Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Dramatic
Carrson
Becky’s asleep in my bed.
The thought hits me as strange, like it belongs to someone else. For a full minute, I stand there, watching her, half expecting the situation to correct itself. For me to blink and she’ll be gone, and this will go back to making sense.
Nothing happens.
She’s still there.
Curled on her side, swallowed by sheets that don’t belong to her, wearing my favorite sleep shirt.
The extra soft one. The room is silent in a way it hasn’t been in days, the kind of quiet that follows disruption.
Even in sleep, she’s not entirely at peace.
There’s a faint tension in her brow. Like whatever drives her hasn’t let go just because her body finally did.
I exhale through my nose.
This isn’t a problem I had planned for.
I reach for the notepad on my desk and tear off a sheet, jotting down a quick note before setting it on the nightstand where she’ll see it if she wakes. It’s a practical thing. Necessary.
I don’t linger after that.
I grab my jacket and step out through the back doors of Ashford House, letting them shut quietly behind me.
The air outside is cool, carrying the faint scent of chlorine from the pool and damp grass, thick with that heavy, humid, Southern stillness.
The yard stretches wide between the fraternity and the sorority, less a backyard than a private courtyard with its manicured lawn.
Ashford House looms behind me, all tall columns and straight lines, its peaked windows dim at this hour. Across the yard, Rosewood Hall rises in contrast, lighter, more graceful, its French doors and ivy-covered brick softening the structure without making it any less imposing.
Rosewood’s front entrance faces the opposite side, tucked under a wide porch framed with carved railings and climbing roses that have been pruned back for winter, their branches bare and tipped with thorns.
I take the steps two at a time and reach for the brass knocker fixed to the center of the door, shaped like a rose, its edges worn smooth from years of use.
I bring it down three times.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound echoes through the house. The door opens, and one of the sisters stands there. I should know her name but I don’t.
“Tell Lou to meet me in the back,” I tell her, then walk away without waiting for her response.
I make my way to the back patio and take a seat at one of the picnic tables they use when the weather turns warm, though it isn’t anything close to that now. January has stripped the place down to its bones, leaving the air even colder here in the shade. I tug my jacket down over my hands.
This is as far as I go. It’s the only place I can meet Lou.
I can’t step foot in Rosewood Hall. Men aren’t allowed there unless specifically invited, and women can’t come over to Ashford House until after five and even then, only if they’re bonded to a brother.
The rules between the houses are older than any of us, tradition that’s followed without question.
Boundaries meant to divide. To protect.
I lean back against the hard wooden bench. The quiet is broken only by the dry whisper of branches overhead and the occasional call of a bird in the distance, faint and fleeting. Somewhere farther off, a door shuts, the sound carrying before the silence closes back in.
I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand, slower than I should be. The past four days are catching up to me. There were times I was sure Becky wasn’t going to make it.
I haven’t told her that. Haven’t told her about the way her body seized when the fever spiked too high, how her back arched and her eyes rolled back as if something had taken over and refused to let go.
Or how she drifted in and out of consciousness, caught somewhere between this world and another, talking to people who weren’t there, reaching for them like she could touch them if she tried hard enough.
The way she called out for them, voice breaking.
There was one name she kept coming back to. The way she said it, yearning and desperate, made him sound like everything to her.
Remi.
I don’t know who he is.
A friend. A lover. Someone she lost, or someone she’s trying not to.
I tell myself it was the fever talking, her mind grasping at whatever it could while her body burned. I shouldn’t have noticed. I definitely shouldn’t be jealous of a man who might not even exist.
I am.
Which is stupid.
It’s probably the fatigue. The constant vigilance of watching something fragile, knowing it could break if I let my attention slip. I’m not used to taking care of anyone, and the responsibility has gotten under my skin more than I expected.
Which is why I’m here. About to do a thing I hate.
A petite brunette with a heart-shaped face and warm blue eyes approaches, wrapped in her fuzzy bathrobe. She holds a mug in each hand, both steaming.
“Hey, Lulu,” I greet the head of the sisters, the female equivalent of me, as she sits down next to me. Without a word, she passes me a cup of coffee, and I wrap my hands around it, grateful for the warmth.
“You didn’t need to rush.” I quirk a smile at her and point to the robe.
“Are you kidding?” she teases right back, more at ease with me than almost anyone. “The great Carrson Ashford pays me a visit before 8 a.m.? I’m not wasting time getting dressed.” She grins. “What’s up?”
“I need a favor.”
Louellen nearly tips sideways off the bench, catching herself with a startled laugh.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she says, her Southern drawl thickening as she presses a hand to her chest. “You’re asking for help?
” Her eyes go wide as she leans back, squinting up at the dull gray stretch of winter sky above us.
“Are there flying pigs, or has hell officially frozen over?”
I set my coffee down harder than I need to, the ceramic knocking once against the table, and push to my feet.
“If you’re going to be like that,” I say, my voice going cold, “forget it.”
I turn before she can answer, already done with the conversation, but her laughter follows me, bright, unrestrained, breaking through the quiet of the back yard.
“Hey—no, don’t go,” she calls, laughing. Her hand lifts like she’s going to grab my arm, then stops and falls back to her side. She knows better. “Stop being so dramatic and sit down,” she adds, smiling. She pats the spot on the bench next to her. “I’m done. I promise.”
I hesitate, long enough to make the point, then turn back.
“You’re the one being dramatic,” I mutter.
