Page 104 of The Vigilante's Lover

And I see him.

Jax.

He’s not dead!

I almost run forward, then halt. The mines.

“Jax!” I cry out. “You made it!”

He holds out his arms as if to say, “Of course I did.”

Jax walks with certainty toward me. He’s not scanning anything. Has he forgotten?

“Jax! The land mines!”

“I remember!” he calls out. He steps to the left, and I realize he has their position in his head. He somehow knows exactly where they are from when he scanned them before.

I am in awe of him. I don’t know if I can ever be that good. It’s my own field, and still, I couldn’t remember the direction that he walked or what part he avoided on the way in.

But he does.

He pauses by the wreckage of the hay bale. “That was incredibly clever,” he says.

“What, destroying the hay?”

“Yes. Brilliant idea.”

“It didn’t get me to the house.”

He looks back at it. “Your home is destroyed.”

“Won’t the fire department be here soon? We should go.”

His eyes search mine. “It’s your home.”

I look across the field. “Not anymore.”

“There isn’t anything you want from it?”

I think of the photos of my parents. My aunt’s silver bells. Where would I put them if I took them?

“You have your phone?” I ask him. “Does it work? The video stopped.”

He pulls the video cam from his pocket. “This is broken, but I have other things in the car.”

I turn away from the smoking remains of my aunt’s house. “I’m going to call my neighbor and tell her I’m all right. She’ll pick up the few mementos that matter to me.”

Jax nods. His face is streaked with ash and his impeccable suit shirt and gray pants are frayed and covered in soot. His shoes are missing. Buthe looks amazing.

“Let’s get out of here before law enforcement shows,” he says. “No doubt they’ve been called by now.” He passes me his bag, which has seen better days, dirty and torn. “We’ll have our land mine lesson later. Right now I’m going to disarm the last ones so no firefighters come across them.”

“Klaus would have let innocent people get hurt by them?”

A dark expression crosses his face. “Not the Klaus I knew. But now?” His voice trails off.

He strides back into the field. I hug his bag to my chest, smelling smoke and charred wood coming from it. I know Jax is upset about his friend. Someone he once trusted is now his absolute worst enemy.

3: Jax