Page 65 of Xactly What She Needs

“I don’tfeellucky. I feel like my entire house was burned to the ground. I don’t understand what happened. We didn’t leave the oven on.”

“No. No, it wasn’t anything you guys did. It washim.”

“Him?” I repeat, dumbly.

“Yeah. The ex.”

“Well. Fuck.”

“You really don’t remember anything?” Jax presses, urgently.

“Not a thing. We just had a shower and went to bed. And then everything was on fire.”

My body remembers the heat before my mind does, and it breaks out in a sweat. How close had we come to dying? I look over at Bri again, just to prove to myself that she’s alive. She’s okay. A little burned up, but in one piece.

“I’m okay,” she promises, eyes shining.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I promise. I’m all good. You?”

“Yeah, I’m good too.”

The room we’re in, now that I’m able to look around, is much nicer than what I’d expected. It’s just the two of us in the beds. Mine is closer to the bathroom and the main door, and Bri’s is by a window, even though the curtains are closed.

My health insurance ain’t bad, but it’s also not private room good.

“Trust you to be thinking about your insurance after finding out someone tried to murder you,” Jax says with a roll of his eyes.

“Just being practical,” I tell him, defensively.

“Well, don’t worry about it. Edge has contacts, and he wanted to make sure you were both comfortable.”

“Any idea how long they want us to stay? I’ve had sunburn worse than this,” Bri says.

“She’s not even lying. I’ve got pictures from a vacation we took in Jamaica. She had blisters and everything. She looked like something we’d dragged through a vat of acid,” Dani says.

She does have incredibly fair skin, so I’m not surprised.

“They don’t think you’ll have to stay for long. Maybe a day or two and then you’re free to… well. We’ll figure something out.”

Right. That bastard burned my home down. I’ve got nowhere to go. And I know that our friends will give up their places in a heartbeat, I can’t help but mourn the sudden loss of my independence. That house gave me a place to hide when I needed it, and now it’s been taken away.

“I’m going to murder that bastard,” I growl menacingly, meaning every word.

20

“I’m going to murder that bastard.”

Xander means well, but he’s also an idiot. Jack doesn’t deserve to be left alone, but I will not allow anyone else I know or care about to be pulled into that psycho’s little web of horrors.

“It’s not going to work out the way you want it to,” I warn him.

“You underestimate us,” Jax says easily.

“Not you too,” Dani groans.

“What?”

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