3. Six Days Until Bonding
Chapter three
Six Days Until Bonding
Laurel
Pain wakes me before anything else. It burns across my back in long lines, each breath straining the damaged skin. I lie still, afraid the sheets will drag across the wounds if I move.
A quick peek shows I’m in Carrson’s bed.
In the room we share at Ashford House, the fraternity.
It must be morning, early from how the sun dimly lights the room.
I don’t make a sound, too busy listening to the men who talk nearby.
One voice I recognize from its slow drawl: Carr.
The other I don’t. The speaker has a deep baritone, middle-aged, I’d guess.
“It’s been over twenty-four hours,” he exclaims angrily. “He should be back by now.”
A bored sigh from Carr. “I don’t know, Jack. Maybe your son went on a bender. I heard rumors he's recently fallen in love with some black powder.”
Jack!
Jackson’s dad.
Oh shit. I think back to the last time I saw Jackson. Drugged out in Silas’s bus. Papa Jack might be waiting a long time for his kid to come home.
“Wh-wh—” the man sputters in response to Carr’s accusation. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You tell me,” drawls Carr. “I heard the Devil’s Dust got to him. You know, the DD that’s flooding the streets right now, but I’m sure that can’t be right. Idle chatter from gossipmongers.”
“Damn straight it is,” growls Jack. “Jackson’s too smart to get involved in shit like that.”
“Of course,” replies Carr smoothly.
“If anyone’s spreading lies about my son, it’s probably your son, Carr. You know how jealous Carrson has always been of Jackson.”
“Please,” Carr says, disdain packed into that single syllable.
He’s riling up the other man on purpose, although I can’t think of why it would be to his advantage to piss Jack off. Unless baiting Jack is just sport to Carr? A button he presses because he enjoys watching it work? He seems like that sort of guy.
“Jackson is leagues behind my son,” Carr finishes, sounding almost proud. But that can’t be, can it? For him to have some kind of misguided fatherly love for the child he just beat bloody. “There’s never been a question which one is better. Remember the Test of Ascension?”
“They were twelve. Twelve!” Jack snaps. The hollow thuds of his feet tell me he’s pacing. Finally, the sound stops. I squeeze my eyes shut, willing them both to believe I’m asleep.
“And yet so little has changed,” Carr says, bored now. “Once Carrson wakes, I’ll ask what he knows. Will that suffice?”
“Fine,” grits out Jack. He doesn’t bother to say good-bye, just stomps out the door, slamming it for good measure.
A moment of silence where I focus on keeping my breathing steady and deep. Then I hear a soft knock at the door.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Carr mumbles under his breath as the door creaks open and footsteps approach.
“It’s you,” says Carr, sounding mollified. Whoever it is must be a friend. “You’ve got it with you?”
“Of course,” a man answers. “The minute you told me what you planned, I packed it in my bag.”
So this wasn’t anger. It wasn’t a loss of control or a momentary lapse in judgment. Carr had planned to whip Carrson. He’d thought about it beforehand. Prepared for it. Somehow that realization is worse than the act itself. Monsters are frightening. Monsters with schedules are terrifying.
“Go ahead,” says Carr.
The other man comes to the bed on the side opposite to me, right next to Carrson. A soft hissing sound fills the room, and the air fills with the scent of crushed flowers and ozone, like a thunderstorm released from a bottle.
Carr’s chair squeaks, telling me he’s leaned forward. “Is it working?”
“It’s done,” says the man.
“His vitals?” asks Carr.
The other man doesn’t answer immediately. There’s the faint jingle of metal, then several seconds of silence.
“Stable. He’ll sleep for a while, but breathing’s even. Pulse is strong.”
“Good,” Carr says curtly. “Now heal her.”
I stiffen, knowing he must mean me.
“It won’t work,” protests the man, though he sounds more confused than angry, like he’s used to obeying Carr’s orders. “She’s not one of us.”
“Just do it,” says Carr in a weary voice. “I want to see—”
“Wait.” The man’s voice rises. “You don’t think—”
His words cut off abruptly, and I can only assume Carr made some sort of gesture. A finger pressed to his lips.
My heart rate spikes when the man moves to my side of the bed. I’m at war with myself. Instinct shouts at me to run, but I force myself to stay limp beneath the blankets. Pretend to be asleep.
There’s that same sound again. A hiss. For a terrifying second I expect pain, another punishment, some new cruelty, but then something cool and airy sprays across the abused flesh on my back.
The burning eases immediately. My muscles slowly loosen.
I sink into the mattress, letting it swallow me whole.
The man is still leaning over me, close enough that I hear his gasp. “God grant us mercy,” he whispers. “Carr, do you—”
“I know,” says Carr.
