Page 41 of Wild Devil

FOURTEEN

DAZE

I’ll never forgive myself for putting her second. While Lex drives like a bat out of hell, that’s all I can think about. This sick feeling inside me warns that it’s already too late. I failed her.

She’s injured, hurt, or dead, and I failed her.

Just to keep the rage at bay, I grind my teeth. Centered. It was easy for me to cut off all emotion before she came along. In the case of Renna, I was able to distance myself from the pain. I cared for her. I lost her. I moved on.

But this…

With every breath, the pain grows sharper. There’s nothing I can do but rock in my seat, ready to fight. Kill if I have to.

For once, my thoughts of violence don’t numb me like they usually do. In this vicious, never-ending game of Daze Fucked Up, they just feed on themselves.

There’s no recovering from this mistake.

“How much longer?” I snap.

Taking a hand off the wheel, Lex gestures toward the speedometer. “Soon.” His gaze is narrowed, fixed on the road with ruthless focus. If this really is the right location, the road there is mostly deserted—a fact I don’t like one damn bit. There should be security everywhere, intensifying the closer we get.

“It should be over that ridge up ahead,” Lex says after another few minutes of silence. “Right there… Holy shit.”

I see it at the same time he does—fire swallowing what used to be a mansion on some country estate. The lack of patrols suddenly makes perfect sense—they’re all fighting the blaze.

And I know, somehow, someway, that Frey is here, trapped in that fucking house.

“Daze, wait!”

My ears barely register Lex’s voice as I leap from the van, charging through the woods between the vehicle and the mansion. With a single-minded focus, I propel myself forward. I don’t give a damn if I’m a sitting duck or an easy target. I don’t give a damn if a thousand of Heywood’s thugs swarm me before I can even set foot near that house.

All I care about is getting to her. Finding her. If she’s in there…

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Someone shouts near my ear, panting in their effort to keep up. The voice is familiar, but my brain is too wired to process it. All I know is when they place their hand on my shoulder their aim is to stop me. Keep me from her. “Daze, wait!”

“Get the fuck off me—” I form a fist and let it fly, then I keep gunning for the blaze up ahead. I can make out shapes running in the dark. Guards shouting and coordinating a search effort.

“They’re still inside,” I swear I hear one of them say. “The door was fucking locked.”

No…

“Daze, slow the fuck down!”

More hands grab me from behind. There must be three, four, different pairs of hands clawing at every part of me in an attempt to slow me down. Friend or foe, I don’t fucking care. Fighting blindly, I swing like hell.

All I can see is the fire. All I can see is her face the last time I held her. Trust me, she said, making it sound so fucking easy. Trust her. Invest the same amount of faith in her as she did in me.

As a result, I may have lost her forever.

“Fuck, Daze! Don’t make me taser your ass.”

Finally, the identity of one of the voices shouting in my ear hits me—Ben. He’s standing in front of me, wiping blood from his chin as three other men try to wrestle me to the ground.

“Are you listening to me? You go in there, and you’ll be killed on sight, you idiot. It’s a fucking hornets’ nest. You want to do this, we got to do this right.”

“Right?” I don’t even recognize the sound of my voice. I don’t show emotion so raw. Not when my old man died. Not with Renna. Never. Then, to chase away the pain, comes a familiar rage that hardens me against any hint of emotion.

Damn, Frey. Damn her. If she left me like this, I’ll follow her straight to heaven, even if I have to fight my way out of hell. I won’t let her go this easily.

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