Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Relentless
Carrson
Fuck. She’s here again.
Not that I expected anything different. It’s been three months now. Becky fucking Dawson. A name that sounds soft, harmless. Like she should be somewhere out in the countryside picking flowers and minding her own business instead of showing up every day to drive me crazy.
I thought I’d wear her down eventually. Ignore her long enough and she’d get bored, move on, find someone else to fixate on. That’s how it usually works, people lose interest when they don’t get a reaction.
Not her.
She sticks, like the burrs in the woods, the ones that latch onto my socks and tangle themselves so deep into the fabric that no amount of pulling gets them loose. Eventually I throw the damn things away and buy new ones.
If only it were that simple.
I can’t replace the clearing. It’s the only place that feels like it belongs to me. No noise. No expectations. No one watching. Only the trees, the dirt, things I can control.
Ashford House has been suffocating lately. The brothers follow me from room to room, talking all at the same time, waiting for directions like that’s all I’m here for.
What should we order for the party, Carrson?
What should we do about the unapproved weed on campus, Carrson?
What about Marcson’s bonding ceremony, Carrson?
On and on. Constant. Relentless. Some days I want to cover my ears and scream at them all to shut the fuck up.
But I don’t.
Because I’m an Ashford. The only one left. Which means I lead, whether I want to or not. It means every decision lands on me. Every problem. Every expectation. One day I’ll lead The Order, and there won’t be anyone above me to absorb the pressure.
Some days Ashford is less like a name and more like a noose.
Which is exactly why I need this place. The knives. The bag. The silence.
The time to become strong enough to keep everything under control.
I stand in the shadows, where she can’t see me and stare at her, absorbing every detail. Becky’s stretched out on the ground, a blanket thrown over the dirt, a book open in front of her like this is some quiet little study session instead of my space.
I tell myself she’s nothing. My eyes stay on her anyway.
Like they don’t belong to me.
Her hair falls forward as she reads, auburn strands sliding across her cheek, catching on her lips when she chews at them.
Her eyes flick up sometimes, and I feel it, that aqua gaze, even when I don’t look back.
The second I do, she’s already staring down at her book, like she wasn’t watching at all.
She hides herself under layers. Oversized flannels, loose hoodies, as if she’s trying to take up less space than she actually does. It doesn’t work.
She’d be pretty if she made any effort at all. If she styled her hair. If she wore clothing that fit. But even now, there’s something about her that stands out, that refuses to blend in no matter how hard she tries.
Not that I’ve been paying attention.
I don’t like people. Not women. Not men. Not anyone, especially not her.
I finally step into the clearing, heading for the tree.
There’s a loud inhale behind me, and I glance over in time to see Becky bolt upright, her book forgotten in her lap. Her hand flies to her mouth, those blue eyes going wide.
“What happened to you?”
I blink, caught off guard by the sound of her voice.
We go days without speaking. Weeks, sometimes. I try to remember the last time she said anything to me, my thoughts dragging back through the usual silence until they catch on it.
Her pencil. I’d snapped it clean in half and dropped the pieces into her lap.
Childish. But effective.
She’d glowered up at me like she wanted to stab me with it, her cheeks flushed pink, her mouth a thin line, lips pressed together, those blue eyes sparking.
Not scared of me, the way she should be. Not backing down. Just furious.
Her voice now is different. Softer, lower, than I’ve heard before. Which I guess makes sense because when we do speak it’s usually to snap at each other or trade snide comments.
“Did someone do that to you? Did you get in a fight?”
Her gaze moves over me as she speaks, tracing the damage. My cheek, the bruises along my ribs. Everywhere her eyes touch, heat follows, spreading across my skin, an invisible palm smoothing over each spot.
It’s not real. She’s not close enough to touch me. I know that but my body reacts like it is.
“Carrson?”
Her expression softens to match her voice, and that sits wrong. It doesn’t belong on her face. Not when she’s looking at me like that. Almost worried. Like I’m someone worth worrying about.
Awareness crawls over my skin, alive and buzzing. I roll my shoulder, trying to shake it off. It stays anyway.
I don’t like it.
Whatever this feeling is.
“It’s nothing,” I tell her, the words coming out flat, even as I wonder why I bothered answering at all. I turn my back to her, shutting her out, but I can feel her staring. It burns, an irritating, nagging heat between my shoulders.
She’s right. I did get into a fight yesterday. The one that left the bruises she sees now.
It’s been almost six months since anyone was stupid enough to challenge me for leadership of the brothers, long enough that I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have to prove it again.
Ellison was the last one. He didn’t only lose. He paid for it with an eye. I gouged it out. Slow enough that he understood exactly what was happening. Gruesome, even for me, which was exactly the point.
It bought me time.
Peace.
Not enough.
Yesterday, after dinner, Jacobson stepped up to my table and asked me to battle with him right in front of everyone. Stupid fuck. Apparently he needed a reminder, but I didn’t give him the full lesson. Just a broken leg.
My fingers flex, remembering the resistance, the give, the way pain translates through bone and muscle if you know exactly where to apply pressure. I don’t think about it. I know. The way I know how to breathe. How to stand. How to end things when they need to be ended.
That’s what Ashford men are raised for.
The lessons started before I was old enough to understand them. Before I had words for what was being done to me. I learned young that survival and obedience are the same thing. My jaw locks so hard it aches, as darker memories surface. I stop them before they can take shape.
That part of my life is over. Has been for a while.
No one gives me orders anymore.
No one touches me unless I allow it.
I made sure of that.
Jacobson didn’t last long. He got in a few hits before I put him down. Lucky ones. My ribs took the worst of it, and my cheek is swollen, but I don’t care. Pain stopped meaning anything a long time ago. It's background noise. I go through it instead of around.
Ignoring Becky, I grab a knife, my favorite one with the black handle and curved blade, and throw it hard, channeling all my restless energy, my frustration, into the motion.
Miss.
The blade plows into the dirt instead of the tree. Pain spikes along my ribs, awful enough to let me know a few of them might actually be broken, but underneath that comes a quick, unwelcome flash of embarrassment.
That she saw. Which is ridiculous. I don’t care what she thinks of me.
I throw again, and the blade drives into the tree. Much better. I wrench it free, already resetting, when a shard of bark breaks loose and snaps up into my eye.
Pain detonates. White-hot and blinding.
“Ahh,” I scream.