Page 128 of Pretty Savage: Defy

I know it.

“Laurel,” Carr speaks, his voice low enough that only I can hear, but so hard and biting it cuts through the roaring in my mind. “Laurel Turner.”

The sound of my name makes my head whip toward him.

“Snap out of it. You’re embarrassing yourself and our family name.”

Anger breaks through the chaos of my thoughts.

“You can fuck your family name,” I bite out. “You can go fuck yourself. I don’t want to die.”

Carr tips his face toward the ceiling and releases an exasperated breath. “Who said you’re going to die?”

“You’re going to murder me.” The accusation comes out tangled with a sob, but panic has already taken me too far to care how crazed I sound.

“If I did that, my son would kill himself. That’s what he told me.”

Everything stops.

“What?”

“He said he’d die if you died. That his life and yours are tied, and I believe he means it.” Carr lowers the dagger. “So I assure you, although you may wish for death after this, it won’t come from my hand.”

Carrson said that about me. He told his father our lives are tied. Not me, alone in our bedroom, where words can become larger than the world outside. He told Carr, a man who would recognize the declaration as both devotion and weakness.

My next breath reaches deep into my lungs, filling them with air. Carr doesn’t say when they had this conversation. It could have been yesterday. It could have been weeks ago, before people died because I saw Silas and kept silent.

Carrson may have believed our lives were linked then.

I don’t know what he thinks now.

My heart rate slows anyway. I still don’t trust Carr, but now I know killing me would mean risking the son he spent his entire life trying to preserve.

“Now, stand up straight,” he admonishes. “And for the love of God, never show weakness. They are waiting for the Ashfords to falter. Hold yourself as though we never do.”

Never show weakness.

The words are familiar. Carrson said the exact same thing before leading me into the ball, his hand firm around mine while Order members waited down the stairs.

I thought it was advice then.

Now I see it was inheritance.

Carr taught his son how to survive this room, and Carrson passed the lesson to me.

I release my grip on the belt, straighten my spine, and lift my chin. I will show Carrson I was listening.

The doors open again.

The entire room turns at once.

Carrson wears a robe like the rest of us, except his is the deep red of the roses lining the aisle. His shoulders are back and his chest broad, each step carrying the confidence of someone who expects the world to move out of his way.

No one speaks. Hundreds of people watch him cross the hall, but he gives no indication he notices them.

As he approaches, I search for his expression, any hint of what waits for me under the hood, but darkness conceals his face.

He could be looking at me with warmth or revulsion.