ALPHA(22)

“Any news yet on who could have done this?” I asked, dreading whatever news Logan would have.

“None. People around here often take a dislike to new people, but there’s no-one who would be extreme or sick enough to try and kill them.”

I swallowed loudly as dread filled my stomach thinking about who would be crazy enough to do something like that. I didn’t want to think it was me that had been targeted, but the town had been living in relative peace before I had arrived. Logan had even joked that it was a town where nothing exciting had every happened, and crime was pretty much non-existent. Noah and his family had done nothing to upset anyone, so it made sense that the perpetrators had been after me. The scary thing was being unaware of a motive, because without a motive it was even harder to figure out the culprit. Logan noticed the fear in my face, and grabbed hold of my hand, becoming my anchor in an unsettling situation. The heat coming from his hand still shocked me, and I focused hard to make sure I didn’t flinch away from the strange feeling.

“Jackson’s men are the best. They deal with shit like this all the time. I promise you they’ll find who did this.”

“Are they sure it was definitely arson?”

Logan looked uncomfortable, and my heart dropped. I felt sick as he proceeded to tell me exactly what had happened that night.

“It was definitely arson. They found petrol had been poured around the back door and the downstairs windows. An old house like that and it didn’t take long for the whole place to go up. Thank god Noah had been awake and smelt the smoke almost straight away. He managed to get Jasmine and Annabelle out pretty swiftly and was running back in to get you when Jackson and the guys turned up. Jackson ordered Noah to stay with his family, and ran in to save you.” I felt sick at the thought of someone maliciously trying to hurt me like that. I’d felt okay when I thought it had just been an electrical fault, or someone had lit a candle and forgotten to put it out or something. Now all I could feel was nausea knowing that someone had deliberately set the fire, and were still out there now, probably thinking I had died. Would they come back to finish what they had started? Was I now somebody’s unfinished business?

“I still can’t believe that the guys would just risk themselves like that to save me. I’m still relatively new here, I hate to think of the danger I put everyone in.”

“It wasn’t your fault. It was the bastard who set the fire’s fault. And this is what we do in this community. Everyone helps each other. Ain’t no-one in this town who would have let you die in that building. No-one.”

I was warmed by the conviction in his words, and he smiled at me before excusing himself to go to the bathroom. I was struggling to pull my thoughts together, unable to process anything other than that someone may have been trying to kill me, and had almost killed my new friends in the process. If anything had happened to Noah, Jasmine or little Annabelle, I’d have never been able to forgive myself. I couldn’t even understand the reason behind setting fire to a building with people inside it and hurting someone in such a violent way. The whole house was surrounded by trees, and had the fire not been noticed as soon as it had been, the ramifications could have been a lot worse. Had the forest caught fire, the devastation for the whole town could have been catastrophic. Surely that meant that it couldn’t have been someone from the community, because why would they risk their own homes like that? A wave of exhaustion swept over me and I tried to push the horrible questions from my mind and eventually settled down to a restless sleep.



****

“Any news?” I asked Jackson from the sofa I was currently lounging on. I felt loads better, but everyone was continuously fussing around me, and it was starting to feel a bit suffocating. Staying at Jackson’s house was amazing because it was absolutely huge, so we weren’t all tripping over each other. It was a modern style house - completely different to the others I had seen - and was surrounded by the most beautiful gardens. It had a white exterior, and everything inside was either black, white or just plain shiny. You could tell it was just Jackson living there - it was absolutely spotless. A typical bachelor pad - with the essentials like the TV and the fridge - but nothing that screamed that it was a house and it was lived in. Nothing to give it a homely feel, just the basics. I wasn’t complaining though. The basics consisted of the best sofa I had ever sat on – hence why I was currently lounging on it and struggling to stay awake while I read my book.

“Nothing.” Jackson came to sit by me, and relaxed back, resting his arms along the back of the sofa. It was nice to see him relax for five minutes, and not act so formally.