Chapter 14 #3
We did it again. And again. Until I stopped flinching. Until I was efficient. Lethal. A true son of The Order. It’d almost been a relief to go off to college, where I could choose my own weapon, the blade over the bang.
“That was it,” I tell Laurel, pushing aside those old dark memories. “How I learned to fight, to track, to stand up for myself.” I look over and switch the focus back to her. “I’ll teach you those things too. Until Sam, or anyone, won’t ever be able to knock you down again.”
A glint of challenge flashes in her eyes. She smiles and says, “Until you can’t knock me down?”
I give her a crooked grin. “Let’s keep our goals realistic, Kitten.”
***
Laurel
I laugh when Carrson says that. Tells me to be realistic, that I’ll never beat him, but inside I’m still reeling over what he said about how he grew up. It’s unhinged. Tragic. I mean, who grows up like that? Tutors in the morning, tactical assault in the afternoon.
The worst part? He didn’t say it like he was bragging. He said it like it was nothing. Like it was normal. Like there wasn’t a world out there where kids grew up learning to draw pictures, not weapons.
Plus, I have a feeling there’s a lot he’s leaving out. There’d been a moment, fleeting but there, when he’d looked hollowed out, almost broken. When I’d wanted for a split second to reach out to him, but that’s ridiculous.
He’s my enemy.
The reason I’m in this mess in the first place.
Carrson tips his head back against the side of the bed and closes his eyes, as if our conversation is over, which it isn’t.
Not even close.
I still have lots of questions.
“What about the Sisters? Are they trained like that too? So they can fight?”
Carrson nods. “Not as intensely as the Brothers, but yeah. Every one of them can shoot a gun, throw a punch.”
I try to picture it. That girl Cicley at a shooting range or throwing elbows in a sparring ring. It doesn’t compute.
“That’s why Samantha was able to get you down so fast,” he adds, with his jaw clenched. Like just saying her name has him on edge. “Don’t let the lip gloss fool you.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then I ask, a little too casually, “Did you two ever train together?” I don’t know why I’m curious, why I care. It’s just I want to know if he’s taught her, touched her, the way he just did with me.
He exhales through his nose. “Training’s kept separate. Brothers and Sisters don’t mix, except for social events. Order functions.”
I tilt my head. “What kind of Order functions?”
I’m already picturing silk gowns with hidden daggers, goblets filled with blood, panthers on diamond leashes.
“You know. Birthday parties. Anniversary dinners. The usual.”
I blink. “You mean, like…ponies and party hats? With cake and noisemakers?”
He laughs at that. An ironic kind of chuckle.
“When we were little, yeah. Not that we were ever normal kids. We’d play tag, but it always ended with someone bleeding on the grass or tackled into a fountain.
” His voice drops, turning grim. “Everything was a test. Who was stronger, faster, smarter, more obedient. Even at seven, we knew trust was a weakness and closeness was temporary. That we were pitted against each other.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says it. Just stares at the ceiling like he’s watching memories crawl across it.
My throat tightens. I fall quiet, trying to imagine Carrson and Samantha and all the others growing up like that.
Not as allies, but as adversaries in training.
I picture them as toddlers in pressed uniforms, sticky with cake, stealing each other’s presents and crying about it.
I picture Samantha with a ponytail and a skinned knee, shoving some other girl out of the frame so she could stand next to Carrson in a photo.
I imagine when they were older, awkward, with braces and pimples, sipping sparkling cider at galas and glaring at each other while their parents bartered their futures in the corner of the room.
I swallow hard. “You all have a lot of history together,” I say quietly, wincing at how flimsy the words sound.
Carrson doesn’t seem like someone who lets people in often, which makes me painfully aware of what this is, him cracking the door open, just enough for me to peek inside. I don’t take that for granted.
He shrugs, overly nonchalant. “History. Grudges. Same thing.”
Part of me wants to leave it there. Let the silence settle and take this moment for what it is. I can’t. Curiosity always wins with me.
I take a deep breath, exhale, and ask, “What about when you were older? Did the birthday parties end?”
“Nope. They just changed.” He lets out a hollow laugh.
“There was always some gathering. Legacy dinners, bonding ceremonies, reaffirmation rites. That kind of shit.” He glances over, his jaw tight.
“You’d think an organization built on silence, power, and control would want to stay in the shadows, but nah.
They throw more parties than a debutante during ball season. Half the calendar’s catered.”
I blink at that.
