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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHARLOTTE

T alking to Jaxon at the rest stop was like snapping a puzzle piece into place. The puzzle isn’t complete, but I can see a little more of it, a sense of what I’m working towards.

I still feel broken.

But I don’t feel alone in my brokenness.

Okay, so he’s a necrophile. I can’t say it totally surprises me, considering his house is full of bones and human leather and weird, glass-eyed mummies. Considering what we did in Houston.

What I did in Houston. Laying back on that corpse. Letting Jaxon smear me with Oliver Raffia’s blood.

Coming so hard it was like the night sky had unravelled.

He’s a fucked up monster, but so am I.

We drive all night down I-10, and we talk— really talk. Jaxon tells me about his family and his time in the Army, which is weird to think about. He also talks a little about his gods and the weird religion he grew up in. I tell him about the weird religion I grew up in, too, and how I shed it like a snake skin.

I wonder if I’m ready for new gods. The Winter Solstice instead of Christmas, blood instead of grape juice. Maybe.

I tell him about myself, too. Normal things. Going to art school, debating the merits of having instruction instead of being self-taught, like he was. We actually talk about art all the way through the little boot of Alabama. Arguing our philosophies (he balks at the idea of ever selling his pieces—as if he could even do that, considering they’re crime scene evidence) and our different methods (he mixes blood into his oils, says it “add to the texture”; I think he’s full of shit). By the time the sun comes up over the horizon, I feel normal for the first time since Edie disappeared. I keep laughing, for god’s sake. So does Jaxon. He has a nice laugh, rich and throaty and slightly menacing, and my panties dampen a little each time I hear it.

Which, over the last few hours, has been a lot.

The sky’s pink with dawnlight when we cross the border into Florida. By the time we pass a sign welcoming us to Pensacola, the sun’s fully risen. That’s also where Jaxon says, “This is where we’re going, by the way.”

“Pensacola?” I laugh. “What, you wanted to go to the beach?”

“There are beaches in Louisiana. No. Something else is here.”

My good mood falters a little, and I swallow. “More magic wizard mobsters?”

“Don’t call them that.” Jaxon laughs. “But no. You’ll see.”

I stare at him, the sunlight radiating around him, and try to figure out what he’s doing. “You’re not going to tell me? Really?”

“It’s a surprise.”

He exits the freeway, and the road winds us through tidy little neighborhoods with small, clapboard houses. The world’s just waking up, and I feel like I need to be going to bed. But I’m also not tired, the way I’d expect to be after staying up all night.

It’s almost like Jaxon was right. Like I don’t need to sleep much at all.

“Almost there,” Jaxon calls out, sing-song, and I sigh in irritation.

“I don’t want to kill someone.” I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Even just saying the words makes my skin itch.

“You’re not going to kill anyone.”

We’re near the ocean. I can smell the salt, and even the air in the car has a different feel to it, grainy like it’s full of sand. Silvery-blue light flashes ahead, and I wonder if that’s the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve never seen it before.

Jaxon pulls the car up in front of a square cottage with whitewashed siding and cerulean storm shutters. It’s surrounded by what’s probably a wild, tropical garden in the summer: bougainvilleas and hibiscus and passion vibes, all sparse for the mild winter.

He cuts off the engine and grins at me. “Here we are.”

I keep looking at the house. Anxiety knots in my chest. “What’s ‘here’?”

“Come find out.”

This house looks like a place where people are happy. But the sun is bright and Jaxon is standing beside the car, waiting for me out in the open. So I really don’t think we’re here to kill someone.

I step into the cool, humid air. Jaxon beams at me, looking terribly pleased with himself, then leads me up the narrow stone path to the front porch, where a pair of sneakers sit beside the front door. Something about those sneakers sparks in my memory.

Edie used to always do that—take her shoes off on the front porch.

But before the thought can fully register, Jaxon knocks on the door. Immediately, footsteps sound on the other side, and I hold my breath, not quite daring to believe?—

A man answers. Tall and slim with a wild mop of dark curly hair. He appraises me with a predator’s eye.

“Jaxon,” he says. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Jaxon glances over at me, his expression brimming with excitement. I’m just trying to bite back my disappointment. This is some Hunter thing.

But then Jaxon says, “I’m actually here to see Edie.”

The whole world falls away from me. “Edie?” I gasp out. “You mean this is?—”

I stare at the man, his lean, cruel face and narrowed black eyes. There’s wariness there. Worry.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asks, cold and calm. He looks at me, but I know he’s asking Jaxon, and I want to scream at both of them to just stop their bullshit and let me see her.

“Calm down, man.” Jaxon tilts his head back to me. “This is?—“

And a voice I never thought I’d hear again chimes out from inside the house.

“Sawyer? Who is it?”

“Edie!” I scream, and I shove past this man—past Sawyer fucking Caldwell , who as far as I knew had been Edie’s worst nightmare until her ex-husband took up the mantle—and race into the house.

And there she is, stepping into the sunny foyer. She’s cut her curly black hair and bleached it blonde, but it’s her. Edie Astor. My best friend in the whole world.

Even if I am a murderer, nothing’s going to change that.

She stares at me for a moment, her eyes with disbelief. “Charlotte?” she whispers. “How did you?—“

She doesn’t get the question out because I throw my arms around her, pulling her into the tightest hug I can. She returns it and nearly strangles me in the process.

“I wanted to tell you so badly,” she whispers. “But I’m supposed to be dead, and I didn’t want to have to burden you?—“

I pull away from her, my cheeks wet with tears. So are hers. “I knew you weren’t dead,” I say. “I fucking knew it, and?—“

A slam echoes through the foyer, cutting me off. I look over to see Jaxon and Sawyer standing in front of the now-shut front door. Sawyer has his arms crossed over his chest, a scowl darkening his face.

“Oh, calm down,” Edie says teasingly, and Sawyer’s scowl melts.

“Just trying to keep you safe,” he responds, and Edie beams at him. I look back and forth between the two of them, trying to comprehend exactly what I’m seeing.

She’s certainly not here as a prisoner.

“Edie.” I turn back to her. “I need to know what the hell is going on.”

“I could say the same to you.” She looks past me. “You’re Jaxon, right? We spoke on the phone once. Sawyer’s told me a lot about you.”

“Yeah. I’m Jaxon.” He steps forward. “Sawyer told me about you, too.”

But Edie turns back to me, eyes searching. “How?” she whispered. “How did you—how did you find Jaxon ?”

“How are you living in a beach house with Sawyer Caldwell?”

Edie’s cheeks darken. “I guess we both have a lot to tell each other.” Then she hugs me again, and it feels so damn good, knowing that she’s alive and safe and that I didn’t fail her after all.

“You can say that again.” I look past her, at Jaxon and Sawyer standing next to each other, watching us with their sharp, keen gazes. Two monsters. Two murderers.

But it’s hard to see either of them as monsters right now.

“Come on,” Edie says. “We can Doordash some breakfast.”

She grabs my hand and pulls me deeper into the house. I glance back toward Jaxon, and he gives me a small, shy smile. And my heart swells up. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to say to Edie about what Jaxon has done to me and what he’s made me do.

But I do know Jaxon brought me here. That he made the effort to prove to me she’s alive and well.

Thank you , I mouth to him, and he smiles like I’m his whole world.