Page 61 of The Fire Went Wild

“What do you care?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. Just lifts up the mask and slides it on.

And the second he does, something changes. The molecules in the air spark and sizzle. My body goes hot with lust and cold with fear and I feel suddenly like I’m made of steam. Jaxon towers over me as he drops his gloved hands to his side and squeezes them into fists. My body jolts. Pain flickers behind my eye, just for a second before it vanishes.

The mask turns to me. Its eyes are empty.

“Jaxon?” I squeak out.

He steps up to me, a monster made of shadows. I want to pull away but I’m too petrified to move, even when he trails one of his gloved fingers over my scarf, tracing the outline of my lips. I’m too petrified to move, but I wouldn’t move anyway. His touch electrifies me.

Even in the mask

Especiallyin the mask.

“Follow me,” he says in that dark, velvety voice. His killer’s voice, I think. “Do exactly what I say. And this—this will work.”

“What will?” I shake my head, fear and confusion and desire twining together. I wish Jaxon put on that mask to fuck me.

“You’ll see.”

And then he cuts the light, and I have no choice but to follow him through the darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHARLOTTE

We cut across the overgrown yards, weaving through stately old pecan trees, the air damp and cold. I can’t see anything, but I keep my fingers pressed lightly against Jaxon’s back, and he moves as if it’s daylight. As if he can see everything.

It’s not long before a light glimmers up ahead, and I suck my breath in, fear surging up through my chest.This can’t be happening. And yet I keep gliding forward, weaving between the trees and shadows until everything opens up into a small, rolling hill of a backyard. The light is a swimming pool, pale and eerie and steaming in the cold.

Jaxon stops and sniffs the air, then whips his hand back and grabs my wrist. I stifle a shout of surprise.

He pulls me up to his side and presses his mask against my ear.

“There are three people on this street.” His voice is so low it sounds like the wind. “A couple four houses down. Inside. Calm. And our target.” He nods toward the swimming pool.

“Okay,” I breathe.

“Do exactly as I say.” When he talks, it seems to come from everywhere. The mask is flat and expressionless. Unmoving. “I won’t let you get hurt.”

“You threatened to kill me like five min?—”

“Do what I say, and I won’t let you get hurt.”

It sounds more like a threat than a promise of protection.

“Fine,” I whisper, my breath quickening. The air smells like the scarf, which smells like cinnamon. And, I think, like Jaxon.

“Follow me.” He moves forward, circling the pool. I follow him because I don’t want to die. Because he knows where Edie is. Because part of me still thinks I’m going to walk in that house and the man Jaxon wants to kill will call the police and I’ll be—saved, or something.

Do you want to be saved?

Jaxon glides up to the door with an easy grace, his feet barely making a sound on the wooden patio. The door is sliding glass set into more glass, a black mirror reflecting our two masked forms back at us. We’re shadows. We’re monsters.

I look so good at his side.

I shake the thought out of my head, even though Jaxon runs his hands over the door’s lock like a lover?—

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