Page 35 of The Ashes of Summer

Silence.

I drag myself upright, shame burning hotter than the ache spreading through my palms.

"Music," Jackson says without taking his eyes off me.

I know he isn't speaking to me. Behind him, I hear Donnie unlock his phone.

A second later a heavy bassline floods the room—piercing electronic beats rattling through the speakers on his cell. Jackson's expression darkens immediately.

"What the fuck is this?"

Donnie looks up.

"...Music."

"It's noise."

"You said⁠—"

"I said music."

Donnie opens his mouth to respond but Jackson strides past him before he starts the sentence, crossing to the record player tucked neatly beside the drinks cabinet. His fingers move with practiced familiarity, lifting the lid before lowering the needle onto waiting vinyl.

A soft crackle fills the room.

Then the slow, smoky swell of a jazz vocal rolls through the speakers, rich brass and velvet vocals wrapping themselves around the silence like cigarette smoke.

And then, everything changes.

Jackson closes his eyes for the briefest moment, and for the first time, I notice his posture relax.

"There," he says quietly. "Now dance."

I let my eyes drift closed. I stop trying to hear my own heartbeat and listen instead.

The music isn't loud. It rolls gently through the room, the sound of slow brass instruments wrapping around me until the silence inside my head begins to loosen. I let the melody settle beneath my skin, following it instead of fighting it, and somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the humiliation, a memory slips quietly to the surface.

A night in the street with Constance and Adelaide. It was raining and the three of us raced down our street long before we were old enough to care who was watching. Adelaide grabbing hold of an old telegraph pole and spinning until she nearly threw herself into the road, Constance laughing so hard she could barely stand before wrapping both arms around the washing line in her garden and declaring herself a professional dancer.

Your turn, Summer.

I remember rolling my eyes. I remember giving in.

The cold rain soaking through my clothes while we spun ourselves dizzy, collapsing into wet grass afterward because none of us could stop laughing long enough to stand back up. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it. Small. Fragile.

My fingers loosen around the brass, no longer clinging to it for balance but letting it guide me instead. One slow step becomes another. My body begins to follow the music without thinking, my feet tracing quiet circles across the floorboards as the melody carries me somewhere far beyond these four walls.

For a few precious seconds, I can almost pretend.

Pretend I'm home. Pretend the rain is cold against my face. Pretend Adelaide is laughing beside me while Constance shouts that she's going to be sick from spinning so much. Pretend there isn't a man standing behind me with a gun tucked into his waistband. Pretend I haven't been stolen. Pretend I'm still eighteen years old with my whole life stretched out in front of me.

My eyes stay closed. They have to, because the second I open them, this room will still be here.

And so will he.

One second the music is carrying me somewhere else, somewhere rain-soaked and carefree, and the next I walk straight into something solid enough to stop me dead.

My breath catches. My eyes fly open.