Phoenix side-eyes me, then waves me in. “If he shits in the truck, you’re cleaning it!”
I giggle as I hoist the cat inside, and instantly, he hisses at Phoenix, causing him to recoil in response. “The fucking thing hates me, Clo.”
I slide in beside Phoenix with a smirk and shut the door behind me. Dracula immediately curls into my lap like he owns the place, and he’s already asleep before we’ve even pulled out of the lot. “He doesn’t hate you, Presley…” I use the nickname I gave him back at the start of our road trip, something soft, personal, born from his mother’s obsession with Elvis and the way Phoenix carries that same quiet soul beneath all the grit. “He just likes me more. That’s all.”
Phoenix rolls his eyes, though I see a faint hint of a smile crossing his lips. “Don’t you think I see what you’re doing. Calling me Presley to try to distract me from the cat. I’m onto you, Reel Girl,” he chimes, a hint of humor in his tone before hestarts the engine.
The familiar rumble fills the silence between us. But as we pull away from the waterpark, and the desert landscape starts to blur past the windows, I feel it again. That crushing weight of leaving everyone behind.
“Phoenix,” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the engine.
“Yeah?”
“Haven’s been on my mind. That night she let me in, told me what our father did when he took her, the shit she had to survive… I can’t shake it.” I pause, gathering courage. “She said the hardest part wasn’t the violence or the fear of being sold to the Cartel. It felt like she didn’t matter enough for anyone to come looking for her.” Phoenix’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I can’t stop thinking that they might be feeling that way right now,” I continue. “Like we abandoned them. Like they don’t matter enough for us to come back.”
“Clo—”
“But then I think about what you said. About sometimes, the hardest thing is to do nothing. And I wonder ifthatis what love looks like. Not the grand gesture or the heroic rescue. Just trusting someone enough to do what they asked. Even when it’skillingyou.”
Phoenix is quiet for a moment. When he does speak, his voice is rough with emotion. “Maverick didn’t send you away because you don’t matter,” he states. “He sent you away because you mattermore than anything. Because losing you would destroy him in a way that no warevercould.” The truth of that hits me like a physical blow. “And Sadie didn’t ask me to be with you because she doesn’t need me,” Phoenix continues. “She asked me to because she knows…” he hesitates, but then continues, “…I need you.She knows that if something happened to you,I’dneverforgive myself for not being there to help.”
I look over at him, this man who’s given up everything to keepme safe and who’s facing his own demons while trying to holdmetogether.
My heart is practically bursting from his words.
“We’re a freaking mess,” I whisper softly.
“Yeah, we are,” he agrees, glancing over with something close to a smile. “But you are one hell of a sexy mess, Clover.”
Dracula purrs in my lap like he approves. I don’t answer. I simply smile and turn to the window, watching the blur of the desert rush by, hoping it hides the flush blooming across my cheeks, the kind that stirs when you hear something you didn’t know you needed until it was said.
The miles stretch ahead of us, each one taking us farther from the people we love and closer to an uncertain future. But for the first time since this nightmare began, I don’t feel completely alone.
We drive in comfortable silence for a while, the desert giving way to more populated areas, signs of civilization becoming more frequent, but the weight of our situation never fully lifts.
And after a while, it’s Phoenix who breaks the silence. “When we get to Vegas,” his voice carefully measured. “We’re going to have to make some decisions.”
“What kind of decisions?” I ask.
“About what comes next. About how long we wait before…” he trails off, but I know what he’s not saying.
Before we accept that we might never hear from home again.
“How long would you wait?” I query.
His jaw works from side to side as he considers the options. “For Sadie? Forever. But that’s not realistic. At some point, we have to face the possibility that the war might already be over.”
The words hang between us like a death sentence.
“And if it is?” I whisper. “If we’re all that’s left of LA Defiance?”
Phoenix’s knuckles turn white as they grip the steering wheel in a death-like hold. “Then we figure out how to honor their memory. How to make sure their sacrifice meant something.”
The idea is too big, too horrible to fully grasp.
A world without Maverick, without Haven and Alpha, without Ingrid and South, or Montana and Rhyan.
Oh God.
