Page 145 of Live for Me

“They’re adults. And I can absolutely guarantee that he would not, in any world, come out here looking for either of us because he’d never want to see that. They know where we all live, sugar. We’ll see them back at the house.”

As I said the fucking words, my phone vibrated in my pocket.

“That’s unsettling,” I mumbled to myself while I slid my thumb across the screen to answer New Jersey’s call.

“Back to the house, slick. It’s on fire,” he said through the phone before I’d even opened my mouth.

“I don’t actually understand any of the words you just used with that tone,” I said instantly. “What’s on fire?”

“On fire?” Memphis asked beside me.

“Get home,” Jersey said with a little more bass in his voice. “It. Is. On. Fire.”

I tightened my hold on Memphis’ hand and started to run.

“This isn’t the time to be a prick, old man. What’s happening?”

“Your Judge called. Sounds like Nevada showed up. And apparently not alone.”

That gut drop feeling that comes from missing an entire step in a staircase about doubled me over right on the spot.

“Indy?” I managed to ask.

“Kyle’s there.”

“Is that Marine talk forIndy’s safe?” I asked a little more forcefully.

“He’s alive, at the least.”

If I could’ve punched a man through a phone, I would have.

“Meet me behind the main barn when you get there. Most of my firepower is in the house. And it sounds like we need to get in to get the other two back out,” Jersey said. And then he just fucking hung up.

“Utah?” Memphis asked.

Fuck. What was I supposed to do with her?

I kept running, kept pulling her along.

“Somebody found the house. Set it on fire. Indy and Kyle are still inside.”

She was fumbling for her own phone while trying to keep up with me.

The strangled noise that came out of her cemented my feet to the ground for a second.

“Three missed calls,” she choked out. “Indy.”

I couldn’t even make myself check my own phone again. I tightened that hold on her hand another time and didn’t stop running until we made it to the truck.

Memphis had her computer out in her lap within seconds of closing herself in the truck.

The gasp that came out of her made me want to vomit all over again.

“There’s an APB out on Jersey,” she said and pulled her phone out another time. “Well, both of you, but the description is for his car. How?”

I didn’t listen to any of the words she said into the phone when she called who I assumed was New Jersey. My mind was sprinting through the kinds of things we’d need to do to get into that house if it was being watched from the outside by an unknown number of people. Andburning.

It was definitely burning.

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