Page 91 of The Fire Went Wild
But I couldn’t, because there was a string of magic strangling the oldest and truest part of me.
“Charlotte?”
Edie’s voice cuts through the fantasy, and I blink back to the garden with a gasp. Edie frowns, leaning in close. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” My voice shakes, though, and I drown the rest of the mimosa and wish we’d brought the champagne and orange juice out to the garden with us.
“You don’t seem fine.” She scrapes her chair closer and puts her hand on my arm. My eyes flutter. “Is it because of me and Sawyer? I know it’s a lot, but?—”
“No.” My tongue is dry with the need to tell her the entire truth, but all I get out is, “I’m glad you found Sawyer. That he helped you like that.”
She smiles sheepishly. “And I’m glad you found Jaxon,” she says. “I’m glad—that you know about them. You were the only part of my life before that wasn’t total shit and now—” She laughs. “Sawyer doesn’t believe in Jaxon’s gods, but I don’t know. Look at where we are. That sigil brought you here, didn’t it?”
The sigil flashes in my thoughts. That darkness inside me flares, and it’s eager for release somewhere, somehow. With my hands or knife or—something. Anything.
I swear I can hear Edie’s heart beating.
“Yeah, it did.” I swallow and squeeze the plastic stem of my flute glass so hard that it snaps. Edie jumps.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks.
I take a deep breath and set the broken flute glass on the table, where it rolls in the wind. “What if I—” I’m still not sure I can get it out. “What if I told you I’m?—”
She looks at me expectantly. But I can’t do it.
“Why did you accept Sawyer?” I ask instead.
“Accept him?”
“For what he is. I mean, he?—”
“You don’t have to say it.” Edie drains the rest of her mimosa and balances the empty cup on the table, holding it in place so the sea wind doesn’t blow it into the garden. “I don’t know,” she says. “It just—it’s part of him. What he is.”
The wind howls in my ears, and even though it’s cool, my skin prickles with sweat. My entire body feels like it’s on fire. “What if I told you I’m like him?”
I spit it out so that every word bleeds together, and then the question just hangs there, numb and strange.
Edie gives a sharp laugh. “Charlotte, what the fuck are you talking about? You’re not a Hunter. Sawyer knew what he was from the time he was a kid. It’s not just—” She falters, and I think she can see the shame on my face. “Charlotte. Tell me what’s going on.”
But I shake my head. She’s my best friend, and I still can’t bear to see her reaction.
“Stop this,” she snaps. “Something’s obviously got you fucked up. Tell me.”
The darkness surges inside me like it needs to be purged.
“I did things with Jaxon.” The wind catches my voice and flings it around the dry, rattling garden. “Things like what they were arguing about when we came out here.”
I can’t bring myself to look at Edie, so I stare at an unflowering hibiscus bush instead, waiting for her to react. To scream. To run. To call the cops.
“And you think you’re a Hunter?”
I let my gaze shift over to her, and she doesn’t seem scared or upset. She just studies me. Listening.
“Jaxon thinks I am,” I say. “He thinks all the weird prayers and stuff my mom did when I was a kid suppressed my urges and made me believe I’m, you know?—”
“Human.”
I was going to saynormal, but I just nod.