Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Aligning
Becky
By the time Carrson strolls in, I’m buried behind stacks of paper that rise like skyscrapers, some of them taller than my head.
He leans over, careful not to disturb anything.
“How’s it going in here?”
I gesture to each stack as I name them. “Finances, politics, illegal activities, research and miscellaneous.” I point to the smallest pile. “Which includes a dry-cleaning receipt from 1952.”
Carrson’s eyebrows lift, and he hums, impressed.
“That receipt,” I add, tapping the pile, “is the only thing in this entire room with a date on it or anything identifying.”
His smile deepens, but he doesn’t say anything.
He moves behind me and drops into the rolling desk chair, then nudges himself closer with his feet. The wheels squeak softly as he pulls beside me.
I peer up at him. “Please tell me that you didn’t fabricate this entire thing as a ruse to get me to clean out your father’s office.”
He shrugs lightly, “The lawyers are always asking for stuff, and I don’t know where anything is.” His eyes sweep the room, eyebrows drawing down into a scowl. “I hate it in here,” he adds in a hushed voice, “Can’t stand the smell.”
I glare up at him, angry and maybe a little hurt that he used me like this.
His hands go up. “Hey,” he says, half-laughing, “you wanted to see. Little Miss if there’s a locked door, I’m going to open it Dawson.”
I cross my arms over my chest and huff.
“Besides,” he smiles, “I know you. You won’t stop until you see it all. I’d rather give it to you than have you take it and then have to fight with you over it.”
His lips tilt higher and he laughs, “Don’t get me wrong,” he adds. “I like fighting with you. How angry you get. How fiery.” He gazes down at me through his lashes. “But not over this.”
“Oh,” I say, a little breathless. “Okay.”
He tips the chair back, studying me. “Didn’t you learn anything interesting?”
My eyes drop back to the papers, to the neat stacks I’ve built around me, and for a moment I stare at them like they’re separate things. I’ve spent the last half hour breaking them apart, sorting, labeling, containing, convincing myself that if I could divide it cleanly enough, it would make sense.
But it doesn’t. Because it’s not separate. It’s one thing, everything, woven together.
This must be The Order, or at least the work they do. And if that’s true, they’re not only a part of the world. They’re directing it.
I hold up the paper with the rules on it. The part about bonding and mothers and fathers. “I don’t understand this.”
Carrson takes it from me and reads, his eyes moving rapidly over the text and his lip caught between his teeth. When he’s done, he hands it back. “That’s explaining how it works. The Order. It’s really all about children.”
“Children?” I echo.
He nods once, leaning back in the chair. "This lineage designation part is about how we're named—"
"Oh!" I interrupt. "I already figured that part out. All the boys have -son on their last name. I think to show who they belong to. Like who their father is."
Carrson nods, “You’re right. Good job.”
I shrug, trying to play it cool. “I’m not stupid.”
“No,” he says. “You’re really fucking smart, Becky.”
I shrug, going for nonchalant but the approval in his eyes makes me feel ten inches taller. Like I put on a pair of really high stilettos. The kind I’ve seen the sisters wear when they’re going to a party.
“There’s more though,” Carrson explains, “Once a man receives a son his name changes and loses the -son. So If I have a son I’ll become Carr and that child will be Carrson.”
“Receives?” I repeat.
Carrson’s expression shutters slightly. “That’s the language they use.”
I think about that for a minute, my mind flying to the computer in his office. The long lists of Carr’s repeating. It makes a lot more sense now.
While I’ve been silent, Carrson has already moved on to the next article. He points to the part labeled as succession. “Men in The Order can bond up to three women.”
“Like Lou and her boyfriend at Ashford House?” I ask, picturing that scar on Lou’s hand. How deep it was.
“Exactly. It’s…” He pauses, searching for the right word. “More serious than dating. Even more permanent than marriage.”
“You just made it more confusing.”
His mouth twitches. “When an heir is approved to continue his line,” he taps the page, “That’s when they’re ready to become parents. The man chooses one of his bonded women to elevate to “mother” status. She receives one to three daughters.”
“Receives?” I repeat.
Carrson’s expression shutters slightly. “That’s the language they use.”
He goes on, “The Mother raises daughters, but the father only raises one son. Three to one. It keeps the numbers balanced for the next generation of bonds. The kids aren’t siblings.
The boys and the girls. They aren’t related biologically.
The Mother moves to a separate house to raise the daughters and the Father raises his son. ”
“Separately?” I confirm, still confused by that part of it.
“That’s the tradition.”
I stare at him. “Why?”
Carrson shrugs lightly, but there’s tension beneath it now.
“Control,” he says simply. “They want the kids raised in certain ways, especially the boys. A mother nurtures,” he says quietly.
“The Order doesn’t want boys nurtured. They want them hardened.
For us boys to grow up strong, brutal, lethal when we need to be. ”
His mouth turns down at the corners, resentful.
“What happens to the other women?” I ask. “Aren’t there two more bonded to the man who don’t ever become Mothers?”
“They stay bonded. Live with the man for the rest of their lives,” He huffs a laugh that’s more bitter than humorous.
“Can’t have the men sleeping alone, you know.
Not that they would be anyway. There’s always the whorehouses here in town.
God knows the men goes there all the time.
My father spent more time with the prostitutes than he did at home. ”
I look back down at the paper, processing.
