Page 13 of Pretty Savage: Defy

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.