30. Bonding Day
Chapter thirty
Bonding Day
Laurel
When the light comes, I’ve been in darkness so long it burns my eyes. I sit up with a hiss and throw one hand over my face. Tears gather as I force my lids to open.
Sam crouches next to me and directs her flashlight down so it illuminates the ground. She’s changed out of the clothes she wore to the club. Now she has on a clean shirt and pants. No trace of blood or battle.
“Sorry,” she says. “You've been down here for two days. Are you okay?”
My eyes water as I scan her, searching for injuries and to see if she knows what I did, if she hates me, but all I see is concern.
“I’m not the one who was fighting. Are you all right?” I pause, my ribs constricting. “Is Carrson?”
Sam lowers herself to the floor and rests her back against the wall. With her knees bent and her arms draped over them, she releases a weary breath, like this is the first time she’s had to rest since I last saw her. “He’s alive. His injuries healed.”
I bolt upright. “Injuries!”
“Nothing life-threatening.” She raises one hand before I can interrupt again. “He was shot in the arm, and part of the ceiling came down on him. Thom healed the worst of it.”
The words should reassure me, but my mind catches on the image of Carrson bleeding while I sat underground, unable to reach him.
“Is it over?”
“Yes.” Her head hangs. “A bunch of Jackals are dead, but a lot escaped too. Carrson's interrogating the two who were captured.”
“Interrogating? You mean torturing,” I say.
She looks at me, the perfect circle of light from the flashlight reflected in her eyes. “He has a rare talent for getting people to talk. They’ve kept him locked in a bedroom with them. He can’t leave until he gets to the bottom of what happened.”
I read between the lines. She’s trying to explain why she’s here instead of Carrson, but I can’t tell if what she’s saying is the truth or if she’s just trying to appease me.
“Carrson already figured out that Silas bought the catering company years ago,” Sam continues. “Patrice, the event coordinator, remember her?”
I nod.
“She hired the company, but we can’t blame her.
It was legitimate. Silas kept it that way until the ball, then sent his own men in as the staff.
” She shakes her head. “Talk about playing the long game. He waited until every Mother and Father worth killing was under one roof. Carr and Jack are already busy figuring out how to cover up the deaths.”
“Did the others make it? Abbie, Cicley, Thomson?”
I need to hear their names. I need to know how many people are dead.
“They’re alive.” Sam’s fingers curl around the fabric over her knees. “We lost others. Hannah. Sampson. Mason. Wesleyson—”
“Wesleyson? But he was just with us.”
“I know. About fourteen Brothers and Sisters died, along with more adults. We were luckier than them because most of the younger generation had already left. Some snuck into the woods to have sex, went to private parties or clubs like we did, or passed out somewhere safe.”
“It’s my fault.” I bury my face in my hands. “I saw Silas earlier that night. He was dressed as a server, and I didn’t warn anyone. I thought he was alone. I didn’t believe he was a threat.”
I thought I had exhausted every tear my body could produce, but they return fast enough to blur her face.
I am terrified of losing Carrson’s love, but the thought of losing Sam and the others hurts in a different place.
They’ve become the family I never expected to find here.
Sisters I chose, even if The Order insists choice has nothing to do with belonging.
“I know,” Sam says.
She rubs her hands over her arms, trying to warm them.
“Mother told me. I told Abbie, Cicley, and Thomson, but no one else. Carr has kept it contained. Even Jack hasn’t announced it.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because information is more valuable when only one person has it.” Bitterness enters her voice. “He’ll save it until using it hurts Carrson the most.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I was furious when I heard.” Sam keeps her eyes on the floor. “Part of me still is. Fourteen of us are dead, Laurel. I understand that you didn’t know what Silas was planning, but I wish you had said something.”
Her honesty hurts, although not as much as an easy forgiveness would have.
“Mother and I talked about it. She reminded me that you weren’t raised the way we were. You don’t enter every room counting exits and wondering which person might be there to kill you. You weren’t taught to see every stranger as a threat.”
“I should have known better.”
“Yes,” she says softly. “You should have.”
