Page 28 of The Ashes of Summer

The handwriting is rushed, uneven, as though whoever wrote it was watching the door while they did.

Just four words.

The sheriff is coming.

Jacob. He knows where they’ve taken me.

My fingers tighten around the napkin until the paper crumples beneath them, hope rushing through me so suddenly it steals the air from my lungs.

The certainty lasts only a second before doubt crashes into it, extinguishing it almost as quickly as it came. Why would Harris do this? Why would he risk leaving me a message if Jackson controls every inch of this house? My eyes lift instinctively toward the bathroom door, the thought of hidden cameras settling over me like a second skin.

Is he watching? Did he see my face when I unfolded the napkin? Was that the point? Give me hope... then stand back and enjoy what happens when he takes it away.

I close my eyes and force myself to breathe through the panic before it has the chance to grow. Panic is exactly what Jackson wants. Panic is how people stop thinking.

Harris paused.

The memory comes back with startling clarity. The way his hand lingered on the handle. The slight dip of his head. The tremor I'd noticed in his hands long before he'd reached the door. It wasn't much—barely a heartbeat—but it hadn't felt rehearsed. It felt like a man standing on the edge of a decision he'd already made, carrying the weight of it alone.

Could I be wrong? Maybe.

In this house I could be wrong about everything. Every smile has the potential to hide cruelty. Every act of kindness could be another piece of Jackson's game. Every word that reaches me has already passed through hands I don't trust. But hope isn't something I can afford to throw away simply because I'm afraid of it.

I fold the napkin carefully, smoothing each crease flat before crossing to the vanity. A packet of tampons sits beside the sink. I open one, pull the cotton free and slide the folded note into the wrapper before sealing it again and slipping it back among the others. No one will think to look there, but I’ll know exactly where it is. And when this place starts trying to convince me I've imagined the life I left behind... when the walls close in and Jackson begins picking apart the pieces of me one by one... when I start forgetting the woman I fought so hard to become…

I'll read those four words again.

The sheriff is coming.

My gaze lifts to the mirror. For a long moment I do nothing but look. The bruise blooming along my jaw has darkened overnight, the shape of his fingers beginning to stain my skin, but it isn't the bruise that holds my attention. It's my wrists. The marks are fading now, little more than pale shadows where Jacob's handcuffs once circled them, yet seeing them sends me somewhere else entirely. Back to his bedroom. Back to the night he stripped away every defense I'd spent years hiding behind. Back to the man who demanded more from me than I believed I had to give and refused to let me settle for anything less.

He tore me apart until there was nothing left to hide behind, and somewhere in the wreckage he left me with something I never expected to find.

Myself.

The woman staring back at me isn't fearless. She isn't untouched. She's bruised, exhausted and terrified of what waits beyond that bedroom door. But she has survived Jacob Darnell. She has survived losing everything she thought made her who she was. She has stood in the fire before.

Jackson doesn't know that yet. He thinks he kidnapped someone fragile—someone who will submit. But I won’t.

I straighten my shoulders, hold my own gaze for one final second, then turn and walk back into the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed. And I wait.

Chapter 8

Wake Him Up

Jacob

Idrive like something's chasing me—when I'm the one doing the hunting.

The engine growls under my foot as I push it harder than I should, tires biting into the asphalt, the road unrolling ahead of me in the kind of straight line that makes it too easy to go too fast and not care about it.

Rush hour clogs every lane, cars stacked too close, moving too slow, but the second the sirens hit, everything shifts. They part for me like they're supposed to, like I'm headed toward something that needs fixing. I catch glimpses of faces in mirrors as I pass—people watching, assuming I'm about to save someone.

If they knew where I was actually going.

My grip tightens on the wheel.

I'm not going to save anyone. Not today. Today I'm going to sit beside a man in a hospital bed and make him understand, very clearly, that the only decision he has left to make is how much pain he wants to be in before he starts talking.