My smile fades as I remember how my instructor had berated me afterward, saying how I made a racket and scared the animals away. How he hit me, knocked me to the ground. “Your father expects results. Do better next time.”
“What did you do once you could track the animals?” she asks, pulling me out of that flashback.
I stretch out my other leg and cross my legs at the ankles. “Later, the instructor made tracks himself, and I followed them.”
I don’t tell Laurel about what would happen when I’d find him. How we’d fight, brutal boxing matches that left me broken and bloody.
“Wow,” she says softly, “you must have gotten really good at it.”
“I did,” I answer, knowing I’ll never tell her the rest of the story. How much later, my teacher had taken me to far-off places, where The Order was involved in wars I didn’t understand. How we’d track through fields of sand littered with dead bodies dressed in tan camo, rifles still clutched in their hands. We’d find real people hiding in rocky caves. They’d shake when they saw us, plead and pray in languages full of harsh consonants.
That’s when I killed for the first time, under careful instruction. “Tighten your grip, Carrson. Pull the trigger slowly. Watch for the recoil.”
A flash of light. A man falling. Blood spilled on the ground.
“Good job. Your father will be so proud.”
We did it again. And again. Until I stopped flinching. Until I was efficient. Lethal. A true son of The Order. It’d almost been a relief to go off to college, where I could choose my own weapon, the blade over the bang.
“That was it,” I tell Laurel, pushing aside those old dark memories. “How I learned to fight, to track, to stand up for myself.” I look over and switch the focus back to her. “I’ll teach you those things too. Until Sam, or anyone, won’t ever be able to knock you down again.”
A glint of challenge flashes in her eyes. She smiles and says, “Untilyoucan’t knock me down?”
I give her a crooked grin. “Let’s keep our goals realistic, Kitten.”
***
Laurel
I laugh when Carrson says that. Tells me to be realistic, that I’ll never beat him, but inside I’m still reeling over what he said about how he grew up. It’s unhinged. Tragic. I mean, who grows up like that? Tutors in the morning, tactical assault in the afternoon.
The worst part? He didn’t say it like he was bragging. He said it like it was nothing. Like it was normal. Like there wasn’t a world out there where kids grew up learning to draw pictures, not weapons.
Plus, I have a feeling there’s a lot he’s leaving out. There’d been a moment, fleeting but there, when he’d looked hollowed out, almost broken. When I’d wanted for a split second to reach out to him, but that’s ridiculous.
He’s my enemy.
The reason I’m in this mess in the first place.
Carrson tips his head back against the side of the bed and closes his eyes, as if our conversation is over, which it isn’t.
Not even close.
I still havelotsof questions.
“What about the Sisters? Are they trained like that too? So they can fight?”
Carrson nods. “Not as intensely as the Brothers, but yeah. Every one of them can shoot a gun, throw a punch.”
I try to picture it. That girl Cicley at a shooting range or throwing elbows in a sparring ring. It doesn’t compute.
“That’s why Samantha was able to get you down so fast,” he adds, with his jaw clenched. Like just saying her name has him on edge. “Don’t let the lip glossfool you.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then I ask, a little too casually, “Did you two ever train together?” I don’t know why I’m curious, why I care. It’s just I want to know if he’s taught her, touched her, the way he just did with me.
He exhales through his nose. “Training’s kept separate. Brothers and Sisters don’t mix, except for social events. Order functions.”
I tilt my head. “What kind of Order functions?”
