Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Carrson
I will not think about how close I just came to kissing, really kissing, Laurel Turner.
I will not think about it. About how soft her skin is, how sweet she tastes. About how one moan from her made my dick instantly hard. About how badly I want her, even now, minutes after she rejected me. Physically pushed me away.
I will not think about how good it felt when she stopped my bleeding just now in the kitchen. No one has ever taken care of me like that. It made me feel weak, but in a good way. Like I could lean on someone else for a change.
I will not think about it.
These are dangerous things, these feelings and thoughts.
I will not.
That’s the mantra I chant as I lead her through the back stairwells. The ones that spiral, twist, and turn. She doesn’t fight it, doesn’t question me, just lets me drag her down into the underbelly of Ashford House, a place the sisters never go.
Na?ve girl. Foolish girl.
Trusting too easily.
I knew by the time I was six not to let someone lead me into dark corners or unknown places. I should reprimand her, break her of the habit, but isn’t that one of the things that draws me to her? Her innocence? Her bravery? How she can look at shadows and not see the monsters within.
Dim lights buzz overhead. Concrete walls sweat with condensation. The air smells like mold and something sharp beneath it, bleach or maybe blood.
We reach the old communal bathroom no one uses anymore.
My boots echo on the tile as I push the door open.
Inside, two of my brothers are crouched in one of the stalls, gloves on, faces grim.
Ziplocs of white powder are torn open. They scoop it up and flush it down. Cocaine. Laced with something deadlier.
Laurel stiffens behind me, and I feel her step into me. Her shoulder brushes mine. I don’t pull away. If she needs my closeness in this moment, I can at least give her that.
“What is this stuff?” she asks, prodding at a streak of white powder with her sneaker-clad toe, but I have the feeling she already knows.
“Cocaine laced with fentanyl,” I answer, keeping my voice steady even though I want to scream.
To rage. To break something, anything. I saw the pictures.
Dobbs sent them to me. A fifteen-year-old girl, curled like a rag doll, laying on a dirty floor, but that’s not what got to me.
It wasn’t the bruises or the foam on her lips.
What gutted me was the bow in her hair. A red satin ribbon, tied so carefully, like she still believed in birthdays and sparkles and someone telling her she was beautiful.
“Thomson told me about this,” she says, glancing over at me. “He said this is why you had to kill that guy the night I met you.”
“Had to?” I raise a brow. “I was waiting for your lecture. You know, the one about how I always have choices. That I could’ve picked peace over violence.”
Laurel doesn’t answer right away. Her eyes flick to the swirling toilet, to death dissolving into water. She wraps her arms around herself.
“I’m not saying I don’t get it,” she says softly. “I can’t imagine how many people that stuff would’ve killed, but you’re not some vigilante, Carrson. You’re part of a system that created the problem in the first place.”
I bristle. My hand shoots out, my finger jabbing toward the half-dissolved pile of cocaine. “The drugs would be here with or without me. They’re in every city, every school, every goddamn suburb. I didn’t create this. I’m just trying to manage the fallout.”
Her scowl cuts sharper than any blade. “While making a fortune for you and your Fathers? Please, don’t dress it up like you’re some martyr.”
She lifts her chin and holds my gaze.
Fearless.
This woman is stupidly, recklessly fearless.
“This isn’t normal,” she goes on. “None of it. Not the drugs. Not the violence. Not the way The Order treats women. I know you’ve never lived outside of this world, but I have and let me enlighten you, it’s not better in here.”
“Really?” I scoff. “Tell me, Laurel. You ever get dizzy up there? Living on your high horse?”
“No,” she fires back, her face red. “I get dizzy from your massive ego sucking all the oxygen out of the room, you pompous asshole.”
I step forward, my jaw clenched. “Spare me the judgment. You’ve been here five minutes, and you think you understand the rules? The consequences? You live in black and white because you’ve never had to bleed for anything.”
“I have bled,” she snaps. “You don’t get to measure suffering by how many bodies you put in the ground.”
“You think you’d do better?” My fists clench. “That if it were your hand on the blade, you’d stay clean?”
“I’d try,” she breathes. Her voice cracks, but she stands tall. “I wouldn’t forget who I am.”
“What if who you are isn’t enough?” I growl. “What if the only way to survive is to become the thing you hate?”
“Maybe survival isn’t the point,” she argues. “Maybe the point is staying human.”
