Page 74 of The Ashes of Summer

His hand lifts to the side of my throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there—a reminder of everything he could do and hasn't.

"That'll be all, Harris," he says, his eyes never once leaving mine, and I hear the old man's footsteps retreat from the room.

"Good girl," he murmurs, and brushes his hand from my cheek down toward my breastbone.

His mouth drops toward mine, and every part of me recoils from it—not visibly, not enough to warn him, just inside, where the real me is still buried under everything he's tried to stack on top. His grip tightens at the back of my neck. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to be sure of me.

That's his mistake.

Because he thinks I'm breaking. He thinks I won't put up a fight.

Well, he's fucking wrong.

When his face comes close enough, I bite him.

Hard.

Blood floods my tongue, hot and instant. Jackson lurches back and hisses a curse, one hand flying to his mouth, and for half a second his face empties completely—not with pain, but with shock, like the world itself has betrayed him. I don't give him the time to recover. My knee drives up with everything I have and makes contact between his legs, and the sound that tears out of him isn't quite human as he folds and crashes to the floor.

Holy shit.

For one breath I stare down at him. Then I move.

The cord is in my fist before I've finished dropping onto him, and I loop it around his throat and pull with everything I have left. He makes a strangled sound, hands flying up to claw at it, and I pull harder. Harder. My arms shake with the effort and I don't stop, because every second I've spent in this house is pouring down into my hands—every touch, every threat, every lie, every moment he looked at me and saw someone else.

"You fucking monster," I sob, the words tearing loose before I can stop them. "You psycho⁠—"

His nails rip into my wrists but I barely feel them. Because I realize that from this angle he can see our reflection in the mirror. He's looking at me. Summer. Not a memory, not a ghost—me—and I want that to be the last thing he ever sees.

But then the door bursts open.

Donnie fills the doorway, eyes wild as he takes in the floor, the cord, the two of us—and in the half-second before he moves, the truth lands cold and sick in my gut.

He's been watching. The camera in the corner, the little red eye that never blinks. This whole room streamed straight into wherever he was sitting.

Then he's across the room. His fist twists into my hair and wrenches back, and pain detonates across my scalp, but I don't let go. Not yet.

Please. Please die.

Metal flashes beside my face—a knife—and the blade saws through the cord. The tension vanishes all at once. Jackson drags in a violent, whooping breath beneath me, coughing, choking, while Donnie hauls me off him by the hair and throws me onto the bed hard enough to punch the air from my lungs. I hit the mattress and scramble back on instinct, ribs screaming.

Jackson shoves himself up against the wall. He's coughing hard, one hand at his throat, the other dragging blood from his split lip, red already striping his neck where the cord bit in. For several seconds nobody speaks. The room fills with the wet sound of him trying to breathe.

Then he lifts his head, and his eyes find mine—and what's in them floods me with a terror deeper than rage would have.

It's hurt. Like I betrayed him. Like I broke a promise I never made.

"You tried to kill me," he says hoarsely.

My chest heaves. "You kidnapped me." My voice shakes, but the words come anyway. "You killed my parents, you psycho fucking cunt."

Donnie huffs a breathless laugh. "Told you she was a fucking⁠—"

"Shut up." Jackson barks it, and Donnie goes silent instantly.

Jackson steadies himself against the wall, and I watch the exact moment the hurt drains out of his face and takes the softness with it. The ghost goes too. Whatever version of Annalise he thought he'd found in me is simply gone—and for the first time since I woke, Jackson Moore looks at Summer Miller.

And hates what he sees.