Page 77 of Pretty Savage: Defy

I pick up the soap. It smells much too sweet for a place where blood has been spilled.

“Did Sam do this?”

“Yes.”

“You brought her?”

“I did.” She answers without hesitation.

I rub the soap between my palms and wash my arms. The water clouds where the suds dissolve, sending flower petals drifting across my skin. A few cling to my wrists when I cup my hands and pour water over my closed eyes.

“Was she scared?”

“Terrified.”

I look at Rebecca’s back. “You don’t seem bothered by that.”

“I was bothered every minute she was in this room.” Her shoulders remain straight, but one hand closes around the other at her waist. “Being afraid doesn’t always mean a person should be removed from danger. Sometimes it means they need someone beside them who can guide them through it.”

I wash the back of my neck, thinking of Sam lowering her eyes the instant Rebecca asked whether she was being questioned. Love and control braided together so tightly I’m not sure Rebecca knows where one ends and the other begins.

“Why am I here?”

“You and Carrson can’t bond unless you complete this ritual and become a true Daughter of The Order.”

I had already guessed that, but hearing it here, naked in a bath under Carrson’s ancestral estate, makes the distinction feel less theoretical.

“So this is a requirement.”

“It is.”

“And you waited until I was already in the bath to tell me.”

“I told you the bath was preparation. I haven’t asked you to agree to anything else.”

“You knew I’d come farther if I didn’t know what was waiting.”

“Yes.”

At least she doesn’t insult me by denying it.

I wash the rest of my body under Rebecca’s instructions, passing the cloth over my skin while she explains the words carved into the wall. They’re the same ones Thomson told me, when Carrson first made me the deal that saved my father and my future. The one that bound me to him out of necessity rather than love.

We are The Order.

We bond in blood.

We rise in power.

We seek perfection.

The same beliefs shaped into different rituals. Boys bleed. Girls bathe. Both leave branded by the same cross.

“Is this where Louellen prepared you?”

“Eventually.” Rebecca reaches up and trails one finger along the metal edge of a manacle. “But the first time I came into this chamber, I wasn’t invited.”

I look twice, startled by the fondness in the gesture.