Page 39 of The Fire Went Wild

Who are you?I want to ask, but the man still has his gun pointed at my chest. Funny, how I could be so brave around Jaxon but absolutely terrified in this moment.

Of course, Jaxon straight-up told me he wasn’t going to kill me.

And he didn’t.

The man’s still staring at me. Waiting for an answer. I swallow and glance over at the house. The porch light has come back on. The house must be connected to a backup generator.

“Well?” The man’s voice is as sharp as a knife. “Better make it good. If I can convince my partner to feel sorry for you, maybe we’ll let you live.”

I jerk my gaze back to him, and he laughs, cold and cruel. Even in the dark, even though I can only see a faint gleam where his eyes should be, there’s something leering about the way he looks at me.

And I realize the truth I had been avoiding—that I escaped one trap and walked into another.

“I-I don’t know,” I tell him, lowering my arms cautiously. He doesn’t say anything about it. “He ran me off the road. Knocked me out. Brought me here.”

“He’s crazy,” the man says. “Completely batshit fucking insane.”

I think about the mummified corpses in his living room.That’s not something a human like you should have ever seen.

The way he didn’t even seem to care that I was choking him to death.

“I know,” I finally say.

The man snorts. “You know what he did? Killed Dennis Randall in his own home. We figure he’s working for someone. The Eclipse Brotherhood, maybe.”

I have no idea what this man is talking about, and no idea why he’s telling me any of it. “I don’t know about any of that,” I finally say. “But I know he’s killed people. He has bodies in his liv?—”

I don’t get to finish speaking, though. Because gunfire explodes behind us.

And then the screaming starts.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHARLOTTE

“What the fuck was that?” My babysitter whirls around, gun lifted—then seems to think better of it, because he jerks his gun back to point the barrel at my face. Immediately I shoot my hands over my head again.

“You said that motherfucker was dead,” he barks. “Who else is here?”

“No one!”

I’m immediately answered by another scream. It’s long, loud. Undeniably male.

“Then how do you explain that?” my captor snarls.

“I don’t know!” The gun barrel leers at me. I feel dizzy. I killed my kidnapper with my bare hands only to get shot by some random asshole? How the hell is that fair? “I was kidnapped two days ago. I don’t know what the fuck is going on?—”

More gunfire. But worse—another long, agonized scream. Then: begging. I can’t make out what he’s saying, not exactly, but his desperation is more than clear.

Suddenly, lights flare on from the direction of the house, white and blinding and throwing everything into harsh, jaggedshadows. The metal shed. The man pointing a gun at me. The dead fence.

“What thefuck?” my babysitter spits out, his voice trembling. “You said?—”

“Maybe I didn’t kill him!” I shriek-whisper, panicking because the floodlights reveal a terrifying truth: his finger is on that gun’s trigger. “Maybe he just—maybe he passed out and I didn’t—” The man glares at me. “I waskidnapped,” I finish.

Screams echo across the yard.

He believes me. Or at least part of him does. That’s why he’s hesitating. But I’m not sure I believe myself. Because I saw Jaxon’s face. His blank, empty eyes. He was dead. I’m certain of it.

---