“You don’t get to say her name. You don’t get to fucking breathe it.”
Summer hits me—open palm, wild, cracking against my back. My head whips sideways. Her voice cuts me deeper than her hand ever could.
“You left me, Jacob! You left me when they died! You didn’t even fucking tell me! You….” She steps back. “I hate you. And I promise… I swear… I am leaving.”
The rage flares, colliding with the guilt already gutting me. My hands go to her wrists before I know it, I pull her down onto the ground, pinning her small body against mine so she can’t swing again. Her chest heaves against me, hot, frantic. Her eyes—red, wet, furious—make me want to break and bleed at the same time.
“Summer.” My voice is a rasp, fraying. “Stop.”
“No!” She thrashes, hair wild, tears streaking her face. “Not after this. Not after them. You can hunt me, you can chase me, but I will never ever forgive you for this.”
She thrashes under me, wrists twisting, body bucking, but my grip doesn’t slip. My hands are iron around her. She wriggles, claws, kicks—small, frantic bursts of fight that can’t touch the strength pinning her down. Then her head snaps forward. Teeth sink into my shoulder.
White-hot pain explodes, intense enough to drag a grunt from my chest. My hold tightens instinctively, muscle clamping down, but she only grows wilder—nails raking fire down my arms, her sobs jagged, feral, tearing at the air between us.
And through it—through the chaos, through the burn of her teeth—I see them.
Her parents.
Slumped in their living room chairs, heads dropped heavy, eyes gone glassy. One neat hole in each skull, the carpet dark beneath them. The flames I told myself were real—just theater. A curtain of smoke to hide the truth.
Execution.
My stomach lurches, vision splitting. For the first time tonight, guilt claws louder than rage. My grip falters.
My breath hitches hard enough to shake me. She feels it. Rips free. Shoves me with every ounce of her fury, and I roll back, shoulder screaming, blood slick on my arms.
Then she’s gone.
Bolting across the yard, into the trees. Her sobs carry after her, shredded echoes in the black. I manage to get to my knees in the dirt, the taste of iron in my mouth, the stink of blood clinging to my hands—Benny’s blood. My shoulder burns where her teeth branded me, my chest caves around the single truth.
I left her.
My chest feels carved open. Summer’s voice is in my ears—her scream, her sobs, her fists against my skin. “My parents are dead, and you weren’t there.”
The words hit harder than any punch ever has or ever could.
And they don’t let go.
I pull myself to my feet and chase after her. I push into the woods. Branches whip my arms, thorns bite my forearm, but I don’t stop. The dark swallows me whole, but I don’t need light. I know these trees. I’ve hunted through them, bled in them, buried men in them. They bend to me.
“Summer!” My voice cracks the night. I hear nothing back—just her breathing, faint, frantic, like a deer cornered.
I stop. Listen. Silence isn’t empty. It has weight. It has shape. And in that shape, I find her. A sudden snap of a twig, too quick, too clumsy. She’s running blind. Barefoot. I picture the ground splitting her soles open, rocks and glass biting at her skin. I picture her blood painting a trail for anyone who wants her.
It makes me fucking insane.
I follow the sound, my breath hot, my shoulder throbbing. Pain is good. Pain reminds me she fought me. Pain reminds me she’s not weak. But her words live rent free in my mind.
I’ll never forgive you.
The truth is, I’ll never forgive myself.
But God help the man who took her parent’s lives, because I’ll find him. I’ll peel him, piece by piece, until every nerve in his body learns what it means to beg. When he’s ash, when even the earth doesn’t want his bones, maybe then I’ll breathe again.
“Summer,” I call, softer now. Not sheriff. Not monster. Just man. Just me. “Stop running baby.”
A shape flares in the corner of my vision—her calf, catching the moonlight, pale as glass. She’s crouched behind a fallen trunk, trying to vanish. My chest cracks. She’s so close, and she’s so fucking far.
