Page 44 of The Ashes of Summer

The second he put his hands on Summer and tried dragging her out of my house, he'd already decided how that night was going to end. There wasn't another version of it. I'd still have put him on the floor. I'd still have broken every fucking bone I needed to make sure he never laid another finger on her.

I'd do it again. That part doesn't haunt me. But if I'd known then what I know now—if I'd known he'd lied about who he was, that every answer I've been chasing might be buried somewhere inside that fractured skull—I would've shown a little more restraint.

Not mercy. Never mercy. Control. Just enough to leave him conscious. Just enough to make him talk.

Instead, I let my temper have the last few blows, and now I'm standing beside his hospital bed waiting for a man I despise to wake the fuck up because he might be the only person left who can tell me where Summer is.

I look down at him, irritation settling somewhere beneath my ribs like a live wire that never switches off. Back then he was just another piece of shit trying to take Summer. Now he's something else entirely. A question. A fucking answer waiting to happen.

A ghost.

Everything about him was a lie, right down to the name we'd buried him under while he sat in this hospital bed. Somewhere between Summer disappearing and Moore resurfacing, every thread I'd been pulling started leading back to the same place, and somehow this bastard was tangled up in the middle of it.

He knows something. He has to.

Whether he was working for Moore, watching Moore, running from Moore, or playing his own game altogether, I don't know yet. But coincidence stopped existing the moment Summer was taken, and I'm done pretending otherwise.

Every hour he stays unconscious is another hour the truth stays buried with him.

I stare at the slow rise and fall of his chest, waiting for some sign that his eyes might finally open.

"You've slept long enough," I mutter quietly, my voice almost lost beneath the rhythm of the monitors. "Wake the fuck up."

Because when you do… I'm going to tear every secret out of you.

Tamara steps up beside me without a word, her attention fixed on the man in the bed. She presses two fingers deep into the muscle at the top of his shoulder, hard enough to force a pain response if there's enough of him in there to feel it. I don't ask what she's doing. I already know. It’s one of the things learned in the field to check for any signs of life.

My eyes never leave his face. They haven't since I walked through the fucking door.

Nothing happens. The monitor keeps its steady rhythm. Oxygen hisses quietly through the cannula beneath his nose. His chest rises and falls with the same slow consistency that's been driving me insane for days.

Then I see it.

It's small. So fucking small most people would've missed it completely. A twitch at the corner of his eye. His brow pinches together for the briefest second before relaxing again, followed by the faintest movement in his fingers where they rest against the sheet.

There. Finally, he's fighting his way back.

"How long until he wakes?" I ask, already knowing the answer won't be the one I want.

Tamara checks his pupils before looking across at me. "It varies. Some patients regain consciousness and become lucid fairly quickly. Others don't. He'll be disorientated, confused. He may not even understand where he is for a while."

"A while."

She nods once.

"Minutes. Hours. There's no way of knowing."

Hours.

Of course it could be fucking hours.

Everything about this has become a waiting game. Meanwhile Summer's out there with Moore, and every second I waste standing in this room is another second she's trapped wherever the sick bastard's decided to keep her.

I drag a hand over my mouth, trying to smother the frustration before it boils over, but it sits too deep for that.

"No."

Tamara frowns. "No?"