Rise of the Phoenix novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Landline

I put the phone on speaker and set it on the mattress between us.

Garth sat up and pulled a blanket over his bare chest.

His face had gone very still.

"Warden," he said.

"Mr. Oberlin. I am glad to hear you are alive." Rook's voice was warm and unhurried, with a faint rasp of age in it.

"We have a great deal to catch up on, but I will be brief, since it is cold where you are."

"Where am I?" I said.

"Somewhere with a woodstove and a bear. I wouldn't worry about the rest." He cleared his throat politely.

"Forty, I want to say first that we hold no grudge."

"Nobody is hurt who cannot be repaired. The guard with the burned arm is in good spirits."

"We lost a door and some time."

"Some time," I repeated.

"We are patient. We have always been patient." A chair creaked on his end of the line. "I would like you to come home."

"Go to hell."

"I understand your feelings. I do."

"You were taken from a motel parking lot after a long season, and you woke in a room you did not choose."

"That was a failure of manners on our part."

He sounded sincere, and that was the worst thing about him.

"But consider what you carry, Emmi."

"It is very old, and very rare, and it does not belong in a body that doesn't know how to use it."

"I'm learning."

"You are learning to boil a lake. We are learning to keep you alive."

My hands were shaking.

Garth's hand slid over mine.

"What do you want?" he said.

"Ah. The cold one. I would like you to come home as well." Rook's tone didn't change.

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