Page 26 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Silas let her go. He didn’t even touch her.”

I push my thumb into the cut, digging and twisting. Jackson’s back bows from the mattress. Blood leaks around my hand, staining my knuckles. “But you didn’t know that when you delivered her to him, right? You had no idea what he’d do to her.”

Jackson turns his face into the pillow, refusing to answer. Sweat collects along his hairline.

“What did Silas give you for her?”

His eyes betray him, sliding toward the black powder scattered across the bedside table.

I follow his gaze. “Say it.”

“You already know.”

I push my thumb farther into the wound. “I want to hear you say what Laurel was worth to you.”

“Devil’s Dust.”

“The entire sentence.”

“I traded Laurel for Devil’s Dust.”

He assigned her a price.

That infuriates me beyond words. Laurel cannot be measured against money, property, power, or blood. There is nothing I own that I wouldn’t surrender for her. Every estate. Every alliance. Every future my father built for me.

All of it.

Jackson reduced her to a transaction. A pinch of black powder small enough to scatter across a table, to spill onto the floor and grind beneath someone’s shoe. He looked at Laurel, weighed her life against a few hours of oblivion, and chose the drug.

Violence, I understand. I know the satisfaction of making another person hurt. But this was colder. He made a calculation. That she was cheap.

To me, Laurel is priceless.

I pick up the blowtorch.

“Looks like you’re bleeding a bit over here,” I say conversationally. The sheets beneath him are stained red now. “Let me cauterize that for you.”

I ignite the flame. It appears with a low rush, blue at the base and orange at the tip. I adjust the dial until it narrows.

Then I lightly apply the flame to his side. The blood bubbles, and the skin crackles. Jackson thrashes hard enough to pull the bed several inches away from the wall.

“Stop,” he begs. “Please stop.”

The fear in his voice satisfies a part of me I’ve spent years pretending belongs only to my father.

“Were you going to stop with Laurel?” I ask. “If Silas let you go alone with her?”

A scab is forming. I get the pliers and rip it off. I want him bleeding.

Jackson sobs. Actual tears slip from the corners of his eyes and disappear into his hair.

“You’re insane.”

“Probably.”

“You’ll be removed from the path for this.”

“They can’t remove me. No man can harm a Brother without just and proven cause,” I recite the rule we’ve been taught since childhood. “You fucked with my Bonded. That’s number one on the just-cause list.”