Page 102 of The Fire Went Wild

Not a question. Still, I answer. “Of course not. But I still have to interact with them sometimes. Buy groceries and shit like that.”

We’re both quiet for a moment.

“Could I stay here?” Charlotte says suddenly. “With you?”

My whole body lights up, but I stop myself from showing too much excitement. “Of course. You need training.”

Charlotte smiles a little, the highway lights flickering over her face. “Your house is nicer than my apartment, believe it or not.”

“Well, maybe we can drive out to California to get your stuff.” I settle back in my seat. “I haven’t been on the West Coast in years.”

Charlotte nods. “I think I’d like that. I think I’d like that a lot.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHARLOTTE

By the time Jaxon’s electric fence appears up ahead, I’m bleary-eyed from driving and ready to sleep. Actuallysleep, too, not just be Jaxon’s plaything—even if the idea does make me squirm in my seat. I don’t want the strange dreams, for one. I can tell that he really believes that one of his gods came to me last night. I’m not sure I do.

It’s just a dream, fragments of my day thrown in a blender and whipped up by the five—five—orgasms he delivered while I was sleeping.

The fact that the image I saw, his dad slicing his throat as a teenager, that it really happened?—

I shiver. No. I can’t dwell on it.

“Stop,” Jaxon says sharply. “Now.”

“What?” I slam my foot on the gas, the car screeching to a stop on the long, twisting driveway that winds through the swamp. Lights glimmer up ahead. The porch lights. The fence.

“Someone’s here.” His voice is low and dangerous.

Fear shoots through me, my skin prickling with electricity. “What? How can you tell?”

Jaxon gives me a withering look in the dark. “I’m a Hunter, cher, and so are you. Concentrate. You’ll feel them, too.”

I still have an instinctual urge to protest, but it only lasts a second. Still, when I do try to concentrate, I don’t feel anything. Just a tight, trembling fear.

“Cut the engine.” Jaxon unlocks the passenger door.

“And then what?” I do as he says, though, and the sudden silence rings in my ears.

“Get out. Come with me.” His voice is low and commanding and deathly serious. “They don’t know we’re here yet. We can surprise them.”

“How can you possibly—” I start, but one violent glare from Jaxon silences me.

“Listen,” he hisses, and I swear his eyes refract the light back at me, making him look strange and inhuman. When he speaks again, he’s calmer, like a teacher explaining something to a student. “Listen for their breaths. Their heartbeats. That’ll tell you what they’re feeling.”

He pushes the door open, letting in the damp air of the swamp. I wish, with a sudden fervent clarity, that we were still in Florida, kissing on a chilly beach in the middle of the night. Instead of doing—whatever it is we’re about to do.

Images flash through my head. Blood. The sudden yielding pressure of a knife going through skin. Screams. Moans.

I slide out of the car, biting back my fear, and ease the door closed the same way Jaxon did. He’s just barely visible in the dark, a silhouette on shadow, except for his gleaming eyes.

He’s not looking at me, though. He’s listening.

So I listen, too. Or try to. I close my eyes and breathe out and let the sounds of the swamp surround me. They seem louder than usual, even though it’s still a little too cool for frogs and insects. But then I hear a constant, swirling susurration. It’s notfrog song at all. It’s not wind, not trees rustling, although I hear those things, too. It’s something?—

Something else.