Phoenix was changing too… and I wondered…
Which one of us was going to break first and either send this all crashing down into flames or finally admit that whatever this was…
Whatever we were.
It was something we couldn’t escape.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
PHOENIX
“You’re going soft.”Blythe’s voice was a tease in my ear, but she didn’t sound angry about it. Aubrey and I were packing shit up to move back to the house in the center of the island. We’d found another block of rooms just across the bridge for everyone else to stay in. It wasn’t exactly perfect, but Iwantedto stay at the house. It was good.
Good for us.
And it was flooded with the memory of the way Aubrey had looked at me like he could actually see me.
“What?”
She shoved against my shoulder. “It’s not a bad thing. I was wondering when you were going to find someone who could match your energy. But still…” Blythe smiled. “You’re goingsoft.”
I’d left Aubrey back at the island, so at least he wasn’there to listen to this conversation. I wasn’t sure what he’d do if he realized I was changing because of him.
I couldn’t change because of him.
I’d learned from the time I was young that you didn’t change for people; you changed the world to fit you. You changed the people in your world to fit around you, or you found people who already did.
“I’mnot,” I hissed, and she grinned.
“Sure you aren’t. It’s okay, Phoenix. He’s good for you.”
Good for you.
The words pounded in my ears, and I flicked my gaze to Zero, who quickly jerked his eyes down with a grin. To Cutter, who was staring at me like his entire world was on fire. Cora and Flynt were already at the new hotels getting things cleaned and checking on the solar panels.
It was just them, and they were all looking at me and confirming what Blythe said.
Soft.
“I’m not changing for anyone. You’re wrong.”
Even as I said it, I knew words weren’t going to be enough. I had to prove it.
Maybe to myself more than them, because some small part of me could feel it—the way Iwantedto change for Aubrey. The way I might have done it, if it meant he’d really be mine. But Aubrey didn’twantsoft. He didn’t wantchanged. He wanted a monster, a raider—someone who could break him and have the strength to put him back together.
If he saw that I wasgoing soft, he’d walk away.
I couldn’t let that happen.
His back was turnedto me when I stalked into the house. He was wearing a tank top again, old and shredded. I could see the line along his back—the one he’d kept from me this entire time. Over the week since we’d cleared the island house, I’d gotten more stories from him.
Maybe he gave them freely because the scars that I’d picked so far came with memories he didn’t mind telling—his father had cut his face, burned his leg, broken his fingers. He talked about the man with a cold and calculated dispassion that told me he was so far removed from the situation that nothing he could say about it would actually hurt him. I didn’t tell him that every time he told me about the drunk bastard who’d starved and beaten him, a part of me raged on the inside, wanted to climb through some portal to the past so I could take the asshole apart slowly. I was mapping out every place that he’d hurt Aubrey, and I would happily have returned the favor tenfold. But I couldn’t do that, and I wasn’t going to tell Aubrey that I wanted to.
He was a little more standoffish when I picked one of the scars that were bright pink instead of the faded criss-crossing of white. He told me, dully, that he’d been attacked by the Order once they realized he wasn’t actually one of them. They’d sent Ben after him, and that was apparently when I’d first seen him.
How fucked was it that the people he’d tried to find a family with had tried to have him killed?
