Jase shook his head. “Nothing serious. Just some injuries from flying debris.”
Jack turned his head to the sound of sirens in the distance.
The young girl that had been with Kyle sat on the curb, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Other than the bruises he’d seen earlier, she seemed unharmed. “Have you spoken with the girl?”
“Doesn’t speak much English.” Jase frowned and dragged his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Not sure what to do with her.”
“Take her to mom and dad. She’ll be safe with them until we figure out where she came from.”
Jase gave a hard nod. “You need to go. Who knows what she’ll say.”
“We’re going to need to cover this one up. Luckily it looks like something exploded. It shouldn’t be too hard to reinforce the notion of some kind of meth lab. Kyle was into some bad shit. The local cops will see what they want to see. Just push their will a little in that direction.”
“Got it.” Josh nodded. “I think it would be best to say Stan was a casualty of the explosion. It would kill Aunt Jane and Uncle Bill to know what hand he played in this. They’ve lost two sons tonight.”
“Agreed.” Jack squatted next to his mate and placed his hand on her arm. “Zoe, we have to go now.”
Her head snapped up, eyes wide. “What did you do to me?”
“We can talk about this when we get you somewhere safe.” Jack took her elbows and lifted her to her feet.
“No.” She pounded her fists on his chest, and began to shout, “I killed people. You did that to me.”
Josh and Jase raised their eyebrows and walked away.
“Zoe, relax.” He gripped her wrists so she couldn’t hit him. “Everything is going to okay. We just need to get out of here before the emergency crews arrive.”
The last of the flaming bar collapsed with a sickening crack, and a few more bottles of alcohol exploded.
“Nothing is okay.” She pulled her arms free, then placed her forehead on his chest, sobbing. “What kind of power is that? I’m a…a fucking killing machine.”
Jack let her rant and pulled a few strands of sticky hair out of her mouth. He’d tried to warn her, but even he was surprised at the extent of her power.
“Everyone is different when it comes to this kind of thing. The augmentation of power of our kind is very rare. It’s only because you were so frightened that your energy came out like that.”
“I could’ve killed you.” She gave his chest another hard whack.
“Enough.” He gripped both her wrists in one of his hands. “Half of your newfound power came from me. I felt it coming. You can’t hurt me.”
The lie sounded better than the truth. He tried to soothe her with his free hand by rubbing her shoulders. She shivered, and giant tears made streams of dirt along her cheeks before dripping onto his shirt.
“Time to get you home.” Jack scooped her into his arms.
He placed her in the leather passenger seat of the dark sedan and shut the door. Immediately, she tucked her legs under her chin and curled up in a ball.
He took one last look at the burning building and shuddered.
What a fucking nightmare.
The sirens were getting louder. They pulled out of the parking lot, just as the rescue vehicles zoomed past them with alarms blaring.
Chapter 16
Jack breathed a discernible sigh of relief when they pulled up to the cottage and saw Olivia waiting for them. No doubt his brother had called her to let her know what happened.
Zoe hadn’t said a word since he’d placed her in the car. She just stared out the window, with silent tears running down her face. He could sense the emotions warring inside her. Guilt, anger, and grief swam behind her eyes. Jack had never felt so completely helpless in his entire life.
He placed his hand on hers and she flinched.
