A long silence. I hear the soft clink of glass. When he speaks again, his voice is steady in the way people get when they’ve decided something.

“I can’t let him put hands on you because I was weak. I can’t let him call you a debt.” A shaky inhale. “I’m going to make this right the only way I can. By the time you hear this, maybe I’ll… maybe I’ll be brave enough to do it.”

He forces a breath that wants to be a sob.

“Listen to me, Phoenix. You are not what I did. You need to find someone who loves you right, and you let them help, even if you hate needing it.”

A beat.

“I wish I’d been that someone. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. For the money. For the lies. For all the little ways I taught you not to trust the people who loved you. I need you to live a life that isn’t about cleaning up my messes.”

The tape crackles. One last exhale.

“My Phoenix…I know you’ll burn every debt they try to tie you with…every name they try to brand you with… I love you, my girl. No more debts. Not for you.”

A soft click, then static, and the recorder eats its own silence.

I don’t move. I don’t blink.

It’s the second time I’m hearing it, and my body still does the same stupid things.

My jaw clenches so hard it pops, and my hands curl like I’m holding a railing on a bridge I didn’t choose to cross.

The words don’t hit in one clean blow; they splinter and keep finding new places to lodge—guarantor, collateral, debt.

I’m so sorry, Nixie. I had to give him you.

I want to hate him. I do.

The kind of hate that would be easier if I hadn’t memorized the shape of his shoulders when he cooked eggs, or the way he used to tuck receipts into books.

My father loved me. He also sold me. Both things can be true, and neither of them cancels out the other.

I press two fingers to the STOP button like I’m pinning a moth, and the quiet that follows isn’t quiet at all. I hear the floor beneath me hum with energy.

You are not what I did.