Page 17 of The Ashes of Summer

Then I see the tree line to the left and try to calculate how far it is from the house.

I note all of it.

Jackson shifts beside me. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he murmurs.

I don't look at him, because he isn't looking at the house. I already know that. And knowing things—small things, quiet things, the things a man like him would never think to hide because he doesn't believe they matter—is how this starts.

It's how it always starts.

Chapter 5

The Show

Summer

Jackson steps out first. He adjusts his jacket like this is any other night—the unhurried movements of a man who has never once had to question whether the world will arrange itself around him. Then he turns and extends a hand toward me. It isn't an invitation. It's expectation. A command dressed up as manners.

I stay where I am. One second passes. Then another.

The muscles of his jaw contract and he exhales—the smallest betrayal of frustration, gone almost before it arrives. Small enough that most people would miss it. I don't.

His hand drops. The next second his fingers close around my arm, and he drags me from the car with controlled force.

"We're going to have to do something about your lack of compliance, princess." His voice is low and calm.

“Fuck. You.” I snarl, emphasizing each word.

A smile tips his lips as he pulls me hard.

I stumble onto the stone, cold seeping straight through the soles of my feet. The car door slams behind me, as vicious as a crack of bone in the quiet night.

The driver is already at the front door, unlocking it. The click is soft. But there is nothing gentle in the feeling it leaves behind.

I count my steps from the car to the entrance distance—twenty-three steps in total. I clock the stone pillars flanking the door, solid and wide—perfect to hide behind. There’s a single camera mounted above the entrance, angled downward, covering the steps but not the left side of the facade where the wall meets the tree line.

The second we step inside, everything changes. The place smells faintly of polish and something sterile underneath it, something that reminds me of bleach, of scrubbed surfaces, of life removed on purpose. The floors are white marble, glossy enough to throw back fragments of light. The lighting is recessed and expensive, soft enough to look elegant but not warm enough to touch the corners, where shadows still gather like they belong there.

Paintings line the walls in heavy gold frames. At first glance they're beautiful. At second glance they feel disturbed somehow, as though something ugly is hiding beneath the surface and only shows itself if you look too long. There's no clutter. No personal things. No signs that anyone laughs here, forgets things here, lives here.

So, this is my prison.

Jackson lets go of my arm. Heat lingers where his fingers were, burning across my skin, promising a mark that won't fade fast. I fight the urge to rub at it, to scrub at it, to tear the feeling away. It wouldn't help. Nothing would. But even as the shame settles I am still working. Still taking in everything I encounter.

The hallway runs straight from the entrance—long, wide, doors on either side, all closed. I count them. Four on the left, three on the right before the hallway bends out of sight. The staircase is at the far end, wide and central, which means it's the most visible route between floors. There will be another way up. There always is in houses like this. Something for staff. Something less exposed. I'll find it.

Footsteps sound behind us. I turn before I can stop myself, drawn to the sound the way something hunted turns toward the thing stalking it.

Three men.

My stomach twists the second I recognize one of them.

Donnie.

The name alone is enough to send bile up my throat. Memory flashes hot and ugly—hands that hurt my best friends, the weight of him, the smell of sweat and something sour that overwhelmed my senses when I was forced to sacrifice myself for my girls. The other two are strangers, which in a place like this means nothing good. They look at me the way men look at things they've already decided belong to them.

The realization settles cold. I don't need anyone to say it. I'm not a person here. Not even a prisoner.

I’m something to be handled. Something to be used.