Phoenix walks out of the hallway, barefoot, sleeves pushed up, hair perfectly arranged like he’s about to film a meditation reel. Except he looks like hell. He has two black eyes, his lip is split, the entire left side of his face is badly bruised from the beating Lucky delt him.
But right now, he’s just smooth calmness, his posture curated. He’s not angry or vengeful. Not gloating. Justcertain. Like the sun rising, like death being punctual.
He’s dressed different than I’ve ever seen him. He’s always in flowing, loose linen. But not tonight. Tonight, he’s in a plain black long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans, almost like he’s planning to step out of the cabin and split some wood. Gone is the guru thousands worship like Jesus.
“I had hoped we’d learned a lesson the other day, when everything went to shit,” he says as he walks around me, watching me. “But then I realized, when I looked back at my camera footage and caught just a glimpse of that raven hair, that this was far from over. Willow Vale is more than meets the eye, and she doesn’t let things go.” His voice is soft, low, every word dipped in something smooth and cold.
I sigh. I hate when this motherfucker talks. I really do. “If only that car alarm hadn’t gone off. You’d be at the bottom of Lake Mead, and I’d be doing something a lot more fun than this.”
“You think your sarcasm and wit are endearing,” he says, his tone flattening out. “They aren’t. You’re just another bitter woman who refuses to heal.”
A smile cocks on one side of my mouth, and I look up at him. “Oh, I’ve healed. I have my own special method for healing. You’re actually part of the process, Phoenix. Does that make you feel special?”
Phoenix rounds to stand directly in front of me. He crouches down, bringing us to eye level. “Every word you speak reveals more about you. Do you realize that?” His words are deadlycalm. And there’s an emptiness in his eyes that chills me. This is the stripped-back Phoenix. This isn’t the Phoenix for the cameras or the masses. This is the real man. The one Jules saw. The one all his victims get to meet. “You aren’t nearly as afraid as you should be. You speak of sinking me in Lake Mead like a cliché Strip mobster. You ran reconnaissance on my home. You thought you could strangle me with a plastic bag. So, it seems Willow Vale does more than read tarot and harass healers online.”
“Tarot makes my living,” I say, trying not to bristle at him using the word healer. “Taking out the trash is my most satisfying hobby.”
He studies me, and I hate that it feels like he’s reading a book. I am giving a lot away, but at this point, it’s time for all of the cards to be laid out. What’s the use in holding back when I’m tied to a chair, and the only way out of this situation is for one of us to die? There’s no coming back from this.
“You’re so calm,” he observes. “Almost professional about it. You’ve done this before, haven’t you? Tried to destroy men who didn’t give you what you wanted?” He leans in close enough for me to feel the warmth of his breath. “How many, Willow? One? Two? Ten?”
I hold his stare. “You think you’re special enough to be my first?”
He laughs—soft, breathy, delighted. “There it is. The ego. The little spark that keeps women like you from evolving.”
He comes closer, so close his lips nearly brush the shell of my ear. “Take a look around you, Willow. Look closer. I don’t think you realize what you’ve truly gotten yourself into here. And it will earn you a place in the desert behind my cabin.”
My blood chills. These words, they’re different than any others Phoenix has spoken. They’re darker. Colder. More truthful.
My eyes dart across the room, scanning. Sweeping.
The walls are too clean for a rustic cabin. That’s the first thing. But the details, the corners, they tell a different story.
There’s a dark smudge under the baseboard where the mop didn’t reach. I notice fingernail claw marks on the back of the front door. The drywall across from me has a slight buckle to it. And I notice, there, on the ceiling, in the corner, is a few droplets of something dark and dried.
In the air, there’s the smell of copper under lemon. You can scrub all you want, but bleach never quite kills the truth.
He’s good. Not great. You can’t hide that kind of amateur clean job from someone like me.
This is a kill room.
“Ah, there it is,” Phoenix says when he sees it dawn on me. “She finally understands.”
Fuck.
Oh, fuck.
Phoenix is an even bigger monster than I ever realized. Not just the ego-maniac guru who preys on sick women, who fucks them behind closed doors with the promise it will heal them.
He’s a killer.
“I have long shepherded the lost,” he says as he stands once more. He heads toward the kitchen, but my eyes don’t follow him. They go to the window. But it’s dark. I can’t see whatever truths he’s buried in the desert out there. “Some are simply incurable. As best as I try, some cannot follow what I ask of them, even though it would heal them. And so, I release them.”
My stomach flips. The words are too even, too easy. The tone of a man describing recycling.
I hear the sound of him filling a glass with water in the kitchen. It feels obscene. Too casual. Too natural.
“You could have been one of the healed ones. But you wanted to make me a villain.”
