Chapter 27 #2
A beat, then she asks in a softer, pleading voice, “How do we stop it?”
I shake my head, helpless. “I don’t know if we can.”
We fall quiet. Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy as fog. I know we’re each spiraling down our own dark rabbit holes, trying to find something solid in the murk.
Sam’s the one to speak first. “Sorry to change the subject, but…” She becomes uncharacteristically hesitant as she says, “I have a question…about you and Carrson…”
I slow my steps, my pulse skipping. Of course. We’ve been getting along, but Carrson is still a sore subject between us. Maybe he always will be.
“What about him?” I ask, my tone guarded.
“Do you actually care for him?” Even in the dim light, I can feel her eyes on me, sharp and assessing. “Or is it because of who he is?”
That catches me off guard. I expected jealousy, maybe suspicion.
Not this concern. Sam sounds like a protective older sister or a nosy aunt trying to figure out whether I’m good enough for someone she cares about.
Like she’s worried I’m just another opportunist, clinging to Carrson for his power and his name.
They grew up together, I remind myself, thinking how it makes sense she’d ask about it. Me and Carrson.
“I do care,” I say, but as the words leave my mouth I know they’re not the whole truth. Care doesn’t begin to cover it.
What I feel for Carrson is much more complicated than that. Messier. Addictive.
Since the night we first slept together, three weeks ago, we haven’t stopped.
Every night, sometimes more than once. In his bed, against the wall, on that stupid velvet chaise in his office.
We fall together with lips and tongues and moans like we’re starving, every time.
Sometimes it's sweet. Sometimes it’s punishing.
Sometimes it’s like we’re trying to crawl inside each other just to find relief.
It’s not just sex, it’s obsession. A need that crawls under my skin and sets my blood on fire.
But beneath all that passion, something quieter is taking root, sprouted from the seeds of our coffee-shop date.
It’s when he pulls me closer in his sleep.
How he presses a kiss to my temple without thinking.
The wildflowers I find on my pillow, tiny, delicate things he must have picked himself.
Once, it was a sprig of Queen Anne’s lace.
Another time, a violet with a bent stem.
Today I woke to a clover with four perfect leaves.
He never says anything about them. Just leaves them there like little gifts, whispered secrets.
Like he’s trying to tell me something in a language only he understands.
They’re stupid. Insignificant.
Except…they’re not. Because I keep every one of them pressed flat in a notebook tucked inside my drawer. Sometimes I open it.
Just to look.
Which is ridiculous.
There are times when I wonder if we’re falling in love, but then I tell myself no. This can’t be love. Not when it ends in six months. This is about need. About chemistry and proximity and fucked-up coping mechanisms…right?
I look back at Sam. “It’s not because of his name,” I say, my voice steady. “If anything, it’s in spite of it.”
I mean it. Sometimes, I picture a different Carrson, one with a normal last name, like Smith.
He goes to my old school back in California.
He plays pickup basketball after class and kisses me behind the gym.
He asks me to the movies and brings me flowers that aren’t loaded with hidden meaning.
That version of Carrson is light and carefree, and he’ll never leave me.
That Carrson is safe.
The real one is not.
“I guess I can understand that, when I look at it from your perspective,” Sam says, nodding slowly. “What you’re saying about Carrson and all his complications.”
She pauses. The next part spills out in a rush, like if she doesn’t say it now she never will.
“When he first bonded you, I was furious. So angry. Humiliated. I wanted you to pay for it, like seriously, I wanted you to suffer, but after a while, I realized in a strange way you gave me a gift.”
I’m glad it’s dark so she can’t see how my mouth drops open. “Really?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.
She gives a small shrug, one shoulder lifting higher than the other.
“I don’t love Carrson, and he definitely doesn’t love me.
Now that you’re with him, I’m free. Free to maybe, I don’t know…
” She trails off, then finishes in a whisper so soft I have to lean in to hear it, “Find my own special person.”
A shaky breath escapes her. Then, louder, like she needs to believe it herself, “Maybe I can find my real Bonded. Someone who actually loves me, and I can love them back.”
For a moment, I don’t say anything. I just look at her, really look. I forget the power plays, the grudges, the bruises we’ve given each other. Let it all fade.
