12. Four Days Until Bonding
Chapter twelve
Four Days Until Bonding
Laurel
I’m having a dream, a nightmare actually, about my parents.
We’re on a boat, and it’s storming, waves tossing us this way and that.
Rain soaking our skin, plastering hair to our faces.
Mom falls into the water. Dad rushes to save her, only to topple into the sea as well.
I run to the side of the boat and bend over, reaching for them, but they’re floating away from me, sinking deeper with their arms outstretched and their eyes wide open.
The boat bucks beneath my feet, and the dream dissolves into wisps of smoke, a memory half-forgotten.
The bed bounces again. “Wake up, Laurel.”
I know that voice, feminine and lilting.
“Laurel,” Samantha sings out, “time to wake up.”
I let my eyes crack open. Above me a clumsily painted plane spins on a gossamer thread of fishing line, so translucent it almost looks like the toy is flying.
My blurry vision moves over to a shelf that holds a worn baseball glove and books with bent spines.
The walls are painted navy blue with white wainscoting taking up the lower half.
I sit up, and the bed squeaks. I blink, taking in the large white, brass bedframe with its delicate spindles and finials on each bedpost.
“Where am I?” I croak.
“Carrson’s bedroom.” Sam rolls her eyes. “I keep telling him to update it. Looks like an eight-year-old lives here.” She shakes my shoulder, not bothering to be gentle. “Get up! I’ve been instructed to bring you to the ballroom.”
I pull the covers back over my head and groan, “Go away. I had a rough time yesterday.”
She yanks them down, and I hiss like a vampire facing sunlight.
“I heard. You’re a Bellefleur. Even richer than me.” She pokes me in the ribs. “Stop being such a show-off.”
I peek at her, alarmed that our old rivalry is back. That she thinks I’m stealing one more thing from her. First Carrson. Now this.
But Sam’s smiling, her confidence unflappable.
“I don’t want to be a Bellefleur. Didn’t ask for it,” I confess, the heaviness of yesterday hitting me all over again. “I’m not trying to take anything from anyone.”
She pats my knee through the sheets. “I didn’t ask to be born gorgeous.” She fluffs her long strawberry blonde hair and gives a theatrical sigh. “We all have our burdens to bear.”
When I don’t laugh at that, she sighs for real. “See? You’re already terrible at being rich.” She nudges me again. “You’re supposed to say something insulting about my shoes.”
A laugh slips out of me, a little rusty but at least it’s a laugh.
Sam grins at the sound.
“Carrson isn’t a prize you stole from me. Neither is being a Bellefleur,” she adds, more serious. “I was angry before because I didn’t know how to be anything else. It’s different now.”
I stare at her, so impressed I hardly know what to say.
She rolls her eyes, uncomfortable with her own sincerity. “Don’t make it weird. I’m still dragging you to the ballroom.” She flaps her hands. “Get dressed. Come on.”
I pull on a pair of jeans and a flowy pink shirt, then tie my hair into a quick ponytail while Sam sits on the end of the bed and paws through my makeup bag.
“Is this lipstick new?” She holds it up, reading the label on the bottom. “Midnight Merlot?”
“I got it at the drugstore last week,” I call from the bathroom, where I’m brushing my teeth. Once that’s done, I come back into the bedroom. “That pink one is new too.”
She digs out the pink lipstick and swipes it across her mouth. “Raspberry Riot?” She smiles at her reflection in a mirror across the room, above Carrson’s small wooden desk. “This one’s for when you want your lips to say fun, but your eyes to say I know where the bodies are.”
The smile stays on her mouth a beat too long before it fades.
I chuckle, then take it when she offers it and dab a little onto my lips.
I hand the tube back and check the color in the mirror.
When I turn back to Sam, she’s still sitting on the bed, one hand curled loosely around the lipstick, the cap off.
Her shoulders have rounded forward. Her eyes are fixed on it like she’s forgotten what it’s for.
“Sam,” I call out.
She startles and instantly wipes the expression away, but it stays in the shadows of her eyes.
“Hey.” I go sit next to her. “Are you okay?”
“Sure,” she says, overly bright. She applies another coat, like she can paint the smile back onto her face.
“Sam,” I say gently, “if something’s bothering you, it’s okay to tell me.” I pat my shoulder. “This is a pretty comfy spot to cry on if you need it.”
She sniffles, turning the lipstick between her fingers.
“It’s Staci,” she confesses. “I can’t stop thinking about her. I keep picturing her hanging there. Spinning.” Samantha’s eyes fill with tears but she’s too stubborn to let them fall. “I should have helped her. Stopped it.”
