Chapter 26 #2
We fall back into step, nodding to two Brothers on a bench. They straighten and dip their heads as we pass. Kids from town, a teacher with a stack of papers, all offer quiet hellos, small waves. They step aside with deference.
I see it then. Carrson isn’t just feared. He’s trusted. Respected. Revered.
“You haven’t had much of it,” I say softly. “Choice.”
“No,” he sighs.
“But in a way, I haven’t either,” I muse. “I didn’t choose to have my dad drink, didn’t choose to come here, didn’t choose…” I trail off, thinking of Preston.
Carrson bumps his arm into mine, a silent show of support.
“There was one choice I did make,” he says, filling the silence before it swallows me whole.
“Oh?” I ask, leaning into him as his arm brushes mine for a second time.
He watches me like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to joke about this. “This pizza girl made the worst delivery of her life…”
“And you chose her,” I finish for him, not as upset as I probably should be thinking back to that night.
His gaze holds mine, steady. “I did.”
Do you regret it?
That’s what I want to ask, but I don’t. I’m too much of a coward, afraid he’ll say yes. I’ve complicated his already complex life. Even with what happened between us last night, it would be easier for him without me.
Heck, it would be easier for me too. Better. Safer. So why does the thought of never meeting him make my chest ache like a wound I can’t close? I should want that. Should want to have stayed far away from this dark, twisted world. But somehow, I don’t.
He’s forbidden fruit, and even though it may poison me, I can’t stop myself from taking a bite.
***
We go to Bitter Ends, the campus coffee shop with too much attitude and not enough seating. I order the Summa Cum Latte. It’s vanilla, caramel, espresso, and just enough shame to make it worth it.
Carrson studies the chalkboard menu like he’s reading classified intel, then smirks and says, “I’ll take the Dark Like My Soul, extra bitter.”
“Shocker,” I mutter, handing the barista my card before he can. “A little too on brand, don’t you think?” I tease as we head toward a seat by the window.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His chin lifts with mock pride, but there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth he can’t quite suppress.
The table’s small, round, and sticky. Carrson wipes it with a napkin before sitting down, and I watch with thinly veiled amusement as he tries to casually not care that his sleeves are brushing crumbs.
A bowl of raw sugar packets sits on the table, next to a bottle of hot sauce, because I swear they put that stuff on everything down here.
Our drinks arrive. Mine with a heart drawn in the foam. His looks like mud.
He peers down at it. “This probably tastes like regret.”
“You picked it,” I point out, already sipping mine with a contented sigh. “Live with the consequences.”
He takes a slow, suspicious sip. Grimaces. Then grunts, “Perfect.”
I snort into my cup.
We sit in silence for a minute, peacefully drinking our coffee.
Outside the window, dry leaves spin in tight circles, whipped by the wind.
Students hurry past, with strained expressions and textbooks clutched to their chests.
The bell tower tolls, once, twice, three times, low and deep, like it’s trying to wake something ancient.
It’s the kind of old-South resonance that makes you think of steeples and Civil War widows dabbing their eyes with lace handkerchiefs.
I blow on my coffee to watch the steam dance away, then reform.
“When we walked here,” Carrson says, drawing my attention back to him. “You were skipping from spot to spot on the sidewalk. You did it when we went to see your dad too. What’s that about?”
“Oh.” I shrink into myself, embarrassed he noticed. “It’s stupid. Just this thing I do.”
He waits, letting the silence stretch, not pressuring, just leaving space for me to fill.
“My mom died in a car crash when I was nine,” I say, tracing the edge of my cup so I don’t have to look at him. “We’d gotten in a fight before she left. Something stupid. I wanted her to wash my favorite jeans, but she said she didn’t have time. She was late for work.”
I pause, bite my lower lip, then force myself to continue.
“She was a schoolteacher. High school. That morning, I was so mad at her.” I swallow hard. “You know the rhyme, ‘step on a crack, break your mother’s back.’ When I walked to school, I deliberately stepped on every crack. Wishing it would hurt her.”
