Page 15 of The Fire Went Wild

“It’s your first time keeping someone around for longer than a few days before you kill them.”

I scowl.

“Let me finish this mark,” he says. “I should be done in a week or so. Then we’ll figure something out.”

He hangs up before I can respond. I throw the phone down on the sofa beside me and look up at the ceiling.

Charlotte’s finally gone quiet. If I concentrate, I can sense all her bodily functions: her heart, her breath, her scent. All those signs that point me toward my prey. In a way, it’s almost as distracting as the constant clanking.

Still, I told her I’d bring her breakfast if she stayed quiet tonight. And while she didn’texactlyobey—it is still nighttime. Won’t be morning for at least another few hours. Maybe if I bring her breakfast, she’ll see the benefit of letting me have some peace.

Plus… it’s an excuse to look at her.

And it gives me something to do with all this nervous energy. Something that isn’t killing, which I can’t do right now. Not with Charlotte in the house. I’m sure as hell not leaving her alone.

Breakfast it is, then.

CHAPTER SIX

CHARLOTTE

I’m startled when I open my eyes and the room’s not dark anymore. It means I fell asleep somehow. I’m chained to a bed in a madman’s house, and I still fell asleep.

I sit up, blinking the bleariness from my eyes. The thick velvet curtains block out most of the morning’s sunlight, but plenty of it streams around the edges, illuminating the motes of dust floating around like stars. The room looks less intimidating in the daylight, I will say that. Shabby and dusty and faded, rather than some gothic nightmare. I get a better look at that mannequin in the corner, too—it’s armless and headless and painted black, and someone’s glued bones around it like a cage. I can’t tell what kind of bones.

Animals, hopefully.

I do mixed media,Jaxon told me back when he was just a hot weird guy and not a psychopath. I shiver.

I have to pee, and I remember the other thing Jaxon told me, about the chamber pot under the bed. As much as Ireallydon’t want to use it, I guess I don’t have a choice. I sit up, moving cautiously, and crawl off the bed. My head doesn’t hurt as bad as it did last night, although there’s a deep-rooted ache in my ribcage. From the car crash, I guess. The airbag exploding in my face.

I slide off the bed, and that’s when I notice something new in the room: a little folding table with a plastic lawn chair beside it. There’s a bowl on the table, too. I regard it with suspicion while I crouch down to see if Jaxon lied about the chamber pot.

He didn’t.

It takes me a few minutes to get situated, but I manage to use the stupid thing. He even left a roll of toilet paper sitting beside it. How thoughtful.

I slide it back under the bed as carefully as possible, harboring thoughts of throwing its contents on him when he comes in here again. Throwing it on him, and then—the next steps don’t materialize. I’d still be chained up, and he’d be pissed off. He’d also see what I was going to do from a mile away, given the way he reacted to me trying to kick him in the balls last night.

That’s not something a human like you should have ever seen.

The last thing he said to me materializes unbidden in my thoughts. He’s crazy. That’s all it means. He’s obviously fucking crazy.

He probably killed Edie.

That’s a thought I’ve been worrying about since last night. She was near that sigil. He admitted to me he recognized it, albeit in that weird, creepy way. Now she’s gone.

Granted, I’m currently a thousand miles away from where Edie disappeared. He must have gone there. She said she was staying with a friend, and I wonder, for the first time, if that friend was really Jaxon. She’d been willing to lie to me about leaving the cabin. Why not that this, too?

“Why’d you do it?” I whisper, sinking onto the mattress. Tears prick at my eyes. “Why didn’t you justtellme what was going on?”

But Edie, wherever she is, doesn’t answer.

I sit with my sadness for a little while, listening to the creaks and groans of the old house. Then I wipe my tears away and stand up. I’m not going to die here. Maybe I won’t throw my piss on Jaxon, but I have to dosomething.

So I go investigate the table since it definitely wasn’t here last night when Jaxon wrestled me to the ground with his surprising strength. I can’t believe I slept through him setting it up, and the thought uncurls a dark discomfort in my chest. Because what else might I have slept through?

Not there’s any evidence that he did anything like that. A small relief, I suppose.

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