Page 82 of The Fire Went Wild

So it makes sense that I want to talk to Jaxon about this. About Hunters. What else do we have to talk about?

That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

“A mentor?” I prompt.

“Yeah. Like, uh, like I could be to you.” He gives me another one of those nervous, hopeful glances, and I try not to let it go straight to my heart. Or my pussy. “Are you okay with talking about this?”

I’m surprised that he asked. “Yes,” I say, although it does take a minute for the answer to come out. “But I’m not promising anything, okay? I’m still not convinced—” I cut myself off because I don’t actually know what I’m convinced of. That Jaxon brainwashed me into killing Oliver Raffia? That I’m trapped in some kind of fucked up Charles Manson situation?

That there’s a supernatural serial killer inside me clawing its way out?

“When exactly did you talk to Ambrose?” This feels like the best way to change the subject.

“Last night,” Jaxon says. “While you were asleep.”

“And then you decided to, what? Pack up and go east?” I shake my head. “This feels like a trick, you know.”

“It’s not a trick,” Jaxon says darkly. “It’s asurprise.”

I roll my eyes. “I know what your surprises are like.”

Jaxon doesn’t say anything, and for a moment, I wonder if I hurt his feelings. Can I even do that, to someone like him?

“He and I did talk about where your binding might have come from.” Jaxon keeps his gaze fixed on the empty road ahead. “He said there are a few possibilities. Your parents?—”

“What about them?” The question comes out sharp and accusatory, and Jaxon glances at me, his face unreadable.

“Touchy subject?” he says carefully.

I look down at my lap, at the skirt of the pretty vintage-style dress I wore to make me feel better about this whole stupid trip. The truth is I don’t think about my parents much at all. They kicked me out of their tidy Santa Clarita house when I was seventeen after I got caught fooling around with another girl at church—a deacon’s daughter. She told her father that I had corrupted her with my lesbian wiles.

I told you that bullshit wouldn’t work!My own father screamed at my mother as I stood on the front porch after they slammed the door in my face.There’s no denying that flesh and blood’s what matters!It was the last time I ever heard his voice, and it was a reminder that I wasn’t a part of the family. Not really. They’d never hidden that I was adopted, but hearing his true feelings?—

“You could say that.” I look at my reflection in the window. My eyes are dry. “Let me guess. You think they put the binding on me?”

“I don’t know. It would be fucking weird if that’s the case because for you to be a Hunter, at least one of them would have to be a Hunter, too,” Jaxon says. “Although it’s usually both.”

Ice floods through my veins. He doesn’t know I’m adopted, and why would he? I barely even think about it. “What are you saying?”

“A Hunter wouldn’t put a binding like that on their child. It’s akin to torturing them, and we protect our own.”

But that’s not what I was asking about. My mouth goes dry. My parents adopted me when they thought they couldn’t have kids of their own. But then Mom got pregnant when I was almost thirteen, a fluke that turned into my baby sister.

The one they really wanted.

“But if you had one human parent, it’s possible they did it without the Hunter parent knowing.” Jaxon taps his fingers as he talks. “Ambrose says you don’t come across this kind of magic much anymore, but he used to see it a lot when he was younger. That was, uh, in the 1800s, by the way.” He glances over at me, grinning, but I’m still wrapped up in my own slow unraveling to register what he’s saying. “Ambrose was an itinerant preacher, and he said some of the old Pentecostal churches would do that kind of magic when they thought a child was possessed by a demon. Which Iguessyou could say our gods are, although I personally don’t?—”

“I was adopted,” I blurt out.

Jaxon snaps his mouth shut. For a minute, the only sound in the car is the rhythmic hum of the wheels against the asphalt. I can’t believe I said that to him. That I shared that part of my history. It’s something I only talk about with people I really, really trust. People like Edie. Like Alex, the ex I thought I was going to marry. Samantha, my best friend in college.

Jaxon.

“Oh,” he says softly.

I swallow. Knot my skirt up in my hands. I went this far. I might as well tell him the rest. “My parents were Christian,” I say softly. “Fundies. We belonged to this extremist church, the Church of the Well. ”

“Holy shit,” Jaxon says. “That’s the one with the guy who’s on TV, right? What’s his name?”

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