I was safe.
Safe for now—safe enough to keep this, as selfish as it was. I wasn’t sure I could give up the way it felt to bethisAubrey. Killer. Pet. Raider.
Some part of me knew that my answer wasn’t going to be enough forever. I could see it now—the curiosity in his eyes. It was just a matter of time before Phoenix lit the little bubble of numbing comfort I’d built around his presence onfire and left me with nothing but the taste of ash on my tongue.
For all his strength,all the viciousness that ran through Phoenix and wrapped him up like a second skin, he seemed more than willing to let me plan every day that we woke up together. He spent the first few hours trying to cajole me into eating some of the mystery meat that was cooking over the fire. I’d started accepting fruits and grains from his crew, and I’d even started to expect the soft teasing from Blythe about how I was going to waste away if I didn’t start eatingproper mealssoon.
I only hated it when I had a chance to breathe, a chance to think.
I hated it when I realized I fit in more with a pack of violent cannibals than I had with anyone in the eight years I’d spent in the Order.
It had been two days since Phoenix had asked me about my past, and I could feel some strange tension building between us. When he dragged me to our room at night, his eyes were greedy as they looked at me.
His fingers werehungrywhere they touched me.
Curious.
We needed a distraction, and thankfully it came in the form of news brought by Cutter and Zero—Cutter had gone scouting, and when he’d realized there was a theater full of raiders, he’d grabbed Zero so they could assess thedanger.
“I’ve never seen raiders with so many shiny new weapons.”
I frowned. “I mean, sometimes groups of the Order get attacked and looted, same as anything else.”
Zero shook his head, his cool voice sounding sure. “This was more than that. There were at least fifteen of them I saw, and they all had something. Maybe they’d intercepted a shipment, but there were big guns.”
Big guns.
I knew the Order seized all the weapons from the old world they could find, and they recruited anyone who seemed capable of rebuilding them. Fuck, I wondered what it was like to live on a different coast where those assholes didn’t exist, didn’t take everything they wanted.
Then again, there’d always be someone fucking you over, someone wanting to seize control. It was human nature.
“Maybe. Either that or the Order handed them over, and I doubt that happened. So…” I cut my eyes to Phoenix. “We should check it out.”
Distraction. It was a perfect distraction, if I was being honest.
“You probably want to take some people with you to fight them.” I would have usually listened to the logic in Zero’s words, but…
“I mean, we don’t have to fight. But if Phoenix and I go check it out, we could clear the surrounding area so we’re not fighting raiders and rabids all at once.” I turned my gaze back to Phoenix and watched the blossom of excitement cross his features.
“Sounds good to me. If we’re clearing around the area,we want to be quiet and quick. We can come back once we’re through to get the pack and take the building.”
I didn’t miss the doubtful expression that crossed Zero’s face, but he nodded. There was something almost fascinating about the way the group seemed to trust Phoenix implicitly.
It was the kind of blind trust that came when someone had saved your life enough times that you knew they were capable.
The kind of trust you gave to someone you loved. To family.
I…
“Let’s get some stuff packed and we can head out.”
Phoenix was a cannibal—a vicious raider who didn’t care about anything, who hunted me down and put me on my knees in the dark.
As much as I didn’t want him to look past my surface to see who I really was, I needed to make sure I didn’t look past his and realize that beneath it all, he might actually be more than just a monster.
Paradise was enormous.Of course, it had been advertised as a place where you could come and stay for the summer if you wanted. It was like its own little community, so it made sense that there was so much space.
But still, we’d ended up running into an entire herd of rabid deer on the way to scouting the theater. Some of them looked soft, almost normal, but they were all following alongtogether, and the giant buck that led them had chunks of fur missing, and its teeth were…