Shame roughens my voice, makes it hoarse. My eyes sting as the memory rushes back. The knock at the door, the officers in the hall, my father collapsing to his knees.
My guilt. The unshakable belief that I’d caused it somehow.
I sniffle. “Anyway, I felt bad about it, after. Now, when I remember, I try not to step on the cracks.” My gaze darts to his face, then away. “I know it’s childish.”
Carrson doesn’t say anything, and for a minute I panic, afraid I’ve revealed too much, which is crazy considering how he saw me last night. Raw, unfiltered, unraveling in his arms, but still this conversation makes me feel naked in ways that have nothing to do with clothing.
Slowly, he reaches across the table. For a second, his fingers hover, like he’s unsure, but then he commits.
His hand, warm and steady, drifts down to settle on mine.
It’s not a grand gesture. Not a loud declaration of solidarity or love.
Just the brush of his thumb against the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse and yet it does something.
A knot that’s been buried in my chest for years loosens, just enough for me to breathe.
“What was she like?” he asks softly. “Your mom?”
I blink down at our hands, his thumb still moving in slow, grounding circles against my skin. The answer lodges in my throat, swelling with more feeling than I expected.
“She was…bright,” I say, my voice soft. “She hummed under her breath. Danced in the kitchen. She smelled like lavender hand lotion and let me stay up late to read. She stuck neon Post-its in my lunchbox with Shakespeare quotes and notes like, ‘You’ve got this, kiddo.’”
I swallow hard, my throat catching. “She was kind. Even when she was tired. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”
A tear falls, slipping down my cheek before I can stop it, and I don’t care who’s looking, who sees it. I’m too lost in the memory.
“I’ve forgotten her voice,” I whisper. “I remember her laugh, but not her voice. Isn’t that messed up?”
Carrson squeezes my hand. Not pitying. Just to let me know he’s there.
“She sounds amazing,” Carrson says, his eyes on me, soft, almost tender.
“She was.” Another tear falls, and I brush it aside. “I didn’t realize how much I depended on her until she was gone. It’s like the world shifted after she died. Everything felt less predictable. Less safe.”
I look up at Carrson. “What about you? Do you ever think about your mom? Wonder about her?”
His gaze drifts back to the window, his expression unreadable. “We’re told from the time we’re young that we don’t have a mother.”
“That’s so wrong.” I blink, sit up straighter. “Everyone has a mother.”
“I know.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “That’s just what the Fathers say. That The Order is all the family we’ll ever need…” He trails off for a second, then shrugs. “Yeah. I’ve wondered. Of course I have.”
He exhales, a small huff of laughter. “I had this fantasy when I was a kid. Never told anyone, figured I’d get in trouble just for thinking it.”
“What was it?” I ask, watching the nostalgic tilt of his mouth, the flicker of something softer in his eyes.
“I used to wish Sam’s mom was mine.” The edge of his mouth curls with something wistful. “She’s the only person I’ve ever seen challenge my father and walk away in one piece.”
He looks down at his cup, gaze distant. “That’s where Sam gets it from, her fearlessness.
” A pause. His voice lowers. “Sometimes I imagined her mom would come for me, say I’d been hers all along, take me away to live at her house.
” His jaw flexes. The smile fades. “Stupid, I know.” He takes a long sip of his coffee. “Kid stuff.”
“It’s not stupid,” I say, quiet but firm. “Wanting to belong somewhere? That’s not stupid.”
He doesn’t look at me, just keeps his eyes on the cup, turning it slowly between his hands.
I shift in my seat, unsure if I’m making it better or worse. “I used to wish for that too. Not Sam’s mom, obviously. But someone. Anyone. To come get me, which made me feel bad since I still had my dad, but it wasn’t enough. I needed someone to help.”
