Scorched to Ash Beneath the Blazing Sun novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Fourteen Days

[Shield not reinstated. Fate deferral continues. Fourteen days.]

The voice said it and went quiet, and I opened my eyes.

The road was still empty.

The sun had cleared the fence posts.

Brice hadn't moved.

His arm was against mine, and I could feel him breathing hard through his sleeve.

"Fourteen days," he said.

"Thirteen days and some hours now."

"Lorena, he's in the county jail right now."

"I know where he is."

"Then you know what happened Thursday. He was in a cell with the air on, and the jail nurse said his temperature held at ninety-eight."

I turned my head.

"You checked."

"I called the nurse at six last night," Brice said. "I'm a ranger. I count things."

He rubbed his jaw with one hand.

"The only place he's safe is a cooled room. Cold air, no sun. A cell."

"You want him locked up."

"I want him alive until a jury gets him," Brice said. "And I want him to know what that costs."

I almost smiled.

"That's a worse thing to want than the first one."

"Probably."

Then my chest tightened, because I had a second thing to say, and it had been sitting in me for nine days.

"I'm angry at you," I said.

He went still.

"Go ahead."

"The first night in the ICU, you took my phone out of my backpack and put it in an evidence bag. You didn't ask me."

"I know."

"The next morning you told the sheriff exactly which room I was in. I had opted out of the directory so Lance couldn't find me, and you told a deputy."

"I know."

"I woke up and a stranger in a uniform knew my room number."

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