Chapter 9
Phoenix
Danner throws me back into the box, laughing when I crash to the floor, and then he leaves. I don’t know where he goes. I don’t care. I’m just grateful for the reprieve, however long it lasts.
I hit on my side, shoulder first, the seam of the metal scraping my cheek. The door slams, and the locks fall into place one after the other, fast and practiced. I lie still long enough to hear them all.
One. Two. Three. The final one has a different tone, deeper than before.
Every breath I take tastes like rust and old sweat and the lemon-bleach cleaner they splash around to pretend this is sanitary.
My chest rises and falls too fast, like I’ve just finished a marathon.
My legs are shaking from the run, from the stairs, from the moment I put my hand on that door and thought that I could escape.
I push up so that I’m sitting, back to the wall so nothing can come from behind me—which I know doesn’t make sense but it makes me feel better. The chain is coiled on the floor—he didn’t bother to put it back on.
I’m not going anywhere.
I pull my knees into my stomach, hugging them to me. There’s an unsettled sensation in my stomach—not the floaty, sick kind, but the heavy, solid kind that tells me I’m trapped. He said the word “training” like a promise. I know what’s coming, and there’s no stopping it now.
I press two fingers into the inside of my elbow where the needle went in earlier.
The bruise is rising. The cotton ball he taped down is gone—wrenched off in the run.
I count the links on the discarded chain anyway, because counting gives my brain something to do that isn’t creating nightmare scenarios of what’s to come.
…eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven….
I stop counting when footsteps in the corridor approach. The tread is heavy, anticipatory.
His. He’s coming back.
I stand, but I don’t go to the bed. He’d like that too much. He’d like me to put myself where he wants me to make it easier on him, less work.
I have no intention of making things easy. That’s just not who I am.
I plant my feet shoulder-width apart on the steel and lock my knees so I can move. My palms begin to sweat, and I wipe them on my thighs. I make my face blank because there’s no way I’m going to show him any sign of weakness.
He’ll have to kill me if he thinks he can take me.
The first bolt throws back, then the second. The bar lifts. Light slices in as the door cracks, then opens all the way.
Danner fills the space with his body and his breath and his bad aftershave. He’s cleaned the blood off his mouth. The split is still there, fat and angry, a small red victory red flag. A strip of gauze is taped to his forearm where I twisted the screw. He smiles when he sees my eyes land on it.
“You got a good scratch in,” he says, pleased in a mean way. “Should’ve saved it for later.”
He doesn’t bother with the tray this time, or any other polite act to give this horror show a pretense of civility. He closes the door with his foot. The locks don’t seat. He wants them clear. He wants the show. He turns to me and lets his gaze crawl. It makes my skin hot and cold at once.
“Take off the shirt,” he says. “I want to see your tits.”
My stomach turns. “No.”
He walks in slowly, like there’s music he’s moving to that I can’t hear.
“We can do this clean, sweetheart,” he says.
“I told you the rules. No marks on the face. That cost somebody a hand once. But bruises where they don’t show?
That’s just learning your place. Don’t make me teach you the hard way. ”
“I’m not your student.”
“You will be.” He stops a step out of reach and tilts his head, evaluating. “Don’t worry. I decided I’m not gonna put you back on the bed.” The smile says the bed is a reward I haven’t earned. “Not tonight. We’ve got the floor, the wall…” He looks at the excuse for a table. “The box there.”
My hands are shaking. I force them into fists so it looks like rage instead of terror is taking over my body. The truth is, it’s both. I don’t want him to touch me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Not if I want to survive whatever he has planned.
He moves first—no warning, just a lunge.
One hand clamps my wrist; the other slides around to the back of my neck, hard.
He uses his weight like a tool, slamming me into the wall.
Corrugated steel kisses the meat of my shoulder, and pain flashes, hard.
I bite it back, but he likes the sound I make—something like a whimper, raw and anguished.
“Say ‘sir,’” he breathes near my ear. “Beg me, Phoenix.”
“Fuck…you—”
I twist my wrist against his thumb the way you’re taught to break grips. He shifts and keeps me. He’s stronger and heavier, and he’s angry I made him bleed.
