Chapter 13 Phoenix
Phoenix
Something warm and sandpapery is working my toes like a chew toy.
“Zeus,” I croak.
He answers with a happy huff and another swipe, tail thumping a soft drumbeat against the blanket. I start to laugh but pain flares instead. My skull pulses like someone’s playing timpani inside it, and the base of my neck burns, a needle-hot puncture that feels small and mean.
I blink hard, and the room comes into focus in pieces.
Soft lamplight. The scent of vanilla. White-noise hush like distant rain.
The bed isn’t the thin cot of the ship; it’s a real mattress that cups my spine.
I’m in a T-shirt that isn’t mine and soft cotton shorts that don’t ride or pinch.
There’s a folded blanket at my knees that smells like Zeus.
And there are four men in a half-circle around the bed in high-end office chairs—sleek, low-back, wheels muted—each angled just so, each of them with a tablet in his hands, each pretending not to watch me sleep.
I push myself up on my elbows. The world tilts, then rights itself.
“Are you…” My throat scrapes. “Are you seriously holding a vigil like I’m a museum exhibit?”
Maverick’s mouth kicks first. “It’s more of a very expensive neighborhood watch,” he says, cutting his eyes to Con. “Wanted to make sure you were good after last night’s activities. Morning, firebird.”
“Jealousy is unbecoming,” Con says mildly.
“Afternoon,” Atticus corrects without looking up, then looks up anyway. His eyes rake over me, ticking off each item—bandage, pupils, color of my skin. He softens by a millimeter. “How’s your head?”
“Like I tried to head-butt a truck, and the truck won.” I rub my temples, then hiss when my fingers skim the tender spot at the base of my skull.
The pain is sharp, knotted, localized—like a bee sting that learned how to swear and knotted like a bitch.
I find a small strip of medical tape there. “What is this?”
Conrad sits forward an inch. “You took a hit.” Not untrue. Not the answer I’m looking for though, and I can tell because he’s fidgeting a little.
Zeus nuzzles into me and collapses across my ankles, sighing the world’s most dramatic sigh.
His rear leg is casted; bright tape circles it with a vet’s careful signature.
The sight punches something low in my chest. I drop a hand to his head.
He moans like I’ve absolved him of a crime and noses under my palm.
“Good boy,” I whisper, and swallow around the sudden tightness in my throat. “You did so good.”
Storm has the far chair, angled like a sentry by the door. He hasn’t put his tablet down, but he also hasn’t looked at it in a full minute. His gaze stays on me, steady, assessing in the way that means he’s counting every breath. Mine.
I take stock. Clean sheets. Dimmer switch on the lamp.
Glass of water within reach and the cap already cracked.
The small basket on the dresser is filled with a new toothbrush, Chapstick, hair tie and the remote control for the TV.
A hoodie hangs in the open closet, along with several other pieces of comfortable-looking clothing.
My heart, which has been jogging since the ship, eases to a walk.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“We’re in a safe house,” Atticus says, and every muscle relaxes even further. “Tybee Island.”
A safe house. An island. Safe.
“Where’d you find a safe house?”
Storm tips his chin toward the doorway. “It’s my father’s.”
“Ah.” I sit up a little straighter and the room swims, then settles. “And the peanut gallery in ergonomic chairs is… what, the security feature I dreamt about in a nightmare once?”
Maverick grins. “Atmosphere.”
Conrad’s tablet goes dark, like the device sensed the shift in his attention. He sets it on the nightstand and reaches for my water, offering it without crowding. “Sip.”
I take it. The first swallow tastes like metal and lemon. The second goes down clean. I lean back against the headboard. Zeus adjusts with me, adapting, one heavy paw over my ankle as if he wants to hold me in place.
Movement at the door draws my eye. A man stands there—older than us by twenty years, maybe more, broad-shouldered, eyes cut from the same quiet stone as Storm’s.
His hair is threaded with silver at the temples.
He carries himself like a man who has decided who he is and that he isn’t changing for anyone.
I like him immediately.
“Ms. Jones.” His voice is low, lived-in. “I’m Spencer Carrow.” He inclines his head toward Storm. “This one’s father.”
A softer Storm. Same bones, different weather.
“Phoenix,” I reply, tipping my head. “Thank you for the roof.”
“Always welcome,” he says, and I get the sense he means for more than just plaster and shingles.
He looks at Zeus’s cast and then at the men in chairs with something like amusement that doesn’t quite reach his mouth.
