Page 54 of The Fire Went Wild

“If it doesn’t work,” Ambrose says again, more firmly. “I want to meet her. Examine her. See if I’ve seen it before.”

There’s nothing particularly unreasonable about his request, but it still makes me vaguely uncomfortable. Charlotte’s not some object of curiosity for Ambrose to add to his collection.

She’smine.

The thought hits me hard. Sudden. I don’t want to share her.

“This’ll work,” I say. “This’ll wake her up. And then?—”

“Then I’llreallywant to meet her,” Ambrose says, and a jealous fire flares, briefly, in my heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHARLOTTE

When I wake up, it’s the middle of the night, and I’m as disoriented as I was my first night here. Except this time, I’m clean, and I’m in my nightgown, and there’s no chain around my ankle.

Someone’s also watching me from the corner.

“Jaxon?” I sit up and sweep my gaze around the dark room. The shadows shift and blur. The mannequin in the corner regards me, unmoving.

But Jaxon’s not here.

No one’s here.

I pull my knees up to my chest and take deep, careful breaths. I’mcertainI felt the prickle of someone watching me, and I’ve had Jaxon staring at me enough over the last few days that I know what the weight of his gaze feels like. And that creeping sensation felt the same.

More or less.

Because it was your imagination. A fact I prove to myself by crawling out of bed and switching on the overhead light.

No one’s in the room but me and the creepy-ass mannequin.

I sigh and try to push the door open. I’m not totally surprised that it’s locked. I also can’t say Iblamehim for locking the door. Because I would have one hundred percent tried to escape again.

Well. Maybe ninety-five percent. But just because he knows where Edie is and definitelynotbecause of how well he fucked me in the swamp. That was—temporary madness. The adrenaline making me crazy. It worked out in my favor, too. I got a shower, clean clothes, no chain.

I’m not using that chamberpot again, though.

I bang on the door and shout Jaxon’s name as loud as I can, then lean my ear against the cool slick wood, listening. The house seems to breathe.

“Jaxon!” I bellow. “Open up! I need to use the bathroom!”

I stalk over to the bed and slam the chain around a few times. I just hope he’s in the house, and not—outside. With those bodies. Or in that shed. The thought of that place makes my head throb.

I bang the chains around a few more times for good measure. This time, though, I hear heavy footsteps echoing from somewhere in the house.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Jaxon’s vaguely irritated voice spills up from the stairs. “I heard you the first time.”

I drop the chain and stand up as he pushes the door open, filling the frame with his thick body and broad shoulders. His hair’s loose, spilling around his face, and he peers at me in a way that makes my skin prickle.

Just like it was doing earlier.

I shove the thought aside. He wasn’t in here. No one was in here.

“Can I use the bathroom?” I ask.

He looks at me for a moment, not saying anything, face unreadable. It’s long enough that I start to get—not nervous, exactly. Not scared. Justunsettled.

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