Page 92 of The Ashes of Summer

He's breaking me first.

And the worst part is that it's fucking working.

Jackson crouches until his face is inches from mine.

And the amusement is gone. What's underneath it isn't anger.

It's hatred. Real, patient, load-bearing hatred, the kind a man has to feed every day for years to keep it that size.

"You know what the funny thing is, Sheriff?" His voice drops. "You spent years obsessing over Michael Miller's daughter."

His eyes go dead.

"While he was destroying my life."

I already know what he's talking about. Kurt gave me all of it in that hospital room—the club, Annalise, the arrest, the frame. I've had the whole ugly shape of it sitting in my chest for ninety minutes of mountain road.

Hearing it in his mouth is a different thing entirely.

"And where the fuck were you?" He tilts his head. "Where was the justice then?"

The question lands somewhere I can't defend.

Because I know the answer. Immediately. Without having to look for it.

I wasn’t doing the one thing the badge on my belt was supposed to mean. I was upstairs in my office with my feet on the desk, thinking about Michael Miller's daughter, thinking about Michael Miller's perfect fucking family—while a girl none of us bothered to name was being processed by a man who'd already decided how her story ended.

Jackson watches it hit me. And he smiles. Not happy. Bitter. Cruel.

"You didn't even know her name." He says it quietly, and that's what makes it worse. "Just another case file. Handled by a corrupt DA. No questions asked."

That one goes deepest of all.

Because he's right. I never saw her. Not once. Not one single time.

I have spent my whole career telling myself I'm the thing that stands between the people in that town and the men who'd eat them, and Annalise Raynor walked through my station, under my roof, and I never lifted my eyes.

"She died at the hands of Michael Miller," Jackson says. "And his daughter is the closest I'll ever get to her."

His eyes lock onto mine.

"So no, Sheriff. Taking Summer wasn't revenge for what her father did."

Every trace of expression drains out of his face.

"She's a debt I collected."

The cold goes all the way down.

"From both of you."

Chapter 31

From Both of You

Jacob

The silence after Jackson's last words sits heavy in the room.