Page 128 of The Ashes of Summer

"I did."

The words hang there. And honestly? That's the first time since I met Constance that she's genuinely put a chill down my spine.

Jackson lifts his swollen face toward her, blood dripping steadily from his lip onto the floor. Then he smiles again.

Still fucking smiling.

"You hit harder than your boyfriend does."

Constance doesn't blink. "Oh, Carter's not my boyfriend." She laughs. "I'd never date a cop. No offense."

Carter lets out a low chuckle. "None taken."

I step forward and feel my shirt come away tacky from my back. The drive reopened something—there's warmth spreading slowly through the bandages under the jacket—and I don't care in the slightest.

Jackson watches me adjust and laughs weakly through the blood. "Doctor clear you for this, Sheriff?"

I don't answer him. I just start walking, and every step hurts, the bandages pulling tighter with each one while exhaustion drags at the back of my skull. None of it slows me down.

He tilts his head as I stop in front of him. "You know," he rasps, "I really thought she was just a fuck to you."

Wrong thing to say.

I go very still. "Be careful talking about her like you understand a single thing."

His smile widens through the blood on his teeth. "Oh, but I do understand her." His eyes flick toward Summer. "I understand she likes it from behind. The way her⁠—"

I hit him before my brain catches up. My fist slams into the side of his jaw hard enough that the chair rocks under him, and the pain that tears through my shoulder afterward is white-hot and immediate. Worth every second of it, watching him cough blood onto the floor.

"Jacob—" Summer starts.

"He doesn't get to speak about you." My voice has gone somewhere rougher. Darker.

Jackson spits red onto the concrete and laughs. "You really think you're different from me?"

Carter comes off the wall. Summer's grip tightens hard around my hand. And something ugly coils low in my chest, because that question has been following me since the second I walked into this house.

Jackson watches my face. Sees the hesitation. Of course he fucking does.

"You kill for her," he murmurs. "You torture for her." His mouth twists. "You'd burn the whole world down for her."

I step closer. "I would never hurt innocent women."

His smile fades, just slightly.

Good.

Because unlike him, I know exactly what I am. I know what's in me—the violence, the obsession, all of it—and I've never once pretended otherwise. The difference is I'd put a gun in my own mouth before I kidnapped women and handed them to monsters.

Jackson drags his head up again. "Miller took everything from me. And she—she was going to bring Anna back. With a bit of training she⁠—"

Summer steps forward, and the look on her face is lethal.

"No," she says quietly.

Jackson actually stops. Her voice shakes when she goes on, but not from fear. Pure fury.

"You know what the difference is between you and Jacob?"