He keeps going. “It’s all for show, of course. The suits, the speeches, the matching dresses. They’re a glossy mask to hide what’s underneath. If you smile wide enough, flash your watch, parade your Bonded and your kid, no one gets the bright idea to challenge you. To take what’s yours.”
A beat. Then his voice lowers. “That’s how most people act, anyway.
Not my father, though. He never talked about me.
He’d point to someone else’s kid, slap them on the back, and say,” Carrson drops into a low, overly dramatic drawl, as if he’s imitating his dad, “‘Now that’s a future councilman.’” Then he shrugs. “Like I wasn’t standing right there.”
I don’t say anything for a minute, don’t even know what to say to that. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him, overlooked by the one person who was supposed to see you first. It makes something sharp twist in my chest.
Sympathy. Pity.
Carrson wouldn’t want either, so I bury it. Move on to my next question.
“For these events, the parties and balls,” I ask, “did you and Samantha go together? As a date?”
“Never.”
“I don’t understand.” I lift my hands, questioning. “She said you were hers.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. “I’m not. I never was.”
I roll onto my stomach, prop my elbows on the floor, and rest my chin in my hands. “Why would she say that?”
The corner of his lip curls into something grim.
“Like I said, we grew up together. Her mother and my father are both on the High Council, so we were thrown together a lot.” A long pause.
I can practically see him flipping through memories, handpicking which ones to give me.
Finally, after a deep sigh, he says, “When we were thirteen, I found Sam in my bedroom, barely dressed.”
“What?!” I sit up fast, twisting toward him. “That’s, that’s disgusting.”
His eyes finally open, flick to mine, then fall back to the floor. “Yeah. Her mom left her there. As a sort of…gift.”
My stomach flips, as a sick feeling rises. “What the hell? You were kids.”
He huffs out a breath. A bitter laugh. “I had no idea what to do. I mean, I knew theoretically what men did with women, my father made sure to educate me early about that, but thirteen-year-old me still thought girls had cooties.”
Another not-really-a-laugh, this one quieter.
Sadder. “I screamed and ran.” He sighs, less amused now.
“It’s been like that ever since. Sam throwing herself at me at every opportunity.
Showing up in skimpy clothing, climbing into my bed when I was asleep.
At my eighteenth birthday, she drugged me.
God knows what would have happened if Thomson hadn’t noticed. He got me out of there.”
He glances at me, and I know what he’s thinking.
Prom night. Preston. Me.
I look away.
Then I think of Samantha, with her perfect body, teeth, and hair.
I hate myself for the glance I give my own body. Too-small breasts. Too-wide thighs. Knobby knees. Don’t even get me started on my feet.
“Nothing ever happened between you?” I ask doubtfully. “She’s beautiful.”
He snorts and shakes his head. “As are all poisonous flowers. Pretty on the outside. Toxic on the inside.” His gaze stays fixed on the ceiling, voice turning sharper.
“Samantha doesn’t want me, anyway. Not really.
She wants the power that comes with me. To her, I’m not a person. I’m just a crown to wear.”
The words hang there, heavy and sour.
I swallow, unsure what to say. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that he knows that, or that he’s gotten so used to being wanted for what he is, not who he is, that he says it like it’s no big deal.
Maybe that’s the part that hits hardest. The way he’s so casually resigned to it.
Like love was never meant for someone like him.
A pause and then he continues, “It doesn’t matter, though. What I want. What Sam wants. The truth is that her mom has been positioning her, grooming her, since she was young to be my Bonded. Everyone assumes we’ll end up together.”
He adds, “Her mother asked my father for a bonding agreement.” When my brow furrows, he explains, “It’s like an arranged marriage, promised young, bonded later. All politics, strategy.”
My skin crawls at that, the idea of children used as currency.
He sighs. “Sam’s mom has asked for it a million times. My father always says no.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why not bond her if she’s perfect for you, at least on paper?”
Carrson leans his head back against the bed, staring at the ceiling like it’s safer than looking at me.
“Because bonding elevates her family. Makes her line equal to mine. My father doesn’t want that. He wants the power kept clean. Controlled. His and mine, but only because I’m an extension of him.”
I piece his explanation together and anger stirs, warming my blood, making it pound in my ears.
“Let me see if I have this straight. Sam’s spent her entire life being set up to bond with you, but you reject her and bond me, a total stranger, and then you send me to her.
Unprotected. With no knowledge of your complicated history? ”
He eyes me cautiously. As you would something wild, a rabid animal. Something that bites. For the first time, there’s hesitation when he answers, “Yes. Um, that about covers it.”
I shoot to my feet, my fists clenched.
“Get up,” I snap. “I want to hit you again.”