My shoulders dip. Carrson’s been having nightmares about Staci too. I’ve heard him say her name in his sleep a couple of times. The other night, he woke with his chest heaving, his eyes roaming over the room as though part of him was trapped inside that memory.
This morning, I woke with my own parents drowning behind my eyes.
Maybe that’s what nightmares are. Grief finding a way past all the walls we build while we’re awake.
“It’s not your fault,” I tell Sam, the same thing I told Carrson the last time Staci haunted his dreams. “What happened to her. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Jackson, and if karma doesn’t get him, we will. Just wait.”
“You’re right.” She swipes under her eyes, fixing makeup that isn’t smudged. “Carrson told Thomson and me about Silas in his bus and Jackson snorting Devil’s Dust. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not. I trust you.”
She twists the lipstick down, caps it. “I’ve heard some of the other kids, mostly locals, talking about how much they like it, DD.” She stands, and I do too. “Scary, right?”
“Very,” I agree, remembering Jackson’s eyes rolling back and his body shuddering.
Wanting to check if I need a sweater, I go to the window, pull back the curtains, and peer down into the backyard.
Early November has thinned the trees. Bare sweetgum branches reach for the gray sky, while the oaks still hold a scatter of gold-colored leaves. The rose garden’s been cut back for winter, leaving thorny canes and dark soil around winding stone paths.
Two women walk across the lawn toward the woods. Both have long dark hair and thick wool coats that fall to their calves. Even from this distance I recognize them. These are the women who stood behind Carr while he whipped Carrson. The ones who left the room with him.
“Who are those women?” I ask.
Sam comes to stand beside me.
“Carr Ashford’s Bonded.” Her answer is casual, but she doesn’t look at me. “They live in the west wing, opposite of here.”
I stare, watching them fade into the woods.
“Mother hates them.” She adds in an offhanded way, “Won’t be in the same room as them.”
I’m watching Sam now, not the view out the window. For the second time today, her usual cheerful facade has cracked. Now her face is set into grim lines.
“Why?”
“Who knows? I think she’s jealous. That Carr made her a Mother and sent her away to raise me while they got to stay here with him. Which is crazy to me. I’d never want to be them. The bonded women left behind. The ones everyone knows weren’t chosen. Second place.”
“If it’s so insulting to not be chosen as Mother, why don’t they leave?”
“Where else would they go?” Sam lets out a sad laugh.
“Bonding is permanent. Just like it was for Staci.” She turns back toward me.
“When I was younger, I thought getting bonded was the best thing that could happen to me. You get chosen by a Brother. You get a house, a name, money. You’re protected.
” Her mouth tugs to the side. “That’s what we’re taught, anyway. ”
My heart aches at that. How in The Order women like Sam are taught from birth that being chosen is the same thing as mattering.
“Sometimes I worry I’ll end up like them,” Sam says, staring out the window.
“What if that’s all I ever am? Bonded but never chosen as a Mother.
A woman with a bedroom in some rich man’s house, wearing his jewelry and waiting for him to decide whether to give me attention that day.
It reminds me of that book you gave me. The Handmaid’s Tale, remember? ”
I nod.
“What if I end up like the women in that book? Property to be used. Close to power but never having it as my own.”
“You don’t have to become that.”
“It’s easy for you to say. Carrson already chose you.”
“No,” I correct her gently. “It’s easy for me to say because I believe in the right of a woman to say no. Carrson only gets me because I chose him back.”
“I don’t think I could do it. Turn down the chance to be bonded.” Her chest rises on a deep breath. “It’s the only path forward for me.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re one of the strongest women I know,” I tell her. “You’re good at it, taking charge, like at Rosewood. You can be that without being bonded.”
“I make rules inside the walls they give me, but only Mothers are allowed to sit on the High Council. Only Mothers get a vote in what happens.” She lifts her chin, the fear in her expression giving way to resolve.
Defiance blazes in her aqua-blue eyes. “I need to be bonded and chosen as a Mother. Then I could do more than run Rosewood. I could protect girls like Staci before it’s too late.
I could make rules that actually matter. ”
“But Sam, I don’t think—”
“Enough.” Her smile returns, but it’s more brittle this time. “I have a plan. I’m sticking to it.”
The words I want to say crowd in my mouth. That she deserves more than a future someone else assigns her. That gaining power shouldn’t require giving up her own, but Sam’s looking at me like she knows every argument I’ll make and she’s already dismissed them.
“Ballroom first. Existential dread later.” She opens the door and steps into the hallway.
I turn to follow her, but a flash of color outside the window catches my eye.