Page 141 of First Chance

“NO!” His blood pools around his head, and a guttural scream escapes me until my lungs run out.

My head is swimming as Jerry drops the branch and stumbles back a step, wiping the blood off his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What did you do?” I cry, banging the back of my head against the fence post.

“I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to fucking do that!” He yells. “Fuck!”

“JO!” My name reverberates through the trees, and there is only one person that it could belong to.

“Don’t fucking breathe,” Jerry threatens, yanking my hair through the fence. “Say a damn word and I’ll light this place up.”

I feel liquid soaking the skirt of my dress, dripping down my legs, and then the odor of lighter fluid hits my nostrils. He’s dousing me in accelerant.

He empties the bottle along the fence line, spraying it back and forth along the path he originally brought me down, and then throws the empty bottle on top of Curtis’ motionless body.

He fishes the lighter out of his pocket and waits.

Chapter Fifty-One

Lochlan

Iheard her scream as if it was amplified inside my head. Every one of my senses is so in tune with her that I’ve convinced myself I could smell her scent if I got close enough.

Logic has no room in my mind when it comes to Jo. No one has seen her; she’s been missing for at least an hour, and that’s 60 minutes too long.

Someone doesn’t scream like that unless they’re terrified or they’re about to die.

My boots pound the dirt until I’m cut off by the bear fences, but what really stops me is a pair of legs lying in the dirt before me.

Men’s legs…

Curtis’ legs.

Curtis.

“Take one fucking step and I drop the lighter.”

My gaze pings to a man standing just ahead in the shadows of the trees. The moonlight isn’t illuminating enough to show me his identity.

I don’t really give a shit right now, anyways.

I keep scanning for Jo. I know I heard her.

My eyes sweep past the bear enclosures, and my body jolts, seeing her pressed up against the wrong side of the fence.

“DON’T!” He yells as he sparks the lighter in his hand. Jo’s cries reach me at the same time.

“Listen to him, Lochlan. Listen to him, he sprayed me with lighter fluid,” she cries breathlessly.

Every muscle is tensed to save her, to kill somebody, to fucking stop all of this madness.

“What do you want?” I grit out, not taking my eyes from Jo. The rage in my body is rattling my bones.

“I don’t want anything. My job’s done.” I look just in time to see him smirk as he throws something into the trees and drops his lighter. The ground ignites, and he takes off on the other side of it.

“No! No!” Jo screams. “LOCHLAN!”

Her fear rushes over me in a wave as the trail of fire travels quickly, lighting the path towards the bear enclosure. I don’t think, I just react, running and skidding through the dirt to cut off the fire before it gets to the enclosure. The flame catches my pants, but barely has a chance to burn before I smother it, smacking away the fire with my hands.

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