We’re squared off, eyes locked, like we’re two seconds from a knockout punch.
“Glad to finally know where you stand,” I bite out. This is another rejection from her. First, she won’t let me kiss her. Now this. My hand shoots up, my finger in her face and accusation thick in my voice. “Just admit it. You think you’re better than me.”
“No,” she says, and surprises me by stepping back. She closes her eyes. Breathes. When they open again, her voice is softer, calmer. “I think I’ve been lucky. I got to believe the world was safe for longer than you did. That doesn’t make me na?ve, and it doesn’t make you right.”
She fixes me with a look. “What happened to the men selling this poison? Where are they now?”
“Dead. I killed them.” I don’t hesitate. “And I don’t feel bad about it.”
Something flickers in her gaze, something that almost looks like pity. “That’s what scares me the most,” she whispers. “Your lack of regret.”
“The world is a hard place,” I snap. “Full of monsters like me. You can bury your head in the sand, pretend you’re above it, but this is reality. I don’t run from it. I don’t hide.”
She’s quiet for a moment, then says it so softly I almost miss it.
“You’re wrong, Carrson.” Her voice isn’t angry anymore. It’s sad. “You’re not a monster, but you were raised in a house full of them and you’re not trying hard enough to be something else.”
I grit my teeth. “I don’t want to be anyone else but me.” That’s the truth. I’ve whispered that through bloody lips, gritted it between broken ribs. I’ve survived my father’s beatings, his indoctrination. The mold he has tried to force me into, a perfect replica of himself.
I don’t want to be him. I hate him.
But I can’t be the man Laurel wants either.
I’ve seen the truth behind the curtain, how power is built on brutality and fear. If I don’t play the devil, someone worse will.
Then who protects the weak?
Who protects the people I care about?
Who protects her?
I spin away from her and rip my hands through my hair. I swear, no one has ever made me feel as aggravated as she does. No one’s ever challenged me like she does.
“This is pointless to talk about. You’ll never see things the way I do, and I’ll never compromise.
Let’s go back to the party.” I walk away without waiting to see if she follows, but I know she does.
I don’t have to look back. I’ve developed a sort of sixth sense for her, can find her based only on the sound of her footsteps or on the faint scent of her shampoo.
We reach the party. Like magnets reversed, we split and go in opposite directions.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. That her words don’t sink their hooks in me.
That I don’t care what she thinks about who I am or what I’ve done, but I wonder if that’s a lie.
I wonder what she would think if she saw how I killed that man today, how I enjoyed it.
Would the fire in her eyes turn to fear?
Would she run from me? Be disgusted by me? Disappointed in me?
It doesn’t matter, I remind myself. She’s not mine, not really.
I may own this town, but I don’t own her.
Even though I want to.
***
Laurel
Carrson doesn’t look back. He storms off like I’m the enemy. Like I’m the one with blood on my hands.
Screw him.
The music’s gotten louder while I was gone. Thicker. It pulses against the walls, reverberates in my chest like a second heartbeat, too fast and too strong. The air is warmer now, heavy with sweat, perfume, and the sharp tang of spilled beer.
The brothers and sisters are drunker. Wilder.
Somewhere, a brother is howling, actually howling, like the animal inside him finally broke loose.
On a table, a pack of sisters dance with their arms slung around each other, skirts hiked up, their hair whipping.
Below them, a cluster of brothers watches with glittering hungry eyes.
In the corner, a half-naked game of Twister has devolved into bodies tangled together, limbs everywhere, moans and breathless laughter echoing beneath the bass.
I notice the couples. Pressed together on the dance floor, tucked into darkened corners, flush against stone walls. Some are kissing. Others are doing more, much more, if the slow, grinding rhythm of their hips is any indication. It’s all mouths and hands and heat, blurred by liquor and desire.
Part of it is strategy, I realize. A game of attraction, of testing compatibility, of finding your Bonded in the most elemental, instinct-driven way possible.
Most of it? It’s just what happens when you trap a bunch of drunk twenty-somethings in a room together and add in a sensual beat.
They give in to their most primal urges.
Anxious now, I scan the crowd for my friends, for a familiar face, but all I see are bodies grinding, mouths open, and eyes glazed. Red solo cups are raised like offerings to the gods of chaos.
The whole house throbs with it.
Lust. Noise. Madness.