Chapter 30 #3
She moans in response. Peterson picks up speed. Their bodies crash together, rough and frantic, like they’re trying to fuse into one. Kissing her, Peterson flips me off without breaking rhythm, then gives a lazy shooing motion.
Chuckling, I raise my voice so they can hear over all the groaning they’re doing. “Have fun. Oh, and you might want to bring your guns closer.”
They don’t hear, too busy moaning and thrashing as they come.
I shrug and mutter, “It’s your funeral.”
I turn and head for the lake.
The boathouse is a single-story structure at the water’s edge.
In a rare moment of whimsy, my father had the exterior designed to look like a miniature replica of the main house, down to the dormer windows and painted shutters.
Inside, it’s one large room, the far end built out over the lake to cradle our sixteen-foot sailboat.
When I was small, I used to come here to play. I’d race wooden cars across the warped, oak floorboards or scale the exposed rafters like some half-wild thing. Back then, it felt like freedom. A secret world all my own.
Now, older and wiser sleeping me notices the rusted nails, the splintered floorboards. I see how it was dangerous. A place where a kid could drown or fall or disappear without anyone noticing. But there was no one watching. No one to stop me. No one who cared enough to keep me safe.
Younger seventeen-year-old me looks through the window of the boathouse. Lights are on inside. There’s movement. Someone walking back and forth, pacing, just out of view, but I can see their shadow, sliding across the ground.
Gun held down by my thigh and my finger on the trigger, I creep to the door.
It’s open. I peer around the edge and see Nelson inside.
He’s sweating and tense, with his eyes darting everywhere. His finger trembles as it rests on the trigger of his gun.
Good, fear will make him sloppy, easier to defeat.
I take in and blow out a couple of deep breaths, and then I move. I lunge and kick in the door. It flies open all the way.
Nelson pulls his gun up, but I’m quicker. There’s a loud bang and a flash of light from the end of my barrel.
Nelson jerks like a puppet on a string, knocked back by the force. His mouth forms a perfect O of surprise. He clutches his chest, and for a split second I wait for him to yell, to curse, to raise his paint-covered hand in surrender.
But he doesn’t.
He stumbles against the wall, leaving a long red smear as he slides down. And that’s when I realize—
It’s not paint.
It’s blood.
Real, dark, bright-red blood.
“Carrson?” Nelson whispers, while his eyes roll wildly. He says my name like he’s confused. Scared. Betrayed. Like he doesn’t understand how I could be the one to pull the trigger.
I don’t understand either.
I don’t understand anything.
What is happening?
Why is there so much blood?
Why did he just stop moving?
The gun drops from my hand with a dull thump. I rush to his side, skidding to my knees. “Nelson?” My voice is high, raw. “Nelson!” The crack of the gunshot still echoes in my skull.
I press my hands to his chest. Blood gushes between my fingers, hot and sticky.
The scent of it hits me, sharp and bright.
The smell of old pennies or of red dirt rich in iron.
He’s bleeding, and I’ve got to stop it. I look around frantically, then rip off my own shirt.
I make it into a ball and press it to his chest.
His chest that no longer rises with breath. I place my finger under his jaw, feel for a pulse that no longer beats.
It’s too late. I’m too late.
Nelson is dead.
I killed him.
I killed him.
It repeats over and over in my head. I’ve murdered before.
All those missions my father sends me on, the ones in the desert, in the sand, but never like this.
Not someone I know. Not someone who knows me.
I stare down at his body in shock. My mind is heavy, dizzy, overwhelmed by what just happened.
The room closes in, claustrophobic. Everything, the lap of water along the shoreline, the rush of my heartbeat, my ragged breathing, is too quiet and yet too loud all at once.
Hands shaking, I stand and take a step back. I walk back to the gun on the floor and pick it up. I turn it in my palm, praying for something to make sense, but a quick inspection shows that it’s real.
A real gun. A real death.
I killed him.
How could it have happened?
My father’s words in the ballroom come back to me.
“Trust no one.”
Looks like he just taught me that lesson the hard way.
As if my thoughts summoned him, my father walks in, his long robe sweeping the ground. Behind him come the rest of the High Council and most of the kids with their shirts stained red with paint.
I look only at my father and ask one single word, “Why?”
He doesn’t give me his answer. Instead, he turns to the crowd and announces in a loud voice, “I told you today that this was a test of obedience. Nelson is dead because his father, Nel, threatened the safety of The Order. He had plans to expose us, share our secrets with the world.” He shakes his head like the news saddens him, which is a lie, nothing more.
To feel sorrow, you’d need to have a heart, and my father has none.
In my bedroom in Ashford House, older sleeping me mumbles, “He’s a monster.”
Father continues, “I killed Nel earlier today. I took his life and now, as it is fitting, my son has taken the life of his son. His bloodline, his legacy. is over. Removed from the path to perfection.”
I look down at the body at my feet, numb as the realization crashes into me.
I may have killed Nelson.
But my father loaded the gun.
Sleeping me moans, cries out.
Finally, Father looks at me and says, “The other lesson today was about trust. Carrson and all of you who are about to leave your parents’ houses and go off to college, you need to understand that we will no longer be there to guide and mold you, to protect and provide for you.
” His eyes drill into me as he delivers the final lines, “Remember. Trust no one. Not even each other. It’s time for yo—”
“Carrson. Carrson,” Laurel’s voice is a light leading me out of darkness. I follow it with my eyes closed but my hands outstretched. “Wake up.” She shakes my shoulder, cups my face, kisses me lightly. “It’s just a dream. Come back to me.”
Slowly I drag my eyelids open. The first thing I see is the moon, different from the one that shone down on Nelson’s dead body. This one doesn’t watch me. It doesn’t grin or grimace. It glows.
Then I see her. Laurel. Her face is inches from mine, pinched with concern.
“You were having a terrible nightmare. Are you okay?”
I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me, burying my face in her hair.
Her arms curl around me as well. She holds me close and lets me fall apart.
She soothes me with soft murmurs and small kisses peppered to my chest. When I finally release my tight hold on her, she moves back and looks up into my face. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Mutely, I shake my head no. It’s not that I don’t trust her or that I want to lock her out. It’s just that the dream felt so real. I worry giving it a voice will only make it stronger, make it impossible for me to sleep again.
“Not now,” I tell her. “Someday.”
She nods. No pressure. Just presence.
Laurel reaches up and runs her fingertips through my hair. She repeats the gesture, then massages my scalp until I relax into her.
I think about the dream, about my father, about rule number four.
Trust no one.
And I think…
Fuck it.
I am going to trust.
It’ll be the ultimate act of defiance.
I’m going to trust Laurel.