Page 81 of The Fire Went Wild

Jaxon picks his way across the shaggy lawn. He moves like a cat, sleek and careful, and although he doesn’t look right at me I know he’ssensingme, if that makes any sense. Probably not. Nothing in the last few days makes any damn sense.

“Hey,” he calls out, stopping on the other side of the porch, his features blurred by the screen. I take another drag. The weed has me feeling floaty and warm, a welcome relief after a night of uneasy dreams.

“You want some?” I hold out the joint, smoke lifting in swirls. But he shakes his head.

“I came to tell you I need to go on a trip.”

Excitement flares like a firework and then explodes into dread.

“And you’re going to come with me.”

I watch him through the screen, the joint burning away between my fingers. Eventually, I stab it out in the vintage ashtray I grabbed from his creepy living room. The mummies who live in there certainly don’t need it.

“Do you want me to kill someone again?” It shocks me, how easily the question comes out. How natural it feels.

Jaxon squints at me. He has his hair pulled back, and it highlights his high cheekbones and big blue eyes.

“No,” he finally says. “But that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

I roll my eyes. “I thought we were over this mysterious, secretive bullshit.” I stand, and the porch tilts a little. Too much weed. Or too much excitement at the thought that I might get to kill again.

Stop. Stop. Stop. This isn’t you.

This is you, little Hunter.

I kick the screen door open and plod out into the yard, barefoot. The morning feels like spring even though it’s still January. Warm and balmy and damp. Jaxon smiles as I approach, not coy this time, and my heart flutters around.

“Tell me where we’re going.” I cross my arms over my chest.

Jaxon’s grin widens. “Or what? You’ll fight me again?”

The temptation is there, I won’t deny it. Both for the fight itself—for the spilled blood, the starbursts of pain—but for what I know damn well will come after it.

“No,” I say before I change my mind and launch myself at him. “I just—why do this? Why keep it a secret?”

Jaxon studies me for a long time, kind of contemplative. “I told you. It’s a surprise.”

“Asshole,” I mutter.

He’s unfazed, though. “We’ll leave tonight,” he says, and that’s it.

Once again,I find myself riding shotgun in Jaxon’s car. At least this time he doesn’t bother with handcuffs.

The night is dark and oily, but the headlights cut through it just enough to illuminate patches of the interstate. It’s late, nearly midnight. We’ve been driving for two hours and I still don’t know where we’re going. Just that we’re heading east, away from Texas.

“You awake over there?” Jaxon glances at me sideways

“No,” I say, curling up into my seat. I actually did doze off for a little while, my dreams smoky and strange, the way they’ve been since—since Houston.

“You can sleep if you want,” he goes on. “But you know you probably don’t reallyneedit. Hunters can get by on less than humans.”

Sourness curls in my stomach. “And yet I get cranky when I get anything less than eight hours a night.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.” Headlights sweep across the car, casting Jaxon in a sudden camera flash. “Ambrose thinks it’s because you lived so long as a human. You’re having trouble adjusting.”

Ambrose. The name stirs around in my thoughts, an easier name to dwell on than Oliver Raffia.He’s another person like Jaxon. Another Hunter. “That’s your, uh, friend, right?”

“Yeah. He’s also kind of a—a mentor, you could say.” Jaxon taps the steering wheel, beating out a rhythm even though the radio’s off. We’re in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. Or maybe it’s Mississippi, at this point. Either way, there’s nothing worthwhile to listen to.

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