What’s left is someone brave enough to admit she wants more. Someone still hoping.
“I hope you get that,” I say, quiet but sincere.
She freezes, like she’s waiting for the punchline, but there isn’t one. Not tonight. Her eyes go glassy in the flashlight’s beam. “I didn’t think you’d say that. Thanks.”
I nod, knowing that’s all she needs from me.
We’re at the end of the tunnel. A large dark wooden door, studded with iron, looms ahead.
“This is it,” Sam says, her voice low. She hands me the flashlight.
I grip it tightly, the beam quivering slightly as I aim it.
She twists the massive door handle, its surface worn smooth with age.
It resists her at first, groaning, unmoving.
She grunts, jaw tightening, and mutters a string of curses under her breath.
With a sharp click, it gives.
On the other side?
A broom closet.
Fluorescent lights hum overhead. Shelves of folded towels, stacked paper products, and bottles of industrial cleaner line the walls. A box of latex gloves sits open next to a dusty mop bucket.
I blink, thrown by the banality of it.
“Well,” Sam says, smirking as she steps inside, “welcome to Ashford House.”
The closet opens into the kitchen. Everything looks normal, polished, and domestic. A bowl of apples arranged like a still-life painting sits on the counter. I grab one without thinking and sink my teeth in. The crunch echoes in the silence, jarringly loud.
Mumbling around the mouthful, I say, “Let’s grab the notes and get out of here.”
Sam nods, and we start toward the back staircase.
We’re halfway down the hall when I hear it.
Carrson’s voice.
I’d know it anywhere, that deep, Southern drawl. Even hear it in my dreams these days. It’s coming from the dining room, where I once danced with him and kissed him for the first time. Like a siren song, it calls to me. Without my thinking, my feet turn, moving in that direction, toward him.
Behind me, Sam whisper shouts, “Hey, Laurel. Wait. Where are you going?”
I don’t stop.
“Just want to see what’s happening,” I murmur over my shoulder, as I tiptoe forward.
Now that I’m closer, I note the sharp edge to Carrson’s tone, how he projects his voice loud and clear, like he’s giving a presentation or a lecture.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” His voice rings out, commanding.
I’m at the arched stone doorway now. I’m in luck, the door is ajar, enough for me to see inside. I lean toward the opening, then freeze as I hear it, another sound.
A man crying.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Sam’s reached me now. She whispers, “Maybe we shouldn’t look.”
Too late.
I’m already peering through the crack.
***
I can see only a portion of the dining hall, but it’s enough.
Carrson stands in the center of the room, a shaft of ruby-tinted light from a stained-glass window washing over him. The red glow clings to his skin, eerie and surreal. It reminds me of the first night I met him, when he was coated in actual blood.
Behind him, against the far wall, are his fraternity brothers, about twenty of them. It’s almost unnatural how still they stand, how silently they watch.
Kneeling before Carrson, with his hands tied in front of him, is another brother. I’ve met him briefly, seen him around, but don’t know him.
“Richardson,” Sam breathes, naming him. She’s beside me now, peeking through the same narrow crack in the doorway. I shift to crouch lower so we both have a view.
“Well?” Carrson demands. “How do you explain this?” He holds up a stack of paper high over his head and then just…lets go. The pages flutter down like confetti at a funeral. Slow, weightless, wrong.
I suck in a breath as my stomach lurches in recognition.
Neon orange paper. Neat handwriting in the margins. Addition. Subtraction.
My handwriting.
This is the paper Carrson asked me to look at several weeks ago. I didn’t think much about it at the time, and now I wonder how I could’ve been so goddamn stupid.
“You cheated me,” Carrson says, pacing in front of Richardson. His tone is calm, disappointed. “Stole from The Order.”
Richardson’s sobs are loud and ugly. His shoulders shake. Snot drips from his nose in thick ropes. He stares at the floor by Carrson’s feet, like he’s about to lick Carrson’s boot.
Carrson stops. Crouches. Grabs him by the hair and jerks his face up until they’re eye to eye.
“We trusted you,” he says, soft now, his voice mournful. Like he’s heartbroken. “I gave you the privilege of running our betting ops, and what did you give me in return?”
A pause. A beat of silence.
