Page 23 of The Fire Went Wild (Hunter’s Heart #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHARLOTTE

J axon has, in the last week, crashed my car, kidnapped me, jerked off while I strangled him, came back from the dead, decapitated two men with his bare hands, and fucked me whilst covered in said men’s blood. And yet the only time I’ve seen him show anything approximating fear is while driving through Houston at rush hour.

Thankfully, we left the nightmare of the freeway behind, and I’m having to come face to face with this new one: namely, that I’m about to become an accomplice to murder. Assuming the two men at Jaxon’s house don’t count. Which…

It feels like they shouldn’t?

Maybe this shouldn’t, either, considering I’m handcuffed. But I’m also weirdly nonplussed about this entire situation. Just like I was when Jaxon killed those men. Or when I let him fuck me afterward. When I asked him to fuck me afterward. My fear feels like an afterthought.

“Where are we going?” I ask, mostly to fill up the silence in the car, which sends my thoughts spiraling.

“We’re almost there.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

Jaxon ignores me, the way he always does when I cross that invisible line separating stuff he can tell me from stuff he can’t. I still don’t understand who made these rules. If it’s him. If it’s the other Hunters. Or the god he prays to, the one who isn’t the usual one.

He pulls the car off the main road, and it feels suddenly like we’re not in the city anymore. It’s a neighborhood, but the houses are enormous and sprawling and hidden back from the road by pine trees. The streetlights illuminate things in fits and starts.

“There’s no one here,” Jaxon says suddenly, slowing the car down to a crawl. He leans forward, sniffing the air like a dog.

“What do you mean?”

“The houses,” he says. “They’re empty.”

I can’t decide if I’m relieved or not. I know I should be, but ever since I woke up in that bedroom in Jaxon’s creepy old house my emotions have been—off. “So I guess you won’t be killing anyone tonight?”

Jaxon looks over at me, his face half-hidden by the neighborhood’s shadows. “No, he’s still here.”

There it is again. Relief? Disappointment? I can’t tell. My stomach just kind of knots around strangely.

Jaxon speeds the car up. “He’s here,” he says again. “But I pretty much only sense him and a few others. It’s like the other houses are abandoned. Like people used to be here but aren’t anymore.”

My skin prickles. and I look out the window again. Even in the dark, I can tell these houses are beautiful. Big midcentury mansions lit up by the street lamps and an occasional porch light. But the neighborhood does feel empty, and there are signs of construction hidden in the dark. Traffic cones. Yellow tape.

“There,” Jaxon says suddenly, pointing across me to a big angular house in a cul-de-sac. It’s framed by sprawling trees draped in lacy Spanish moss, which I can see because there are floodlights illuminating a circular driveway with a fountain at its center. “That’s where we’re going.”

I swallow, my throat dry. “And how are you —” I stress the word. “Going to do that? Just walk up to the front door?”

“No.” Jaxon loops around the cul-de-sac and goes back the way we came, only this time he pulls the car into one of the dark, tree-lined driveways and cuts the headlights off. But he keeps driving, and even though I can’t see anything, he somehow knows to stop right before we reach a three-car garage with broken doors.

Jaxon kills the engine.

“Now wha?—”

“Be quiet,” he snaps, and the harshness in his voice startles me. He takes a deep breath, staring straight ahead. “I need you to be quiet,” he says a little more gently.

I immediately want to make a ton of noise, start screaming and carrying on. The neighborhood is only mostly abandoned, and I have no reason whatsoever to go along with any of this.

Except—

He knows where Edie is. He knows what happened to her.

And so I keep my mouth shut.

Jaxon leans back in his chair and starts muttering in a language I don’t recognize. The words fall over each other, the vowels long and drawn out, and his voice seems to fill the car with something heavier than sound. The downy hairs on my arm stand on end. Goosebumps prickle up my leg. My spine crawls.

And then, abruptly, Jaxon stops. “It flooded,” he says with a kind of disbelieving laughter. “No wonder they choose this guy. It really was all leading to this.” He looks over at me in the dark, his smile wide and manic. “It’s all preordained.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I won’t deny I’m attracted to Jaxon. But right now, the way his face is all twisted with a kind of dark excitement, I suddenly want to scramble away.

“You’ll see.”

I do not like that sound of that.