Bonded females. Mother status. Approved offspring allocation.
The language is so cold and clinical. Like someone took the idea of love and carved all the humanity out of it.
“What happens if someone breaks the rules?”
Carrson stares at me for a long minute, silent. Finally, he reaches forward and plucks the paper from my hands, folding it once. “You ask a lot of questions, Becky.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
A faint smile touches his mouth, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No,” he agrees quietly. “It wasn’t. What else do you want to know?”
I narrow my eyes at him, making it clear I think his answer is bullshit. But Carrson doesn’t budge. He just leans back in the chair like he can outwait me forever.
Which, annoyingly, he probably can.
I think, trying to come up with something important before he decides he’s done entertaining my interrogation.
“Does it ever make you feel small?” I ask.
Carrson furrows his brow, “What?”
“All this?” I point, “It’s so big. The Order.”
He straightens, lighter now that we’ve moved from talk about children and parents. “That’s not even the whole thing. Just the American part.”
My eyes widen at that.
“There are branches all over the world. Other universities too,” Carrson lowers his voice, becomes conspiratorial. “One time, my father told me there was a college in Ireland with kids like Ashford House, except he said those kids were psychic. Like they could read each other’s mind and shit.”
“No way,” I scoff.
He nods. “I’m dead serious, although my father had a few screws loose, and he liked to mess with me, so I never believed what he said.”
Carrson grows thoughtful, returning to my question, “It does make me feel small, especially because I don’t understand it all yet, but I hope once I’m in charge it will make me feel bigger, maybe, I don’t know, powerful. In control.” He lets out a wistful sigh, “I’ve never really felt like that.”
I crawl over to sit by his feet, wanting to be near him.
“But you’re in charge of Ashford House,” I say, “Doesn’t that make you powerful?”
“I’m not sure,” he hangs his head. “Jackson’s right, as much as I hate to admit it. I lead, but…” He exhales. “I’m not a great leader.”
“Why not?”
He rubs the back of his neck, “I can fight and win, that’s the easy part.” He pauses and I don’t interrupt. I wait, watching him, letting the silence do its work. “It’s everything after that’s a problem.”
I tilt my head at that. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t make anyone listen. It doesn’t make them loyal.” His gaze comes back to mine. “They fall in line when they have to. The second I let my guard down they turn to someone else.”
“So make them want to follow you,” I say.
“I don’t know if I can. I’m not good at faking it,” he says. “Managing them. Pretending I care about every minor problem.” His jaw flexes. “It’s inefficient.”
I study him, turning that over.
He isn’t unsure, I decide.
He’s uninterested.
“That doesn’t make you a bad leader,” I say. “It makes you a selective one. You don’t lack control,” I continue. “You lack a reason to use it.”
“You think?” His eyes narrow thoughtfully.
“Yes.” I scoot closer until my shoulder rests lightly against his leg, drawn in by him. “Right now, you’re winning because you can. Because you’re stronger than them.”
“I am,” he says evenly.
“I know.” My voice lowers slightly, not challenging. Aligning.
He doesn’t interrupt, so I keep going. “You could do more than keep them in line.” I let the silence stretch out, let him think it through.
His gaze holds mine. “Such as?”
“You could decide what matters. What gets attention. What gets resources.” I pause, then add, quieter, “What gets funded.” I gesture over at the pile of paper I’ve titled Research.
I don’t look at him when I say it. “Remi died because cystic fibrosis isn’t a big enough disease to matter. Not enough people get it to make it worth the investment.” My throat goes scratchy, but I push through. “That’s the excuse, anyway.”
Carrson stays quiet, but I can tell he’s listening.
“Once you’re out of school,” I continue, softer now, “once you’re actually the leader you could change things like that.”
He doesn’t move, but his attention doesn’t waver either. “That’s not how it works.”
“Isn’t it?” I counter. “You said it yourself. Whoever wins leads.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m in charge of everything.”
“No,” I say, “But it means you’re closer to it than anyone else.”
He gives his head a dismissive shake, “It’s not that simple.”
“But it is that possible,” I answer, keeping my voice calm. I don’t want this turning into an argument. That won’t get me anywhere. “You’re already doing the hardest part,” I point out. “You’re winning. The rest…” I let the words trail. “The rest is deciding it’s worth it.”
He studies me like he’s trying to figure out what I’m really saying, what I want from him. “What exactly do you think I’d do with it?” he asks.
I don’t answer right away.
Because this is the part that matters.
“You’d make things better,” I say finally.
It’s vague on purpose. Safer that way. But the truth sits just beneath it, he could decide what gets saved. Who gets saved. How to fix things.
A faint curve touches his mouth again, but now it stays. “You think I’d suddenly care about that stuff?”
“No,” I say honestly, thinking back to what Lou told me, about how competitive he was as a kid. “I think you’d care about winning.”
His attention snaps to me.
“And if winning meant building a thing that actually mattered,” I add, quieter now, “you wouldn’t ignore it.”
He looks at me, really looks. Without breaking eye contact, I lean forward and rest my head against his leg. I prepare myself for him to stiffen, to push me away, but instead his hand comes down to slowly stroke my hair. My eyes slide shut from how good that feels.
Since the night downstairs, I’ve been off balance, but right now everything is calm. Quiet.
Like it’s all going to be alright.