He glances at me, and I catch the flicker of understanding in his eyes. He’s met my dad. He knows what I mean.
We’re quiet for a beat, then Carrson leans in, lowering his voice like he’s letting me in on a secret. “Want to hear something crazy?”
I nod, shifting toward him.
“Sam and I have this theory that our parents were bonded once.” He widens his eyes, dramatically, like he’s daring me to believe it.
“When they’re in the same room, the tension’s unbearable.
Simmering anger, hostility, but underneath it, there’s also this weird attraction.
Like they still want each other and hate that they do.
” He huffs a dry laugh and shakes his head.
“It’s intense. Like standing on a powder keg and not knowing who’s going to light the fuse. ”
“If they were bonded,” I say, thinking out loud, “your dad and Sam’s mom, that means he chose her to become a Mother. Gave her the chance to have Samantha. Shouldn’t she be, I don’t know, grateful?”
Carrson’s smile fades. “She doesn’t seem like it. No one talks about who the Mother belonged to before she had her daughter. It’s forbidden.”
Forbidden.
I hesitate, then ask, “Have you ever thought about trying to find your real mom? Or figure out how any of you, the Brothers, the Sisters, came into the world? I mean, you weren’t hatched out of eggs. Someone carried you. Gave birth to you.”
Carrson stares at his cup for a long moment.
“I’ve been too busy thinking about Rose,” he says quietly. “She’s more…” He trails off, searching for the right word. “Tangible, I guess. Something I could almost reach for. Maybe because she has a name. That makes her feel real.”
His head dips.
“It’s pointless anyway,” he murmurs, defeat etched into the slope of his shoulders. “I’ll never find her or my mother. Not unless someone talks. Tells the truth…and around here?” He laughs once, without humor. “Silence is a virtue.”
Something in my chest twists. For everything he’s never had.
For the questions he’s been told not to ask.
There’s nothing I can say that will make any of that better.
No way to hand back what’s already been taken, and I hate it.
I hate how small and powerless it makes me feel, but what can I do?
Who am I to rewrite the damage life has done to him?
That’s when I remember how he took a risk with me last night. How he chose me. Handled me gently. Held me like I was something rare. I think about how he came searching for me today, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. Just to check up on me.
That matters.
A second of hesitation because I’m not sure how this works. How much can I touch him in front of all these people? Is he supposed to remain aloof? Does he always have to be the imposing commander, the fearless leader of the Brothers? Or is he allowed to be human, with his own wants and needs?
Fuck it.
I stop overthinking. For once, I just act. I lean across the table, my eyes locked on his, and offer him something simple. Real. A gift no one else seems to know how to give him.
Connection.
Carrson freezes for a breath. Then he moves too. He meets me halfway.
We kiss.
Right there in the middle of the coffee shop. Over cold drinks and crumpled napkins. With everyone watching. Carrson’s hands find my cheeks, mine brace against the table, and we kiss like the world around us doesn’t exist. Like this is the only thing that matters.
It’s soft. A brush of lips. Light yet somehow heavier, more daring, than anything before.
I meant the gesture to be for him. To comfort him, but it steadies me too. The fear I woke with, that he’d want to keep us a secret, like he was ashamed, evaporates like morning dew warmed by sunlight.
We’re both grinning when we sit back down, shy and a little stunned. It takes a minute for my heart to slow, for my brain to unscramble, for me to pick up the thread of our conversation.
“Well,” I say softly, nudging him with a smile, “I hope someday you can find them both, your mom and Rose. In the meantime, if you were hatched from an egg, I think you turned out all right. Better than most.”
He blinks. A beat passes. Then a quiet, surprised laugh escapes him, and he dips his head in a faint nod. The tension in his shoulders eases, just a fraction.
“Now admit it,” I say, grinning. “Your coffee tastes awful. Like swamp water.”
He eyes the cup, then slides it toward me and smirks. “Trade you.”
I laugh and hold mine out of reach. “Not a chance.”