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Her back teeth clenched. “Yes,” she gritted out. She’d been angry and so scared. Because her mother had been gone. She’d been in that house, just her and?—
“Your stepfather died in that fire.”
She didn’t speak.
“Did you want him to die or did the fire get out of control? It would have been so easy to burn out of control.”
Jana laughed. Zane didn’t get it. Was he really trying to give her a way out? “I wanted the bastard to die. I stared at him, and I thought, over and over, that I wanted him to die.” She swallowed. “And then flames raced across his skin and he started screaming for me to help him.” Bitch, fucking help me! Help me!
Zane stared down at her, and his gaze seemed too intense.
“I wasn’t going to let him touch me.” Her voice sounded hollow. “I wasn’t going to let him punch me again, and I told him—” She cleared her throat. “I told him if he tried to hit me once more, I’d kill him.” So many bruises. So many broken bones. Her mother had always been there with excuses when anyone asked what happened. She fell down the stairs. Jana’s a clumsy girl. You’d think a thirteen-year-old would know how to ride a bike better, wouldn’t you?
Her fingers brushed across her jaw. It had been wired shut for weeks after the fire. “I warned him,” she said. “It was his fault,” she’d told herself this over and over, “that he didn’t listen.”
Zane’s lips parted. “Jana.”
Her hand flew up and hung in the air between them. “Don’t.” Anger fired the word.
But he shook his head. “I can’t?—”
“I don’t need your pity.” She knew pity when she heard it. “I’m not some damaged kid who needs you to hold her and make everything better.” Not anymore, dammit.
“I know that.”
“Greg Burgess deserved what he got.” Because if she hadn’t killed him, he would have killed her, and she knew it. “I didn’t expect the fire, and afterwards, hell, no one believed me. They thought I’d set everything up. Staged the scene and lured him to his death.” Bastards. The DA had said her jaw had been broken from the force of the blast. He’d said she was too close when she ignited the accelerants and that she’d been thrown across the room.
What accelerants? She’d burned Greg with her power.
But Greg, the bastard, had always kept plenty of booze around. And they’d been in the garage when the fire started. With the oil and gas and…
You’re lying, girl. You set the fire. You burned that man alive. The DA’s voice was so clear in her mind, even after all these years. Did he beg you for help?
Yes, he had.
“You were protecting yourself.” Zane’s voice was a low rumble and she glanced back at him. His hands were clenched into powerful fists, and the faint lines near his eyes looked deeper than before.
“I was,” she said, and it was true. Greg’s ghost didn’t haunt her anymore. Jana took a long, deep breath, and then she let her lips curl. Because she wasn’t a victim, and Zane needed to see that. She wasn’t some damsel he needed to rescue.
She could rescue herself. In the fairy tales, she wasn’t the trapped princess. She was the fire-breathing dragon, and she’d burn anyone who got in her way.
She had.
“I killed to protect myself back then.” True. “But I’m not a scared girl anymore.”
Zane’s head tilted to the right as he studied her. “So the others you’ve killed? Were you protecting yourself from them, too?”
The rush of anger broke through her control. Did she need to give him a whole damn life story? Did she have to justify every move? “You want to compare kills? Your hands have blood on them, too, Zane!”
“I never claimed they didn’t.”
“You might be one of the good guys, but you’ve crossed the line for duty, I know you have?—”
His laughter stopped her cold.
Jana blinked. “Am I missing a joke?” Zane had a real piss-poor sense of humor. Good in bed, lousy humor—noted.
The laughter faded, but his lips maintained that slight twist of amusement. “Ah, Jana.” He shook his head. “I have to know, what in the hell ever made you think I was one of the good guys?”
