Page 53 of Fire Bound

She was quiet for a second longer before her head shakes and she slowly looks up at me with an odd emotion in her eyes. “I didn’t actually touch him before you pulled me away. Nothing hurts.”

I could have sworn I saw her palm rest on the necromancer’s chest, but if that were the case, she’d be on the ground crying in pain just like he is.

“Are you sure?” I look at her skeptically.

She holds up her palm for me to see, not that I’ve been able to see any physical marks left by my hellfire for a long time. Not since I controlled the flames when I was eight. I can still smell the scent of burned bodies if I think about it.

“I’m fine,” she promises before stepping out of my grip, replacing the space we so desperately need between us.

“Thank God.” I shove my fingers through my hair in relief. “I don’t think I could handle you being in that much pain. You’d turn into a total baby about it, I’m sure. Tears, snot, maybe some vomit. Pruitt threw up when I used hellfire on her.” This is my poor attempt at lightening the mood.

The amount of hellfire I used on Pru should have killed her. I’ve used that much, sometimes even less, on other people and it’s made their heart stop, but not Pruitt. She gritted her teeth and made it through it like a fucking rock star. No, like an alpha.

Brows furrowing, she glances down at her hand once more before lifting her chin defiantly. Not one to back down from a challenge, Remington smirks cockily at me. “I drank a bottle ofTito’sand used those trailer trash Lime-A-Rita’s as chasers, and I didn’t puke once. If I can make it through that, not so much as gagging once, I can handle your hellfire.”

I’m inclined to believe her. Her pure stubbornness would get her through it. I’m convinced that trait will and can get her through a lot of things. I’m sure that it’s part of the reason she’s still standing today after a year of hell.

“We need a plan for him.” Remington ends the lighthearted conversation by pointing at the now passed-out necromancer.

“I have a plan,” I remind her, blinking slowly at her. “Did you miss the decapitated head soccer ball thing?” My foot kicks out like I’m passing a ball to someone.

“You can wear his intestines as a fucking scarf for all I care, Jax. If that’s going to make you happy, I’m all for it, but before we begin dismembering him, we need to see if he’s telling the truth. Get the list in his jacket.”

I snag the folded piece of paper from Kaius’s jacket, making him slowly stir awake. Reading the neatly printed words across the page, I begin to frown before glaring down at the necromancer. “These are only partial addresses.” Numbers and town names are missing, strategically left out of the document. “What the fuck is this?”

Kaius’s eyes open. “Did you really think I’d been idiotic enough to have the actual list on me?”

“Do you really want us to answer that? Or was it more of a rhetorical question?” Remington asks flippantly.

He ignores her cynicism, still looking in my direction. His already pale skin looks grayish right now and the whites of his eyes are red and bloodshot. “You don’t carry vital information around in your goddamn pocket, kid. Don’t you know anything?”

“I know I’m this close to dumping your body in a tankful of piranhas if you don’t shut up,” I snap at him without hesitation.

“Where thehellare you going to get a piranha in Seattle?” Remington remarks, completely taking the weight out of my threat.

“I don’t know, I’m fucking resourceful. I’ll figure it out,” I scoff, before stalking toward Kaius. Gripping him by the lapels of his fancy jacket, I haul him back up to his feet. Glass sticks in his disheveled hair and blood seeps out of the wounds on his body from all the glass.

Remington steps forward, tugging the end up my ripped T-shirt. “Jax, I really think we should discuss this. If he’s telling the truth, we can’t risk letting those people rot in jail cells just like this one. If we don’t help them, who will? It’s not like we can send in an anonymous tip to the human police.”

“I have been searching for him for over six months. Isabeau spent a year before that looking for him to no avail. He’s now standing before us, and you want me to let him go?” I ask slowly as if I’m talking to a child. “You’re really going to take the word of a known psychopath? Why?”

Her eyes flood with emotion. “Because I’d hope if someone had the chance to save you and your mom from the facility when you lived there, they would have taken it too.”

I stare at her, thinking over her plea, before my face turns stern and I nod once. “Fine,” I relent because it appears, despite my best efforts, I can’t say no to her. Holding Kaius by the back of his neck, I jerk him forward, silently ordering him to start walking. “We’re going to chat more about these lists somewhere else.” I don’t want him on his own playing field. He has the advantage here. “If you try anything while we go there, I’m going to fill your head with so much hellfire, your brain will turn into mush. Do you understand me?”

“Loud and clear,” Kaius mumbles. “You really do remind me of your father at times.”

My fingers clamp down around his neck until he winces and raises his hands in surrender. “Too far?”

“Shut up.”

The rainy Seattlesky drizzles down on us as we push open the back metal doors of the building. The alleyway is silent and still, but I still don’t trust that there aren’t any prying eyes observing us from somewhere. Remington followed quietly behind as I led us out of the building. The room with the mannequins wasn’t any less eerie the second time we went through it. Kaius had mumbled something about getting a kick out of it and when we walked over the two dead bodies we’d taken out, he’d pouted out his bottom lip and droned on about how it was such a waste.

“Whisper booked me a hotel room not far from here,” Remington offers as we make our way to the dark street. “We can take him there.”

“That’s fine, I just want to get there quickly. I don’t like being out in the open with him like this.”

“Ashamed to be seen in public with me?” Kaius questions. “I do look rather rough right now with all the blood and glass. I’m bound to draw some attention.”

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