Page 49 of The Fire Went Wild

His tossing me over his shoulder like thatwaspretty hot.

“I’m coming,” I mutter, following him through the fence. The yard looks strange in the grayish dawn light. Unfamiliar, like I wasn’t just here an hour ago, cowering in the dark with a gun in my face.

The gun in question is still here though, glinting in the grass.

Its owner is here, too, a dark misshapen lump. Jaxon walks over to the body and crouches beside it, studying it thoughtfully. He nudges it and rolls it over, the arms flopping like a rag doll.

I expect to feel something, seeing that. Disgust. Horror. I want to retch and vomit into the grass. But I just stand there, the cool morning wind blowing my skirt around my knees like I’m not covered in that man’s blood.

Jaxon stands back up and tilts his head toward the shed. “I need to get him in there.”

“And you expect me to help you?”

Jaxon looks over at me, his hair blowing in his eyes. “No,” he says. “I’m just telling you.”

Why the hell would he tell me something like that? I cross my arms over my chest, trying to ignore the grimy, sticky feeling of the blood on my skin. “Who was he?” I finally say, my mouth dry.

Jaxon steps over the body and walks through the overgrown grass. I think he’s ignoring me at first, but then he leans down and picks something up off the ground.

A balaclava-covered head.

“Not sure.” He peels the balaclava away and throws it on top of the body. I feel myself drifting closer to him, pulled forward by—curiosity, I think. I don’t know.

I feel so strange.

Jaxon holds the head up, frowning at it the way he did the body. All I can see is a thatch of messy brown hair and the jagged, red cut where the neck was. “Don’t recognize him,” he says, turning the head around to show me the face, like he thinks I might.

It’s horrifying, the way the man’s mouth is twisted up in fear, his stiff tongue lolling out. His wide, unseeing eyes—so much like Jaxon’s when I left him upstairs.

I look away, heart racing. “I don’t, either.”

Jaxon chuckles. “Yeah, I didn’t think you would.” He throws the head like it’s a soccer ball and it lands beside the body with a heavy, vaguely wet thump. “Did they say anything to you?”

I jerk my head up, startled, as he ambles back over to me, his hand shoved in the pockets of his jeans. The wind blows his hair around.

I hate that I notice his hair.

“Why would they say anything to me?” I ask darkly.

Jaxon shrugs. “When I came out here, they were pointing their guns at you. Which means they weren’t here to rescue you.”

I don’t say anything.

“I have some suspicions about who they might be,” he continues. “So I’m curious what they said.”

Why should I help you? The question hangs right on the tip of my tongue. But Jaxon’s staring at me with this sweet, puppy-dog hopefulness, and I can still taste the saltiness of him. God, I haven’t been fucked that good in?—

Well, ever, I don’t think.

He’s a killer, I tell myself. And probably something more, given that I thought I was a killer, too, even though my victim is currently standing in front of me.

“Nothing?” He raises an eyebrow.

I sigh. “They said you killed someone in his house. And that you were working for some group. A gang, maybe? They told me the name, but I don’t remember what it was.” I push my hand through my hair. “I was a little distracted.”

Jaxon nods thoughtfully, his expression kind of distant and far-off. “Dennis Randall,” he murmurs.

“Yeah.” I blink in surprise. “Yeah, that was it. The guy they said you killed?—”

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