I want to run to him. I want to slap him. I want to claw his fucking throat out and tell him I hate him. But I also want to feel his arms around me. To hear him tell Benny he’s wrong.
The tires crunch against gravel as it rolls to a stop. The driver’s door jolts open and Jacob steps out, the porch light catching on the hard set of his jaw, the dark fire burning in his eyes as they lock onto me. Then down—to Benny’s hand gripping mine.
My stomach plummets.
Benny’s fingers tighten around me, possessive, defiant, but I struggle and pull my hand free.
The silence between the three of us is a live wire, humming and sparking, ready to set everything alight.
Chapter 19
Gravel & Blood
Jacob
Icheck the CCTV the second I get to her parents’ place, but the feed’s dead. Must’ve busted it when I threw the chair—sent the whole setup crashing down.
When I realize the feed’s gone—when I know there’s no way to keep eyes on her—dread crawls up my spine. I finish up as fast as I can and head home.
I don’t want to see her face when I tell her that her parents were murdered. But she needs to know. And she needs to hear it from me.
I slam the accelerator—tires screaming against asphalt—all the way home to her.
As the house comes into view, a truck sits in the drive. Anger tightens in my chest, burning and heavy. My hands grip the wheel so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t snap beneath them.
The second I see his hand on her, I stop being human.
Benny fucking Harrow. Standing on my drive with his fingers locked around Summer’s, like he’s got some claim, like he’s earned the right to put his dirty hands on her skin.
I don’t hear the engine cut. Don’t feel the door slam. Just heat—black, blistering rage that climbs my throat until there’s nothing left to do but break him. Summer pulls away from him and steps back. She knows what’s coming and she doesn’t want totaste the dirt.
Smart girl.
Three strides and I’ve got him.
His back hits gravel, skull cracking against stone. My fist follows. Cartilage gives under my knuckles with a wet pop, blood spraying across my hand. He jerks, wheezes, but I ride him down, knees pinning his hips, another punch collapsing his nose sideways.
He coughs blood in my face. I slam his jaw. Bone shifts and a gurgling noise rattles out of him, and it makes me smile, because that’s the sound of him breaking where he thought he was solid.
“You think you can slither in while I’m gone?” My knuckles split on his cheekbone, skin tearing. “Crawl into her grief like a parasite?” Another blow. “I’ll fucking kill you.”
His lip bursts. Teeth loosen under the next strike. I hear one crack and roll across his tongue. He chokes on it, eyes wide, blood bubbling from his nose and mouth. Good. Let him taste himself.
Summer screams my name, but she’s a ghost at the edge of this fire. All I see is him. All I hear is the crunch of his body folding under mine. All I feel is the life leaving him blow by blow.
He groans, some pathetic wheeze, and it stirs something savage in me. I hammer his ribs until one gives, deep as a gunshot. His body bows, desperate for air. I press my forearm to his throat, lean down until he can’t miss the promise in my eyes.
Summer’s hands are on me now, clawing, pulling, her voice shredded from screaming. “Stop! You’re killing him!”
“That’s the point,” I spit, and smash his brow open. Blood runs into his eyes, blinding him. He tries to lift his arm—pathetic, slow—and I break the attempt with another hit. My knuckles are raw meat, slick with him, but I don’t stop.
Her fists slam my shoulders, my back. “My parents are dead, and you weren’t there! He came to check on me, he came to do the right thing!”
The words hit harder than Benny ever could. For a breath, my fist freezes above his face. The night presses in, hot and suffocating. Weren’t there.
He sees it—the hitch in me. He tries a laugh, wet, broken. “Sum?—”
His mouth caves under the heel of my palm, jaw sliding wrong. He gags, choking blood, eyes rolling. I lean close, so he hears it through the ringing in his skull.
