Page 88 of The Fire Went Wild
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 meseeher.
“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—pastSawyer 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 fuckingknewit, and?—“