I slam my heel down on his instep.
“Son of a bitch—”
His grip on my neck tightens, fingers digging, and his thigh wedges between mine. His knee presses into me, hard, and panic tries to climb my spine. I slam it back down.
“Get your hands—” I start.
His open palm cracks across my mouth. It’s quick, efficient, and surprises the shit out of me. The sting is white and hot. My tongue tastes copper. He leans his weight against me and hisses, “What did I tell you? You talk when I tell you to talk.”
I drive my forehead into his nose. It’s only a bad move if you miss. I don’t.
He grunts, reels, then snaps back harder, angrier, fresh blood bursting along the healing split.
His hand goes to my face, pushing, and I snap at his skin because teeth are tools, too.
I catch the meat of his palm and hold on when he yanks away with a bark.
The sound turns me inside out with a vicious little satisfaction.
He hits me again—lower, rib-high, a fist meant to take breath.
It does. Air wrenches out, and I release my hold, the world going fuzzy at the edges.
He feels the give and presses into it, lifting me off the floor and slamming me back to the wall.
I hear something in my back complain. I keep my head tucked so it doesn’t bounce.
He’s done this before, reading the way I move.
“Still got tricks I see,” he says, panting now. “Let’s see how many of those tricks hold up when I teach you how to act.”
He goes for my waistband with one hand, the other pinning my arm high.
He’s not careful. He doesn’t need to be.
I wrench my pinned arm, feel the skin at my shoulder pull.
Pain sharpens everything. My free hand dives into my pocket, finds the wrapped screw, and drags it out.
The fabric snags. I rip it. The screw bites into my palm.
He notices the change in me before he sees the metal. A little tension. A little purpose.
“What is that?” he asks, gaze fixing on my hand. “Is that what you got me with earlier, you little bitch?”
I don’t answer. I drive it forward, short and savage, aiming for soft.
He anticipates just enough to take it in the meat of his side instead of the belly.
It sinks deep. His body jerks. A sound leaves him that lives somewhere between surprise and fury.
He shoves me off the wall and I use the recoil to stab again.
This one rakes across his ribs, opening fabric and skin.
Blood runs hot and slick over my fingers.
He snarls, grabs my wrist, and slams it into the steel. The screw clatters away, skittering under the bed. My stomach drops, stupidly, at the sound. He sees the look and laughs.
“There she is,” he says. “Whatcha gonna do now, huh?”
He crushes me to the wall with his chest and hips, pinning my legs with his. His breath is too hot, too close, too human. He rucks my shirt up with one hand, the other fumbling once again at his belt. I twist. He uses the twist to fold me, to make more room where he wants it.
The lamp’s hum seems louder. The ship’s thrum moves through the floor into my bones. I think of the girls below. Of Luis. Of the way the woman held the humming girl and didn’t let go.
Of Conrad.
Maverick.
Storm.
Atticus.
No. NO.
I don’t realize I’m saying the words aloud until he chortles. “Beg all you want, pretty.”
It galvanizes me.
I drive my knee into him, aiming for the groin.
I miss by inches—his thigh takes most of it.
He grunts and punishes me for the attempt with a fist to the side of my head.
Stars pop and slide. My ears ring. He jerks my arms behind me and wrenches both wrists into one hand.
He bends me over the foot of the bed, his breath in my hair, his forearm across my shoulders like a bar.
The leather cuff swings and taps my cheek with every shake of the frame.
He’s stronger. The truth lands like a weight. He is stronger than I am.
But he’s not careful. And he’s not patient.
I let my legs go out from under me instead of bracing, a dead-weight drop.
It almost takes him with me—he stumbles, swears, shifts, regains.
I roll hard to the side and he follows, keeping my wrists trapped.
The fall knocks the wind out of both of us.
We hit the floor, the edge of the bed biting my ribs.
Pain blackens the room for a blink. When it clears there are tears in my eyes that have nothing to do with feeling and everything to do with the body being a stupid machine.
“Stop fighting,” he pants into my ear, voice gone rough. “You’ll like me better if you stop.”
“I’ll like you best dead,” I rasp.
He laughs, chest hitting my back. “That can be arranged later.”