“Sure,” she says, lightly rolling her eyes. “Says the guy who tried to storm off in under ten seconds.”
I don’t bother answering because, honestly, she’s not wrong.
Lou tilts her head, studying me, the teasing relaxing into warmth. “You called me Lulu,” she says. “You haven’t done that in years.” A small smile curves at her mouth. “And you asked for a favor, which you never do.” Her voice drops. “You’ve got me curious. What’s up?”
I tell her about Becky the way I handle everything else, clear, reduced to facts. No emotion.
Lou doesn’t interrupt. She listens, the way she always has. When I’m done, she studies me, her expression changing from amused to thoughtful. “So,” she says, drawing the word out slightly, “what made you bring her home?”
“The dorms are incompetent.”
She nods, like she expected that answer. “And that’s the only reason?” Lou watches me. “You don’t usually involve yourself, not unless you have to.”
“I had to,” I say without hesitation. I take another sip of coffee, letting the heat burn, before I speak again. “She was alone,” I say, quieter now as the image returns of Becky’s flushed skin, her breathing too shallow, the way no one understood how close she was to slipping away.
“You should’ve seen her,” I add, my voice roughening despite myself. “She was that sick, and no one noticed. No one cared. No one stepped in.”
I take another sip, slower now, trying to force my anger down, but it doesn’t fully go.
Lou nods, her expression softening. “Yeah,” she murmurs. “I know what that looks like.”
I clench the mug. “I’m talking about Becky.”
“Of course,” she says easily. “That’s what I meant.”
I glance at her, long enough to make the boundary clear.
“She’s safer now.” I don’t question it. “Where I can keep an eye on her.”
Lou’s mouth curves, “Because that doesn’t sound possessive at all.” She softens it with a hint of a smile, but her eyes stay on me. “And I’m not sure anyone would call Ashford House safe. Not for someone like her.”
I grit my teeth, irritation rising fast.
“Are you going to help me,” I ask, my tone flattening, “or not?”
“What exactly do you want?”
“For you to keep her here, at Rosewood Hall.”
“Hold up,” Lou says, putting her coffee cup down as her eyebrows hit her hairline. “You want me to take her in? To bring your Becky here? To Rosewood Hall to live?”
I cross my ankle over my knee and send her a glare. “She’s not my Becky and yes. That’s what I want.”
“But Carrson,” Lou says, shaking her head so hard her earrings swing, “you know I can’t do that. She’s not a Sister. Not a Daughter of The Order.”
I prop my chin in my hand. “I know, but there must be some way.”
Lou leans forward, so close it makes me tense, but I don’t back up. I know she won’t hurt me. Of all the brothers and sisters I grew up with, she was always the nicest. The only one who treated me like I was normal, one of them.
A mischievous smile plays on Lou’s lips. “Unless you bond her—”
“Stop.” The word comes out harsher than I mean, my hand lifting automatically like I can physically cut the idea off. “I’m not bonding her. Ever.” I glance at her. “She’d drive me insane. You’ve never met anyone so stubborn.”
Lou smiles at that. Not teasing anymore. Fond. She leans in a little, closer than most people would dare. “Maybe that’s exactly what you need,” she says quietly. “Someone who doesn’t back down.” Her eyes meet mine, “Someone who treats you like you’re…you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I can’t bond her,” I say, quieter now. “Or anyone.” I focus on the ground between my shoes, tracing cracks in the pavers with the tip of a shoe. A long pause before I add, “I’d be bad at it.”
Lou’s gaze is on me, but I refuse to meet it.
“Carrson—”
“Drop it.”
My words come out clipped. Harder than they need to be, but I don’t take them back.
The air between us fills with unspoken words. I brace myself for whatever she says next, knowing I won’t like it. But Lou doesn’t push. She’s always been good at that, knowing when to stop.
“Fine,” she huffs instead, and I still don’t face her because if I do, I’ll see it—the understanding, the disappointment, or, even worse, the pity.
I hate it when she looks at me like that, so I keep my head down. It’s easier that way.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves.” Lou’s gaze moves past me, out over the yard where the pool reflects the gray sky, the surface unbroken.
She goes quiet as she thinks, lifting her arms to gather her shoulder-length hair and pull it into a loose ponytail, securing it with a band from her wrist. Just like that, she’s younger, less like the woman everyone answers to now, more like the girl I grew up with back in Ashport, sitting beside me and talking about nothing.
The one who learned how to lead with soft words and a smile, without breaking people. A rare skill in our world.
Lou takes a sip of her coffee. “Becky doesn’t know anything, does she?”
I knew it would come down to this. All our secrets.
“I’m not sure what she knows,” I say, which isn’t totally a lie. As much as I’d like to think it’s my stunning personality that brings Becky out to the clearing every day, I’ve considered the alternative.
The possibility that it’s not me she’s after, but what I am.
My name. The Order.
“Rosewood isn’t subtle once you’re inside it. She’ll notice things. Anyone would.” There’s no accusation in Lou’s voice. “And once she starts asking questions…” She trails off, not finishing the thought. She doesn’t have to.
I lean back slightly, interlace my fingers in my lap. “We don’t answer them.”
“You know that’s not how this works,” she says quietly.
The silence between us turns heavy.
“You’re right,” I say finally. The words ring hollow as soon as they leave my mouth. My eyes go to Ashford House. To my room. To her.
“But I’m not sending her back.”