Page 126 of The Ashes of Summer

Summer stands beside me watching my face while I push rounds into my handgun, her fingers brushing my good arm every few seconds. Checking. Grounding herself.

Tamara hasn't moved from the door. "You need rest, Jacob."

I glance at her once. "I need vengeance."

The room goes quiet, because everybody in it knows exactly what I mean. She exhales hard through her nose.

"At least wait until morning."

"No."

"You could reopen the wound."

"Don't care."

"Jacob—"

"No." My patience finally goes. "While that man still has blood moving through his veins, my job isn't done."

That shuts everybody up.

Summer moves in against my side. "We'll be careful."

I almost laugh, because there is nothing careful about what's going to happen tonight. Somewhere behind me the nurse mutters something that sounds a lot like, you're all insane, and honestly, that's probably fair.

Adelaide reappears in the doorway holding a stack of towels. "We should take these. Just in case."

Summer takes them from her while I start toward the door, and pain detonates through my shoulder hard enough that a rough breath tears out of me before I can stop it.

Summer's head snaps around. "Jacob⁠—"

"I'm fine."

Lie. Massive fucking lie. My vision swims for half a second before it steadies again.

Tamara notices, because of course she does. "You're pale. Please Jacob, go back to bed."

"Flirting with me again, doc?"

Summer glares at me, and honestly? Seeing that fire behind my eyes makes it all worth it. Tamara rolls her eyes.

"You're an idiot," Summer mutters.

"Yet somehow still alive."

The nurse gives up on me entirely and walks off shaking her head, muttering something about liability forms. Then Summer steps in behind me and runs her fingers down the uninjured side of my back, following the line of it as she comes around until she's standing in front of me. Her hand slides over my beard, and she kisses me, soft.

"You sure you can do this?"

The question should probably offend me. Instead something twists warm and painful under my ribs, because she's worried—terrified, probably—and she's still willing to walk back into that fucking mountain beside me anyway.

"There's a life for us that's safe from all this, Summer." My voice drops. "The sooner I end it, the sooner we go home."

Something passes over her face at that. And then Adelaide ruins it completely.

"If you two start dry humping in front of me after the night we've had, I'm driving off a cliff."

Summer snorts. A laugh nearly gets out of me too, right up until the pain punches through my shoulder again.