Branded

He suddenly flips on the lights and siren and presses down on the gas, almost like he knew what I was contemplating. The car takes off so quickly that I’m thrown against the seat.

“Jordan wasn’t crazy, he was in love and Finnley fucked him over,” Jackson mutters, not even listening to me.

Cars, trees and buildings whiz by the window as Jackson continues to press down on the accelerator, going at least ninety miles an hour. I grab onto the center console and the handle above the door, hoping to God people move the fuck out of our way and we don’t hit anyone.

“He was my fucking best friend and that douchebag you’ve been sleeping with decided to just let him burn in his own fucking house!” Jackson shouts angrily.

My blood turns to ice in my veins and my hands start to sweat so badly that I can barely hold onto the door handle as we make a sharp turn, barely slowing down.

I don’t know what to think right now, my mind is going a mile a minute, almost as fast as this damn car. Did he suddenly snap and decide he’s jealous that I was with DJ? That makes absolutely no sense. Jackson and I only dated for a couple of months and we didn’t even sleep together. The guy couldn’t have held a torch for me this long, that’s just sad and pathetic. Him being angry about Jordan’s death makes much more sense, but still, to blame DJ for it? That’s reaching just a little bit.

“This all could have been avoided if you’d just kept your fucking legs closed and not been such a whore!”

His loud, booming voice screaming the word whore is what makes some of the pieces snap together in my mind.

“Oh, my God, it was you?” I whisper in shock. “You left those notes for me, didn’t you?”

How? Why? This can’t be right. It couldn’t have been Jackson all this time. My father called me. He admitted to leaving the notes and he told me I was going to burn the same night DJ and I were trapped inside of the ambulance. And yet, Jackson had been there every time something bad happened. He was at the fair when I was given that dose of insulin, he was parked outside my house when it was broken into and the living room was trashed, and he was watching the ambulance when the fire started out all around it. He was there, each and every time.

The only time he wasn’t around was this morning, when DJ and I were getting dressed for work. He sent me a text saying he was running to get coffee and asked if we wanted anything. He was only gone for five minutes tops since there’s a coffee shop a block away, but it would have been long enough to get to Collin and Finnley’s house the next street over and cut her brake line.

“Jackson, what have you done?” I ask in horror.

He lets out a cold, calculating laugh and shakes his head at me.

“Someone needs to pay for what happened to Jordan and since you’re the whore who has taken up with his killer, I’ve decided it should be you. Paybacks are a bitch.”

His right hand jerks off of the steering wheel and his fist slams into the side of my head. The force of the blow knocks me roughly into the window and I see stars before everything goes black.

“I cannot BELIEVE you shot my fucking tires!” I shout at Dax as I jump down from my truck and he holsters his weapon.

He shrugs his reply as a whole caravan of cop cars with lights and sirens blazing come flying up the street, blocking the driveway, pulling up onto the lawn and stopping wherever the hell they find a space. It looks like every law enforcement official from the entire city has shown up, and Dax immediately starts explaining the situation and issuing orders.

I walk across the lawn, wondering how much trouble I would get into if I stole a cop car. Standing right next to one idling by the curb, I hear Dax shout my name.

“Don’t even think about it, asshole. Do you really want Phina to have to visit you behind bars when we get her home?”

I roll my eyes and look away from him. He said “when,” not “if.” That’s got to be a good sign. I want to be positive, I know I have to be positive for her sake, but I’m dying inside right now. I don’t know where she is, what she’s thinking or if she’s hurt. Instead of focusing on all the horrible things she could be going through, I think about something good, instead. I think about her smile and her laugh, about how amazing she is with my nieces and nephews, how she stretches her entire body when she first wakes up in the morning, groaning “strrrreeeaaaaaach” while she does it. I think about the scent of her shampoo and how my pillows always smell like it. I think about how much it turns me on to fight with her and how fucking fantastic sex is after a good screaming match.

I rest my palms on the roof of the running cruiser and let my head drop down to rest my chin on my chest. I think about how she trusted me with the hardest part of her past and let me kiss those painful memories away, even if I couldn’t erase the faded, old scars from her body.

Faded old scars…faded old scars.

Goddammit! Goddammit all to hell! I’m a fucking paramedic, how did I not put this together until right now? My head jerks up and I slam my fist onto the top of the car.

“Hey, that’s taxpayers money. Don’t break it, or you buy it,” Dax warns me as he comes to stand next to me.

“Tell me there’s a fucking plan! We need to get her back right the fuck now,” I tell him as I start pacing back and forth.

“We’re working on it. I have men checking out the properties that are on file and we should know something soon,” he tells me.

Those fucking burn marks on her hip…some of them looked exactly like the ones on her back, but most of them were angry, red and fresh.