I’m already picturing silk gowns with hidden daggers, goblets filled with blood, panthers on diamond leashes.
“You know. Birthday parties. Anniversary dinners. The usual.”
I blink. “You mean, like…ponies and party hats? With cake and noisemakers?”
He laughs at that. An ironic kind of chuckle. “When we were little, yeah. Not that we were ever normal kids. We’d play tag, but it always ended with someone bleeding on the grass or tackled into a fountain.” His voice drops, turning grim. “Everything was a test. Who was stronger, faster, smarter, more obedient. Even at seven, we knew trust was a weakness and closeness was temporary. That we were pitted against each other.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says it. Just stares at the ceiling like he’s watching memories crawl across it.
My throat tightens. I fall quiet, trying to imagine Carrson and Samantha and all the others growing up like that. Not as allies, but as adversaries in training. I picture them as toddlers in pressed uniforms, sticky with cake, stealing each other’s presents and crying about it. I picture Samantha with a ponytail and a skinned knee, shoving some other girl out of the frame so she could stand next to Carrson in a photo. I imagine when they were older, awkward, with braces and pimples, sipping sparkling cider at galas and glaring at each other while their parents bartered their futures in the corner of the room.
I swallow hard. “You all have a lot of history together,” I say quietly, wincing at how flimsy the words sound. Carrson doesn’t seem like someone who lets people in often, which makes me painfully aware of what this is, him cracking the door open, just enough for me to peek inside. I don’t take that for granted.
He shrugs, overly nonchalant. “History. Grudges. Same thing.”
Part of me wants to leave it there. Let the silence settle and take this moment for what it is. I can’t. Curiosity always wins with me.
I take a deep breath, exhale, and ask, “What about when you were older? Did the birthday parties end?”
“Nope. They just changed.” He lets out a hollow laugh. “There was always some gathering. Legacy dinners, bonding ceremonies, reaffirmation rites. That kind of shit.” He glances over, his jaw tight. “You’d think an organization built on silence, power, and control would want to stay in the shadows, but nah. They throw more parties than a debutante during ball season. Half the calendar’s catered.”
I blink at that.
He keeps going. “It’s all for show, of course. The suits, the speeches, the matching dresses. They’re a glossy mask to hide what’s underneath. If you smile wide enough, flash your watch, parade your Bonded and your kid, no one gets the bright idea to challenge you. To take what’s yours.”
A beat. Then his voice lowers. “That’s how most people act, anyway. Not my father, though. He never talked about me. He’d point to someone else’s kid, slap them on the back, and say,” Carrson drops into a low, overly dramatic drawl, as if he’s imitating his dad, “‘Now that’s a future councilman.’” Then he shrugs. “Like I wasn’t standing right there.”
I don’t say anything for a minute, don’t even know what to say to that. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him, overlooked by the one person who was supposed to see you first. It makes something sharp twist in my chest.
Sympathy. Pity.
Carrson wouldn’t want either, so I bury it. Move on to my next question.
“For these events, the parties and balls,” I ask, “did you and Samantha go together? As a date?”
“Never.”
“I don’t understand.” I lift my hands, questioning. “She said you were hers.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. “I’m not. I never was.”
I roll onto my stomach, prop my elbows on the floor, and rest my chin in my hands. “Why would she say that?”
The corner of his lip curls into something grim. “Like I said, we grew up together. Her mother and my father are both on the High Council, so we were thrown together a lot.” A long pause. I can practically see him flipping throughmemories, handpicking which ones to give me. Finally, after a deep sigh, he says, “When we were thirteen, I found Sam in my bedroom, barely dressed.”
“What?!” I sit up fast, twisting toward him. “That’s,that’s disgusting.”
His eyes finally open, flick to mine, then fall back to the floor. “Yeah. Her mom left her there. As a sort of…gift.”
My stomach flips, as a sick feeling rises. “What the hell?You were kids.”
He huffs out a breath. A bitter laugh. “I had no idea what to do. I mean, I knewtheoreticallywhat men did with women, my father made sure to educate me early about that, but thirteen-year-old me still thought girls had cooties.”
Another not-really-a-laugh, this one quieter. Sadder. “I screamed and ran.” He sighs, less amused now. “It’s been like that ever since. Sam throwing herself at me at every opportunity. Showing up in skimpy clothing, climbing into my bed when I was asleep. At my eighteenth birthday, she drugged me. God knows what would have happened if Thomson hadn’t noticed. He got me out of there.”
He glances at me, and I know what he’s thinking.
Prom night. Preston. Me.