“The doctor and therapist are in the east rooms. They’ll check you on your schedule, not theirs.
You need anything else, ask. You don’t need anything…
don’t want anything…say so, and I’ll make sure everyone leaves you alone. Including these guys.
“Cruel,” I murmur as he gives us a wave and wanders away. My neck throbs. I rub at it again and feel the drag of tape. “Seriously. What happened back here? It feels like somebody stabbed me with a knitting needle.”
Atticus and Conrad exchange a look. Storm doesn’t. He says nothing, which is the same as saying later. Fine. There are other things I need to know first, anyway.
“The girls on the boat,” I say. “The other people they kept. Where are they?”
“Handed over to federal authorities,” Atticus answers.
“We didn’t invite badges aboard the ship with us, but we called them the minute we were clear, anonymously.
We arranged for two advocacy groups to meet them at the dock.
They were given all the medical, lodging, legal counsel, phones…
everything they could need to start over. ”
“Names?” My voice is too sharp. I soften it. “I need to know they’re not falling into another hole.”
Storm rattles them off—some organizations I’ve heard of and one I haven’t. He adds the name of a woman in charge, the one who sat on the floor next to the bunk and breathed with a girl for twenty minutes before she asked a single question. Something in me unclenches a notch.
“Good,” I say, and mean it. A headache presses behind my eyes; the tender spot at my neck throbs. I try a small roll of my shoulders. My muscles complain, then relent.
It’s weird…I hurt more today than I did last night. I remember feeling decent enough that I wanted Conrad’s body on mine, in mine, surrounding mine, even if I didn’t do a lot of my own moving. I must’ve been hopped up on painkillers.
“What happened to him?” I ask, quietly.
Conrad answers without hesitation. “Danner’s body was found on the ship.”
“I don’t mean Danner.” My eyes lift and catch on Conrad’s. “I know he’s dead, and I’m glad for it. I mean the man who killed him.”
The air in the room thins for a beat, like the entire house took a breath and held it.
Maverick’s voice is careful. “Did you see who pulled the trigger?”
“Yes. I saw his shoes,” I say while rolling my eyes.
“They were clean. Too clean for that deck. He was neat…fastidious. His shirtsleeves—his cuffs—were pressed. He had a scar here.” I touch the fine line near my ear.
“Old. He knew my name. He didn’t look at me like a man looks at a woman he wants to fuck.
He looked at me like a line item on a balance sheet.
He talked like he’s the one who makes the rules when he’s in the room and doesn’t give a fuck if anyone agrees or not. ”
Atticus’s jaw tightens. Storm tilts his head half a degree, listening to the way the words fit each other. Conrad’s hands close on his knees, the tendons standing out in stark relief. He’s building a picture with his rage and my facts.
“He’s the one in charge,” I say. “Not Danner. Danner was his lackey. This man held the leash, and when Danner pulled against it…” I put a finger gun to my temple and pulled a pretend trigger.
“Broker,” Maverick says, almost under his breath, like he’s testing the myth out loud.
The name lands and sits in the center of the room like a polished stone. It doesn’t roll, though. It doesn’t belong to anyone we know, and that’s the problem.
“That’s what one of the women called him too,” I say. “But that doesn’t help us identify him. I swear, he was so familiar, though.”
“Noted,” Atticus says, and the word is colder than I’ve ever heard it from him. He’s already two steps down a mental hallway that ends in a room with screens and code. “But now we have a face. I need to get you a sketch artist.”
“That would be good. I guess I should tell you about everything…so you can figure out who these guys are.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Conrad says.
Zeus nudges my foot, aggrieved I stopped petting him. I oblige, scratching the base of his ears until his eyes go blissed-out and his tongue lolls.
“Headache?” a new voice asks from the doorway.
A woman stands there—late thirties, maybe, hair in a braid.
She wears jeans and a slouchy sweater and carries a doctor’s bag that looks like it has better stories than mine.
Behind her, another woman with locs pulled into a low bun leans on the frame, soft-eyed and steady in a way that feels like a couch you sat on when you were a kid and the adults talked in the kitchen.
“Dr. Hale,” the first woman says. “I’m the doc. This is Tamsin, a therapist if you’d like to talk. We’re around when you want us. Not before. Okay?”
I nod. “I appreciate that. Right now—I think I just need some water and a minute.”