“Laurel,” Sam breathes, “we need to go—”
“Lies.” The word cuts through the room like a blade. Carrson shakes his head, his lip curled with disgust. “You’re a traitor.”
He stands. He faces the other brothers and raises his voice to a roar.
“What do we do with a traitor?”
They answer like a chorus from Hell.
“Kill the bastard!”
“Take his money!”
“Throw him out!”
“Punish him!”
Their voices overlap, one feeding the next. Hungry. Righteous. Bloodthirsty.
Carrson listens calmly, presiding over the chaos like it belongs to him, and maybe it does. I barely recognize him like this—sharp-jawed, hard-eyed, utterly in control. He has the kind of presence that radiates power and dominance. That demands submission.
He’s been giving me the boy version of himself, I realize. The soft Carrson, warm in the morning, tender at night.
But this?
This is the man.
The king.
Except what he rules isn’t a kingdom, it’s a court of monsters, and he wears the crown like he was born and bred for it. Like he never intended to be anything else.
Carrson reaches behind his back and pulls a knife from his waistband. He lifts the blade into the light, turns it this way and that, like he’s admiring its wicked curve, its serrated edge.
Richardson whimpers. The sight of the knife alone is enough to undo him.
“Please,” he begs. “Please don’t. I can get the money back. I swear. Just p—put that away.”
Carrson doesn’t even blink. “I just sharpened it,” he says cheerfully. “Let’s see how I did.”
Sam grabs my arm again, harder this time. “Forget the notes, Laurel. Please.”
I brush her off, unable to look away.
I almost drop the apple when Carrson takes the blade and drags it across his own forearm in a clean, deliberate slice. Blood wells instantly. Runs like rain. Drips to the floor with a steady plop…plop…plop.
Carrson grins, a devil’s smile. He brings the blade to his mouth. Licks it.
“Delicious,” he says.
Just like that, I’m thrown back at the beginning.
To the night we met, when he said that same word, delicious, as he licked Jackson’s blood off my fingers.
I’d forgotten what he truly is, the predator that hides beneath that slow smile and Southern charm.
I let myself get comfortable, lulled by his sweet gestures, his pretty lies, the way his body fits against mine, but now that spell breaks. I’m scared of him all over again.
He thrusts the knife toward Richardson. “Want some?” he asks, mocking. “Go on. Try it.”
Richardson turns away, gagging. A pitiful, mewling sound slips from his throat.
Carrson laughs. “That’s what I thought.”
Sam grips my arm, and I glance up at her. She’s wide-eyed but eerily calm, like she’s watching a play or a scene from a movie she’s seen before. One where she already knows the ending.
I whirl back to Carrson in time to see him wipe the blade on Richardson’s shirt, not cutting, just cleaning it. “If you don’t want the knife…” He slides it back into his waistband. “We’ll find another way.”
“Listen to me,” Sam whispers again. “We have to leave.”
I don’t budge. I’m frozen. Rooted to the spot.
Carrson unties Richardson’s hands, and, for one brief fleeting second, I have hope. I think he’s had a change of heart, that he’s come to his senses and will let his brother go free.
Which is a delusion, clearly.
Carrson, the man who a few hours ago was inside my body, who tenderly swept my hair away from my face and told me I was beautiful, grabs Richardson’s arm and in one graceful movement wrenches it backward until the joint pops. It dislocates.
Richardson screams, high-pitched, ear-piercing. He shrieks with pain.
As if that weren’t enough, Carrson takes that arm and brings it down over his bent knee. He snaps the bone the way you would a piece of wood you were going to use as kindling in a bonfire.
The apple drops from my hand with a dull thud. My mouth gapes, and my ears roar. Samantha drags me backward, her arm around my waist and her hand over my mouth like she’s worried I’ll scream or cry or yell, but I won’t.
I’m speechless.
I have one last glimpse of the room where Richardson lays writhing in a heap on the floor while the other brothers cheer, stomp, and yell obscenities at him.
Carrson stands tall and calm in the center of it all. The ringmaster of this wicked circus.
Right before we turn the corner, his gaze flicks my way. Those dark empty eyes meet mine. Then we’re in the kitchen. Sam takes my hand in hers and pulls me into the tunnel. Together we flee, back toward Rosewood Hall.