The words go through me because they're true.
Then her hand closes around my arm.
“But making a terrible mistake is not the same as choosing to betray us. We know you, Laurel. You’d never deliberately put us in danger. You love us, and we love you too.”
That makes me cry harder.
“What about your mom?” I ask once I can speak again. The last I heard, Rebecca was pinned down behind the stairs.
“It was so scary.” Sam’s face tightens. “I thought she was going to die. There were ten Jackals closing in on her, and then Carr came in.” She shakes her head.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. He went ballistic.
Tore through all of them just to get to her.
Killed one with his bare hands. He saved her. ”
“I’m so glad.”
“Yeah,” Sam’s eyes widen. “I’m more convinced than ever that they used to be bonded.”
I know they were, but I keep quiet. That’s Rebecca’s story to tell. Not mine.
“Mother told me more,” Sam says. “Everything she knows about The Order. The things they’ve done. The things they do. Some of it she didn’t even tell you.”
I look at her properly then.
The devastation in her face is not only grief for the dead. While I sat in darkness, Rebecca dismantled the world her daughter had trusted since birth.
“You ever notice how on the High Council there’s twelve men and eight women?” Sam asks.
“Yeah.” I’d noticed. Thought it strange, the unevenness.
“Mother’s asked them to make it ten and ten. Carr even backed her, but they get outvoted every time.” She drags a finger along the floor, then blows the dust from it. “Even if every woman votes together, they still need three men to agree before they can pass anything. How messed up is that?”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t apologize for the family Sam was born into, and I refuse to defend a society that has concentrated this much power in so few hands. Any comfort I could offer would sound hollow.
I lean my shoulder against hers, the only way I know to show she’s not alone.
“It’s terrible, the things we do. All the ways we take advantage of people,” she whispers.
Her cheeks glisten with silent tears. Now we’re both crying, pressed together on the floor of the room where The Order hides the evidence of everyone who came before us.
“I thought more about what you said after I showed you the ballroom. You’re right.
It’s not fair to make you and Carrson expose something so private to everyone.
To perform, like your bodies belong to them.
” She turns to me, her eyes blazing. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to stop it. I promise you.”
“You can’t,” I say, thinking back to all the scheming Carrson and I have done. Our thwarted plans to escape. The passport with my picture and a different name on it. Every door we tried to open before The Order slammed it closed. They all seem so futile now.
The Order will win. It will have its way. Even Silas, even Rebecca, powerful as they are, can’t bring it down.
“I will.” She straightens. “Now get up. I have to get you ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“We have to leave here. Drive to Ashford House. It’s your bonding day,” she says. “You and Carrson.”
I gape, unable to believe what I’m hearing. “You can’t be serious? They’re still doing it? After so many people died.”
She puts her hands on the floor and uses them to push to her feet. “The High Council decided we need it now more than ever. To boost morale after the battle. To prove that The Order is strong. That the line of succession from Carr to Carrson is intact.”
“Everyone agreed to that?”
“Almost. Jack was the only one who voted against it. He said rushing into the bonding would make Carrson look like the confirmed successor before The Order has decided who should lead after Carr.” Her mouth twists.
“What he means is that he wants the position for himself, and eventually for his son.”
“Bonding Carrson to me strengthens the Ashford claim.”
“Exactly. It gives everyone a future to rally behind. Carrson as High Father, with you beside him.”
I can’t picture that. Carrson and I sitting in the dining hall of Ashford House. A king with his queen. Thousands of people looking at us like we’re the answer.
“Does—does Carrson still want that?” I ask in a small voice. “To bond with me?”
Sam’s brow pulls together. “I haven’t spoken to him. No one has. Carr ordered him to question the surviving Jackals, and the Council made the decision without waiting.”
“So no one asked him?”
“No.”
Dread knots in my chest because I know The Order will force Carrson to bond with me whether he wants to or not.
Sam holds out her hand, and I accept it as I stand, my legs trembling after so long on the floor.
Before we leave, I cast one last glance back at the round room with the names of women.
I don’t know what their fate was.
I don’t know what mine will be either.