Page 70 of The Ashes of Summer

"You will do as you’re told." He tells me.

Something in me comes loose. I surge up off the floor swinging, and my fist glances off the hand he lifts to shield himself—my already-broken fingers grinding back out of place—but I'm so numb, so wrung out on adrenaline, that I barely feel it land. He shoves me and I go sprawling back into the bathroom door. I push myself off it, and manage to find my bearings. Then, I run.

I don't stop. I scramble across the room to the window, the one that cracks its useless two inches, and I put my mouth to the gap and scream the only name that has ever meant safe.

"JACOB!"

Then something slams into the back of my head, and the world drops out from under me into nothing.

Chapter 23

Burn The Fucking Mountain Down

Jacob

Constance loses her shit first.

"Are you all seriously just standing here?" She shoves off the wall hard enough to send the chair beside her screeching across the floor. "What the fuck are we doing?"

Nobody answers.

Kurt's still propped against the hospital bed looking half dead, blood dried under his nose, the monitor beside him throwing out steady little beeps that feel obscene against the chaos in this room. Adelaide stands at the window hugging herself tight enough to hurt. Tamara watches Kurt like she's counting down to the next time he goes under.

And me—I'm holding still by force, because every time Michael Miller's name circles back through my skull I want to put my fist through his brother's face just to have somewhere to put it.

Constance jabs a finger at the bed. "I don't give a fuck about Jackson Moore's dead girlfriend," she spits. "Summer is alive. Right now. With him. So why are we standing around talking instead of getting her back?"

"She's right." Adelaide's voice shakes badly enough that it barely sounds like her.

Kurt drags another breath into his lungs, and it clearly costs him. "If he took her to Rivers Ridge…" His throat tightens. "You don't have time."

And I believe him. That's the worst part—I believe him.

Because Jackson didn't take her up there to kill her. He took her up there to keep her. The thought sits in the middle of my chest, ugly and rotting, and I can't put it down.

Constance is pacing now. "Okay. Fantastic. We're all terrified. Can somebody explain how we actually get her out?"

Kurt pulls the notepad closer with shaking fingers. "I can draw the Ridge."

Tamara steps in and puts a pen in his hand, tearing a clean sheet off the treatment record for him to work on.

"I know the layout," he says. "Entrances. Security routes. Blind spots."

"Draw."

He starts laying it down—roads, tree lines, the buildings, the marks where the guards stand—and the shape that comes up off the paper is worse than I braced for. Not some cabin tucked in the woods.

A fortress.

"Cameras along the perimeter," he mutters. "Guard rotations every six hours."

Constance leans in. "How many?"

"Twelve minimum."

"Jesus Christ," Adelaide whispers.

Kurt circles a stretch along one edge. "East side service access. Minimal surveillance because of the tree coverage."