Page 3 of Victorious: Part 2
But I can’t stop shaking.
Because the images won’t fade.
Because part of me still swears I heard Haven and Maverick die.
And I wasn’t there to stop it.
I clutch Phoenix’s shirt as if it’s my lifeline, fingers curling so tight they ache. The cotton bunches in my fists, damp with sweat or maybe tears.
I can’t tell.
“Hey,” Phoenix murmurs, his voice low but firm, his breath warm against my temple. “You’re here. With me. You hear that?”
I shake my head, even though I can. I hear everything. His voice. His heart. The groan of the truck as it roars to life behind us from the mechanic bringing her back to life.
But beneath it all, the screams still echo.
“They’re dead,” I whisper. My voice resembles cracked glass. “They’re all dead.”
Phoenix pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. His brows furrow, his jaw tight like he’s holding something back, probably panic of his own. But his hands don’t waver. One stays cradling the back of my head, and the other slides to my jaw, grounding me with his touch.
“You’re spiraling,” he says, hard and certain. “Whatever that was, it’s not real.”
But it felt real.
The blood.
The screams.
“I saw it,” I croak. “Haven… they tortured her. And Mav? Oh God, Mav. They—” My chest caves. The air won’t come fastenough. I blink, and I swear I still see it, her body torn, glass embedded like crystals. Maverick’s intestines are pooling out of his body like some damn carnage you would see at a butcher store.
Phoenix doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t let go. “Breathe,” he commands, his voice cutting through the chaos in my head. “Just breathe with me, Clo.” His thumb traces circles against my cheek, steady and sure, and I try to match his rhythm.
In. Out. In. Out.
But the guilt, the guilt is suffocating.
“I should be there,” I choke out, my fingers digging deeper into his shirt. “I should be fighting with them, not sitting in the middle of nowhere while they—”
“Stop.” Phoenix’s voice resembles steel, uncompromising, unwavering. “You’reexactlywhere you need to be. Where Maverick told you to be.”
“But what if they need me? What-if—”
“What-if nothing.” His grip tightens, anchoring me to the present. “What-if doesn’t help anyone right now.”
The sound of metal clanging against metal cuts through our moment, and we both turn toward the truck. The mechanic, a weathered man with grease-stained overalls and kind eyes, emerges from under the hood of Phoenix’s truck, wiping his hands on a rag. “She’s all set,” he calls out, his voice carrying across the desert air. I don’t miss his concerned eyes assessing my panic while he continues. “Hose is fixed, coolant’s topped off. Should get you where you’re going without any more trouble.”
Phoenix’s jaw tightens. I feel the tension coil through his body like a live wire.
This is it.
The moment we’ve been dreading.
Getting back on the road means accepting that we might be driving toward nothing. Toward a world where everyone we loveis already gone.
“Thank you,” Phoenix calls back, but he doesn’t move.
Neither of us do.