“Done.” Dr. Hale slides a blister pack onto the nightstand. “For the headache. It’s gentle stuff. No dyes.” She gestures to the back of her own neck. “Tender?”
“Like a hornet with a grudge,” I say.
“I gave you a small shot,” she answers, neutral. “We can talk about the why when your eyes stop trying to murder you. I can tell they’re bothering you.”
I look at Conrad. I know he has something to do with that ‘small shot.’ He doesn’t flinch from the question in my gaze, though. Fine. We’ll have that conversation when the room isn’t full of witnesses and people who know what a felony looks like on paper.
“Later,” I agree.
Tamsin’s voice is warm and level. “You don’t owe anyone in this house any version of your story you don’t want to tell. You also don’t have to pretend you’re fine in order for us to leave the room.”
I believe her. I don’t know why. I nod again, the motion small, because holy fuck, my head hurts. “Thank you.”
They vanish as gently as they appeared.
The men don’t move. It should feel like a siege. Instead, it feels like a wall I can lean on without falling through.
I test my voice again. “How long have I been out?”
“Six hours,” Atticus says.
“Long enough to alarm us, but not long enough to worry the doctor,” Storm adds.
“Con wouldn’t let go,” Maverick says lightly. His eyes don’t leave my face.
I glance down. Conrad’s hand rests on the blanket near my hip, not touching. I put my hand on top of his. His fingers flex, then still. The muscle in his jaw stops chewing whatever it was about to swallow.
“Okay,” I say, and the word is bigger than it sounds. “Here’s what I need.”
Four heads lift like I rang a bell.
“I need one of you in the room,” I say. “Not all of you at once. Rotate. I need to take a shower without anyone hovering, but I need someone outside the door. I need the door to lock and for one of you to have a key. I need my phone if I still have one, or a new one if I don’t.
I need a slice of toast. I need…” My throat gets stupidly tight.
I push through it. “I need you not to treat me like glass. I’m tired of losing pieces of myself to other people’s hands. ”
Storm nods once, solemn as a contract, then leans forward and presses his mouth against mine. Hard. When he’s finished, I know I’m not glass. “Done.”
Maverick is already half out of his chair. “Toast,” he says. “World-class. Toast is my domain.” He points to Zeus. “You—guard.”
Zeus wags, very professional.
Atticus taps something on his tablet. “I’ll have a phone on your nightstand in two minutes, with our numbers programmed in already. No GPS, no Cloud, no surprises. And a tablet. But no internet. Not yet.”
Conrad doesn’t move. He just looks at me like I’m the only thing on a map that’s true. “The door locks,” he says. “I’ll be outside while you shower.”
“Thank you,” I say, and mean it in all the ways. “We’ll talk about the boat after.”
I start to swing my feet to the floor. The room tilts, corrects.
Conrad is there but not grabbing—just a bracket at my elbow until I take the weight myself.
The carpet is soft and new and nothing like the cold teeth of a steel deck.
The ache in my neck complains when I turn my head, so I don’t.
I make the first steps small and deliberate.
Zeus would come with me if I let him; I scratch his head and tell him he has to watch the bed.
He gives me a look that says he disagrees with my management style but obeys anyway.
At the bathroom door, I stop and look back at all of them—their chairs, their tablets, their unblinking attention. “You can blink,” I say.
“Later,” Maverick calls from the kitchen.
Conrad’s hand ghosts the doorframe by my head, not touching me, claiming the space like a promise. “I’ll be right here.”
“I know,” I say again. I close the door. The lock snicks, clean and deliberate.
I turn the shower on and let the steam bank up. The mirror fogs. For a minute, with the water drumming and the white-noise hush under it, I let myself breathe like I’m not borrowing someone else’s air.
When I step under the spray, the heat needles my scalp and the sore place at my neck howls, then settles to a manageable throb. I tip my face into the water and finally, finally, the ship rinses out of my ears and off my skin.
When I come back into the room, towel wrapped around me, hair dripping, the chair closest to the door is empty save for a folded hoodie and a phone. The hallway is quiet. Conrad sits on the floor outside, back to the wall, knees up, hands loose, eyes closed—not sleeping. Guarding.
“I have toast,” Maverick yells from the kitchen, like a benediction.
I smile—small, real. “Give me just a minute.”
And then we can talk about the man with clean shoes. And then we can talk about the rules. And then—after I eat something that isn’t fear—we can talk about the fact that I’m still here.
Maybe then… maybe after all that I can make the nightmares go away.