Page 83 of The Fire Went Wild

“Sterling Gunner, yeah.” We watched that asshole every Sunday night, broadcasting live from the Church of the Well compound in West Texas. “But yeah, the church did that kind of stuff. Weird prayers and things they said were protection against demons. My parents—” I take a deep breath. “I—I haven’t spoken to either of them in years.”

Jaxon glances over at me, his face wrapped in shadows, and I expect him to ask me if I know about my birth parents, if they were killers. He’s gonna be disappointed because I have no fucking idea. I never even think about them.

Instead, he says, “I’m sorry.”

I blink. “Sorry? Why?”

He shrugs as he turns his gaze back to the road. “I haven’t spoken to my father in a long time, too,” he says. “Or my grandparents. We all lived together in the house when I was a kid.”

“Did you kick them out?” It’s a dumb question, but it’s the first thing I think to ask since it’s what happened to me.

He chuckles. “No. They left. My grandparents have always Hunted together, and they were tired of Louisiana. So they want traveling. My dad said that I needed to strike out on my own, so he killed me and buried me in the backyard. I woke up a year later and then decided to rebel by joining the Army. By the time I came back to the States, he was gone.”

I stare at him, at his strong, handsome profile, his sleek black hair. And I want to kiss him because he’s the first person I’ve ever met who seems like he might actually understand. Who seems like he might know what it feels like.

My dad didn’t literally kill me—but hearing what he said, he may as well have.

And maybe that’s why I start talking. Why I tell Jaxon everything—about my childhood in the church, and realizing I was bi when I was in middle school because I kissed Mary Michaels behind the school gym during PE class, and about the deacon’s daughter and getting kicked out and what my father said behind the door that was closed to me forever. And he just—listens. He watches the road, and he nods along, and helistens.

I’ve dated men before, but none of them ever listened the way he does.

“When my sister was born,” I tell him, the words spilling out of my mouth because, for the first time in my life, it feels like I might actually understand why this happened to me. “My parents started to treat me like a changeling.” I watch the lights sweep across the road and reflect the green mile marker signs. “Like I wasn’t the baby they adopted.”

“Why do you think they did that?”

“Because they got what they wanted.” It comes out harsh. Bitter. “A real daughter.”

“Or maybe—” Jaxon hesitates, and I can sense what he’s going to say like it’s crawling over my skin.

“Or maybe they knew what I am?”

Jaxon breaths out. Squeezes the steering wheel. “Maybe,” he says. “I—I don’t know, but?—”

I love how flustered he gets sometimes. It’s such a contrast to the way he commands me when we’re fucking.

“Or maybe they were terrible people,” I say. “Maybe they never saw me as their daughter.”

I told you that bullshit wouldn’t work.

My father’s words echo around in my head. I always thought he was talking about the adoption, even if it was a strange way to phrase it—especially for him, a man who didn’t normally curse.That bullshit.

Electric heat seems to course through my blood. “These charms Ambrose told you about,” I say. “Did he say what they involved?”

Jaxon frowns a little. “No, he didn’t.”

The road unspools before us, hypnotizing me. Drawing me further and further into the past.I told you that bullshit wouldn’t work.

Me screaming at my parents that the deacon’s daughter was a liar, that we were in love, that they didn’t understand.

Mom praying softly, rocking back and forth. She was always praying. Before meals. Over my sister’s bassinet. On the front porch. She drew little wards on our walls she said drove away demons, and all the women in the Church of the Well drew them even though their husbands turned up their noses at the practice.

“The Church of the Well,” I say slowly. “The church I grew up in? They’re not like most evangelical churches. They go all-in on the spiritual warfare stuff.” I keep staring out the window, my chest tight with panic. “They think the devil is always trying to get in, and you have to use whatever means necessary to stop him.”

Jaxon doesn’t say anything, and I look over at him, watching the headlights slide across his face.

“Like charms,” I whisper. “My mom drew them everywhere in our house. I was surrounded by them.”

Jaxon squeezes the steering wheel, opens his mouth. But I don’t let him speak. Because I’m terrified that he’s right. That there was something broken in me, and my mother saw it and tried to pray it out of me, and in the end, it didn't fucking work.

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