Page 135 of Pretty Savage: Defy

But I can’t stop seeing them.

All those lowered eyes. All those hands wrapped around crosses. All those people who know this is wrong and have decided that obedience matters more.

Such hypocrites. The bastards.

Wait.

Bastards. Bastardes.

Sam’s words click in my mind, making sense. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” A quote from The Handmaid’s Tale. The book I lent Sam about women trapped inside a society that called their oppression sacred. She never told me what she thought of it, but now I know.

She understood.

That’s when I smell smoke.

Chapter thirty-three

After

Laurel

Abbie bursts through the doors, her face flushed and streaked with soot, her eyes red and streaming.

“Fire!” she screams. “Ashford House is on fire. Get out now!”

Smoke rolls into the hall behind her, thickening as it spreads along the ceiling. She looks over her shoulder, eyes wild with panic.

Carrson pulls out of me and rises. He wraps my robe around me, then snatches his from the floor as the crowd surges into the aisles. Men and women shove past one another, overturning benches in their rush toward the doors.

“The front stairs are burning!” a man bellows. “The main doors are blocked too.”

Those are the only ways out I know.

“Everyone, listen to me!” Carrson shouts, wearing his robe and tying the belt at his waist.

His voice slices through the panic, and the room obeys. Carr, Jack, everyone turns toward him.

“Go to the tunnels.” Carrson points toward the hallway leading to the kitchen. “Get to Rosewood Hall.”

The crowd changes direction. Gray and cream robes stream toward the kitchen, people organizing themselves around Carrson’s command.

Carrson takes me by the elbow. Abbie reaches us, and he catches her arm too.

“Hurry.” He watches the smoke thicken across the ceiling and descend toward us.

Thomson falls into place behind us as we run for the door.

A crush of people block the closet concealing the tunnel entrance. They’ve bottlenecked at the narrow opening, shoving one another in their desperation to get through. Carr and Jack have remained behind, forcing people into pairs so they can fit. I don’t see Jackson so I assume he’s already in the tunnel.

“Carrson. Laurel.” Carr waves us forward. “Go. Get down there.”

Carrson stops in front of him. “What about you?”

“I’ll be fine.” Carr gestures toward the opening. “Take Laurel. You need to go. Save her.”

He knows exactly which command Carrson can’t refuse.

Abbie tugs on the sleeve of my robe. “Please, Laurel. We have to go.”