Page 34 of The Ashes of Summer

The word barely registers.

I stop walking.

My brow furrows—confusion cutting clean through the panic for the briefest second. My eyes flick instinctively toward the brass pole and then back to the floor, my stomach tightening so violently it almost hurts.

I swallow against the dryness in my throat.

"I... I can't."

It's little more than a whisper, my voice shaking so badly I barely recognize it as my own. It's the truth. I've never danced around a pole. I wouldn't even know where to begin at the best of times, let alone in this strange room locked under the eyes of the devil.

A quiet laugh leaves him. The sound sends ice through my veins.

"You misunderstand," he says, almost amused. "That wasn't a request."

I hear the gun before I see it. Metal sliding against leather.

My breath catches somewhere behind my ribs as he lifts it, the cold muzzle settling against the side of my head with such practiced ease it feels routine. Familiar. My entire body locks so completely I can hear my own heartbeat thundering inside my ears, each pulse crashing harder than the last until it feels impossible that my chest can contain it.

"Dance."

My legs move before I've made the decision to obey.

They carry me toward the pole in slow, uneven steps, every part of me burning with humiliation before I've even done anything. I stop in front of it, wrapping my arms tightly across my chest as though I can somehow make myself smaller, disappear beneath my own skin. My fingers dig into my sides hard enough to ache, the broken ones tingling, my shoulders curling in on themselves while heat creeps relentlessly across my face.

I have never felt so exposed.

I don't even know what he wants from me.

I just know that whatever I do next will be wrong.

"DANCE!" The shout tears through the room so violently I flinch. Spit leaves his mouth with the force of it, the sound crashing into me hard enough that my ears ring. Every muscle in my body locks.

For a beat, I can't breathe.

I force my fingers around the brass immediately, the metal so cold it burns against my palm, grounding me enough to stop my knees from giving way beneath me. My heart pounds so hard it feels violent, every beat threatening to crack my ribs apart.

I move.

One slow step carrying me around the pole, then another, my feet whispering across the polished floorboards.

"Jesus Christ," Donnie mutters with a laugh. "He said dance, princess. Not go for a fucking walk."

Heat floods my face.

I shoot him a look before I can stop myself, equal parts humiliation and hatred, but it disappears the second Jackson shifts his weight.

Don't.

Don't make him angry.

My grip tightens around the pole until my knuckles ache.

I close my eyes for half a second, trying to remember something—anything—I've seen before. A film. A music video. Women laughing around chrome poles while men threw money and tucked it into their underwear.

I force myself into a slow turn instead, letting one foot cross over the other as I awkwardly pull myself into an unsteady spin. The room tilts around me. My stomach rolls. The last few days crash over me all at once—the fear, the exhaustion, the grief—and my balance disappears with it.

My foot slips. The world lurches. A gasp catches in my throat as I stumble, my shoulder clipping the pole before both hands clamp around it hard enough to stop me hitting the floor.