Page 16 of The Ashes of Summer

The engine hums as the vehicle begins to move. Trees rise on either side of the track, tall and suffocating, branches clawing into the dark overhead until it feels like the world is closing in. No lights. No signs. No indication of where we are or where we're going.

We could be anywhere.

I press my forehead to the glass, the cold of it grounding me. My reflection stares back—pale, hollow-eyed, hair tangled, face drawn tight with shock and exhaustion, tears still drying on my cheeks, but I don't recognize her. I need to find her—the version of me that survived Jacob Darnell's house, that learned to read a man's silences, that stayed sane by paying attention when everything else told her to fall apart.

She's still in here.

I just have to be strong enough to find her.

I breathe in slowly.

One.

Two.

Three.

Jackson is different from Jacob. I know that.

Different in a way that Jacob cared for me. Even when I thought he didn’t, I know deep down—my safety was everything to him. And even though he had to hurt me to keep me there, had to leave bruises and mess with my head, he cared. Jackson, on the other hand, doesn't care. I’ve heard stories about what happens to women in his company. Most of them never return; even when they do, they’re never the same.

I shift my gaze, forcing my attention onto the details around me—the angle of the road. The sound the tires make when they shift from dirt to asphalt. Every turn. Every incline. Every second. I start cataloging methodically. I note which direction we turned leaving the landing site. I count the seconds between turns. I register the gradient of the road as it begins to climb and the way the engine note changes with it. I clock the treeline on my left, the absence of any lights beyond the glass, the quality of the dark out here—deep and rural and far from anything.

Far.

That thought lands heavy, but I don't let it stay. Because Jacob found me before when I had nothing to offer him but the fact that I was still breathing. He found me when the whole world was against it. He isn’t a man who was going to sit down and accept that I’m gone.

He's already looking.

I believe that with every part of me that is still intact.

He's already looking, and I'm going to make sure there's something worth finding.

When he finally breaks the silence, his voice is quiet.

"Relax, Summer." The way he says my name makes something knot low in my stomach. Like he's testing it. Like he owns it.

I don't answer. I watch the darkness outside the window and I keep cataloging and I keep breathing and I keep adding to the list of things I know about this road, this car, this man sitting beside me who thinks he has already won.

He hasn't. He just doesn't know that yet.

The car turns, and the darkness begins to shift. Streetlights appear—distant at first, then more. Wide roads open out around us. Ranches dotted in the distance, lit up by porchlights. We pass them without slowing, and the road curves again and begins to climb, the engine straining slightly as we rise. The trees close in, swallowing the last fragment of light until the world narrows back down to darkness and the faint glow of the dashboard. Then the headlights cut out.

Darkness crashes over us completely and a gasp escapes me before I can stop it. Jackson moves immediately. His arm slides around my shoulders, pulling me into his side, the movement smooth, practiced—worse than if it had been violent. Violence I can brace for. This has the texture of something that expects to be accepted.

"I prefer you when you fight," he murmurs near my ear. "It's more interesting."

My body goes rigid against him. I don't answer. I don't move. I turn my face away and breathe through it, slow and deliberate, even as every instinct I have is screaming at me to pull away.

The headlights flick back on, and the world floods into view again. Ahead of us, something massive rises from the darkness. My breath catches—it isn't just a house. It's a statement. Stone. Glass. Hard lines cutting into the night. Windows reflecting nothing back. No warmth. No movement. Just something waiting.

It doesn't feel like a home. It feels like a place built to hold things.

The car rolls to a stop at the foot of wide stone steps leading to the front door. The engine quiets, and silence settles around us again.

I look at the house and I don't let the fear take over. I look at it the way I learned to look at Jacob's house that first night—like a problem. Like a series of questions that need answering. How many floors. How many visible entry points. Where the light is strongest and where it isn't.

I note the distance from the car to the front door, that the gravel—noisy underfoot, which matters.