Jaxon lifts the chain around his neck, the one where he keeps the various keys keeping me prisoner. “I’m going to open up the handcuffs.” Something changes in his voice. He’s speaking English, but it almost sounds like he’s speaking that weird language, too. “And you need to do exactly what I say. If you don’t?—”

He reaches his hand through the space between us and wraps his long fingers around my throat. I stiffen even though my clit flares to life, remembering the last time we were in this position.

But then he speaks. “I’ll do this,” he says softly. Then he tightens his fingers just enough that they press into my skin “And I’ll finish it.”

I stare at him, my pulse racing. He doesn’t look away. And whatever urge that’s had me talking back to him all this time goes dead silent.

“Why?” I whisper. “Why did you bring me here?”

He keeps staring at me like he’s looking for something in the lines of my face. Then he pulls his hand away. Slides off the necklace with the key. Unlocks my handcuffs.

“Follow me,” he says. “We’re going into the garage.”

I nod. My fear is sharper than it’s ever been. Even when I killed him. Even when I saw him kill.

Jaxon steps out of the car. For a second, I sit there, shaking. But then he raps gently against the window, jolting me into action. I tumble out of my seat, watching as he pulls a big duffel bag out of the trunk. I don’t even remember him putting it in there when he left.

He closes everything up, comes around the side of the car, heads toward the garage. It feels like he’s on fire. Like I sense his body heat the way I can sense flames.

“Follow,” he says sharply—but softly, under his breath. I do. He’s dangerous. The fact that he tosses me shy little glances and knows how to make a woman come doesn’t change that.

He threw a fucking corpse at me. Well, at someone who was holding me hostage. Still.

Jaxon leads me around the side of the garage, picking through the shaggy, weed-choked grass until we come to a little door, which he opens. It was unlocked. How he knew that was there, I don’t know. Or maybe he’s just been here before, even though he said he hasn’t. That would explain a lot, actually.

The garage is pitch-black, but Jaxon digs around in the duffle bag and then switches on an electric lamp, the light buzzing a little, and sets it on the floor. Even in the eerie blue light, I can see this place flooded recently. Debris litters the floor. There’s a dark line on the wall marking the height of the water.

“You need to cover your hair and your face.” Jaxon digs through the duffle bag and then draws out a long black scarf like a magician performing a stage trick.

“With this?” The fabric flutters around as he hands it to me.

“Yeah. Figured you didn’t want to use a dead man’s balaclava.”

I wrinkle my nose in disgust. “You don’t have your own fucking balaclava?”

He’s still digging through the duffle bag. “I have my own thing. Put that on. Now.”

It’s the same tone of voice he used on me in the swamp, and despite the terrible absurdity of our situation, my body responds in kind. What the hell is wrong with me? Still, I drape the scarf over my head, thoughts racing. I’m being coerced into doing this. He told me he’d kill me. I’m a victim. He’s a killer. He’s also crazy.

I draw the scarf across my nose and mouth, twisting it around twice to hold it in place. I keep my eyes on Jaxon the whole time, watching as he puts on black gloves and then pulls out a knife and a gun. The sight of both of them turns my skin clammy.

He fixes both weapons to his belt somehow, then crouches over the duffle bag again. I can’t see what he’s doing until he stands up: he’s holding a mask of his own. It’s hard to see much of it in the dim light, but there are long, reaching antlers, and it gleams like it’s made of metal.

Jaxon looks at me and nods approvingly. “Good. Can’t show your face.”

“What do you care?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. Just lifts up the mask and slides it on.

And the second he does, something changes. The molecules in the air spark and sizzle. My body goes hot with lust and cold with fear and I feel suddenly like I’m made of steam. Jaxon towers over me as he drops his gloved hands to his side and squeezes them into fists. My body jolts. Pain flickers behind my eye, just for a second before it vanishes.

The mask turns to me. Its eyes are empty.

“Jaxon?” I squeak out.

He steps up to me, a monster made of shadows. I want to pull away but I’m too petrified to move, even when he trails one of his gloved fingers over my scarf, tracing the outline of my lips. I’m too petrified to move, but I wouldn’t move anyway. His touch electrifies me.

Even in the mask

Especially in the mask.

“Follow me,” he says in that dark, velvety voice. His killer’s voice, I think. “Do exactly what I say. And this—this will work.”

“What will?” I shake my head, fear and confusion and desire twining together. I wish Jaxon put on that mask to fuck me.

“You’ll see.”

And then he cuts the light, and I have no choice but to follow him through the darkness.