Page 129 of The Ashes of Summer

He watches her without a word.

"Jacob would die before he tried to replace me." The room goes completely still. "And you?" She takes another step toward him. "You thought Annalise was replaceable."

Something crosses Jackson's face then, for the first time since we walked in. Not anger—something stranger, almost like disbelief. Like hearing it said out loud actually wounds him.

Good.

I slide my arm around Summer's waist and she leans into me without hesitating. Home. That's what she feels like now, even standing in a room that smells like blood and death.

Carter pushes off the wall with a tired sigh. "We done playing relationship therapist with the psychopath?"

Jackson's attention shifts to him, and something colder comes into the room, because Carter doesn't look angry anymore. He looks empty.

Which is infinitely fucking worse.

He crouches down in front of the chair. "You know what I can't stop thinking about?"

Jackson says nothing.

"Groves."

Pain slices through my chest. Not the shoulder—something worse—because I can see him again, strapped upright in that chair with a hole between his eyes.

Carter's voice stays calm. Too calm. "He had two kids."

Jackson's expression doesn't move.

"Vance just bought a house." Silence. "Hayes had a baby on the way."

Summer stiffens against me, and suddenly everything around me feels cold, like every one of them is standing in here with us.

Carter studies Jackson's face for any flicker of guilt and doesn't find one. Of course he doesn't.

"They died at your hands."

"No." Jackson's voice is quiet. "They died because of Miller."

Summer trembles beside me and Jackson notices, and slowly turns his head toward her.

"You know the funniest part?" Blood runs from his mouth as he speaks. "Your father still has no idea how many bodies he made. Even now. Even dead." He keeps his eye on her. "He buried Annalise and walked away. Meanwhile I buried half this town trying to survive what he did to me."

Summer's gone pale, like she's trying not to go under. I tighten my arm around her.

"This isn't on you."

Jackson laughs weakly. "No. It's all on him."

Carter grabs the back of the chair and slams it backward hard enough that Jackson's skull cracks off the concrete wall. Summer flinches. Jackson groans low in his throat.

"Enough," Carter says.

Fresh blood runs from the back of his head now. But still—still—he's smiling.

"You all think this ends with me."

My pulse slows right down.

What?