“But this means—”
“I know,” says Carr, sharper this time.
“Our research. Our prayers—”
“Thom. Stop.” There’s warning in Carr’s tone, enough to let me know he suspects I’m awake and he doesn’t want me to hear this conversation.
Those words also tell me who he’s talking to.
Thom. Thomson’s father. Carrson told me once these two men are best friends, that their relationship is why he was practically raised with Thomson, why he views Thomson as a brother, not of blood but of spirit.
“Sorry,” mutters Thom, sounding embarrassed by his outburst.
“It’s all right,” says Carr, his voice gentler than I thought him capable of.
Thom moves away from me, over to where Carr sits. “Have you called your sponsor yet?”
Carr huffs, “No.”
“I really think you should, especially with everything that just happened with Carrson,” says Thom.
“I will. Later.”
“Carr…”
“Stop nagging, Thom. I swear you’re like an anxious mother hen.” Now Carr’s annoyance isn’t hidden. “Stop feeling so guilty. I made my own decisions.”
“But if I hadn’t given in to my weakness and gotten you started…”
“Hmm,” Carr says dryly. “Sounds like something you ought to discuss with your sponsor.”
I keep my eyes closed, trying to reconcile their conversation with the man who wielded a whip. A sponsor. Thom’s guilt. Carr’s concern. None of it matches the memory of blood running down Carrson’s back.
Carr’s still talking. “Quit worrying and prepare the lab.”
“Already started.”
“Good. Now go. Let me talk to the girl.”
The door closes with another creak and a click while I will my eyelids not to flutter.
“I know you’re awake, Laurel.”
Fuck. Why did I even bother?
I roll over to face him, keeping my back to Carrson like that can somehow protect him from his father. Carr sits in a chair pulled up to the bedside with an apple in one hand and a small pocketknife in the other.
I’m not going to talk to him, I decide. I have nothing to say after what he did.
“How long have you been a spy for Silas Creed?” Carr asks, flicking the blade open with a delicate click.
“What?” I snap.
Dammit, two minutes in and I’ve already broken my no-talking rule. “I’m not a spy,” I say, glaring.
“Really?” He lifts a brow. “That’s odd. Samantha, Thomson, even Carrson insisted you were abducted by the ghost Silas Creed, but that can’t be possible, right? After all, here you are safe and sound. If Silas was anywhere near the animal everyone says he is, I’d expect you to come back in pieces.”
I hesitate, but if I say nothing it looks worse.
“I was with Silas. He kidnapped me. Jackson was there,” I say as Carr begins to peel the apple. Long red curls of skin coil onto the table. “He helped Silas. Jackson double-crossed you. It was a pretty savage thing to do, but I swear I’m telling the truth.”
“‘Pretty savage,’” he repeats, amused by my choice of words. “Go on.”
I tell him enough to explain where I went after the Halloween party.
Jackson’s addiction to Devil’s Dust. Silas in his bus, and how I have no idea what it looks like because of the mask.
I end with how I left Jackson high as a kite.
The story comes out one bullet point at a time, while Carr peels his apple and listens without interruption.
Not everything, though.
I keep the more personal parts to myself.
Silas claiming he’d been watching me. His offer to work together.
His story about Evangeline. I save those details as leverage, to use in the future.
I don’t trust Carr enough to hand him every piece of the puzzle, especially when I don’t see the entire picture myself.
Through it all, Carr’s eyes stay on me while his knife continues its slow work.
There’s a sharpness to him, a sense that he’s sorting through every word as quickly as I speak it, looking for lies, for weakness, so I don’t give him any.
Even so, I get the uncomfortable feeling that his mind is already two steps ahead of mine.
When I finish talking, I wait, but Carr doesn’t respond immediately.
He tilts his head, as the blade completes another orbit around the apple. He pops a slice into his mouth and chews, thoughtful. “Why,” he says mildly, “should I believe this fairy tale you’re spinning?”
“Because I came back.” My chin lifts. “Because I’m sitting here instead of selling your son for parts.”
“Exactly what any good spy would say.”
I throw up my hands. “Then I don’t know. There’s no way I can convince you.”
“Time,” he says, holding up a slice, inspecting it before eating, “I’ve found, is the best truth serum of all.”
“Whatever.” I lean back against the uncomfortable carved headboard and tug my pillow higher to cushion my back, then cross my arms over my chest.
Carr surprises me by letting out a quick chuckle. “You remind me of someone I used to know,” he says. “She’d get the same look on her face whenever she decided she was right and the rest of the world could go to hell.”
“She sounds like a smart woman,” I fire back.