I grab his arm and tug him toward the light streaming from a sconce high on the wall. In the shadows, I hadn’t seen it. But now? His left eye is bruised and swollen, a black eye in the making. There’s a fresh gash across his cheekbone, curved like a blade. It’s bleeding, fast and messy. The scab must have broken when he was kissing my neck.
“What happened to you?” I whisper, my fingers brushing over the cut.
He winces, his lips pushing into a pout. “Like you care.”
I roll my eyes. “Really? What are you—five?”
Without letting go of his shirt, I drag him down the hallway to the kitchen. The bright overhead lights hum as I rummage through drawers until Ifind a clean towel. Carrson leans against the counter, still sulking like an overgrown child, while I run the cloth under cold water, wring it out, and return to him.
“This’ll probably hurt,” I warn and press the towel against his cheek, firm and steady.
He hisses at the contact.
A minute passes in silence. I ask, quieter this time, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“No,” he mutters, and I start to turn away, already resigning myself to another secret he won’t share. Another wall he won’t let me break through.
Instead, he stands and says, “I’ll show you.”
Chapter twenty-three
Carrson
I willnotthink about how close I just came to kissing,reallykissing, Laurel Turner.
I willnotthink about it. About how soft her skin is, how sweet she tastes. About how one moan from her made my dick instantly hard. About how badly I want her, even now, minutes after she rejected me. Physically pushed me away.
I willnotthink about how good it felt when she stopped my bleeding just now in the kitchen. No one has ever taken care of me like that. It made me feel weak, but in a good way. Like I could lean on someone else for a change.
I willnotthink aboutit.
These are dangerous things, these feelings and thoughts.
I willnot.
That’s the mantra I chant as I lead her through the back stairwells. The ones that spiral, twist, and turn. She doesn’t fight it, doesn’t question me, just lets me drag her down into the underbelly of Ashford House, a place the sisters never go.
Naïve girl. Foolish girl.
Trusting too easily.
I knew by the time I was six not to let someone lead me into dark corners or unknown places.I should reprimand her, break her of the habit, but isn’t that one of the things that draws me to her? Her innocence? Her bravery? How she can look at shadows and not see the monsters within.
Dim lights buzz overhead. Concrete walls sweat with condensation. The air smells like mold and something sharp beneath it, bleach or maybe blood.
We reach the old communal bathroom no one uses anymore. My boots echo on the tile as I push the door open. Inside, two of my brothers are crouched in one of the stalls, gloves on, faces grim. Ziplocs of white powder are torn open. They scoop it up and flush it down. Cocaine. Laced with something deadlier.
Laurel stiffens behind me, and I feel her step into me. Her shoulder brushes mine. I don’t pull away. If she needs my closeness in this moment, I can at least give her that.
“What is this stuff?” she asks, prodding at a streak of white powder with her sneaker-clad toe, but I have the feeling she already knows.
“Cocaine laced with fentanyl,” I answer, keeping my voice steady even though I want to scream. To rage. To break something,anything. I saw the pictures. Dobbs sent them to me. A fifteen-year-old girl, curled like a rag doll, laying on a dirty floor, but that’s not what got to me. It wasn’t the bruises or the foam on her lips. What gutted me was the bow in her hair. A red satin ribbon, tied so carefully, like she still believed in birthdays and sparkles and someone telling her she was beautiful.
“Thomson told me about this,” she says, glancing over at me. “He said this is why you had to kill that guy the night I met you.”
“Had to?” I raise a brow. “I was waiting for your lecture. You know, the one about how I always have choices. That I could’ve picked peace over violence.”
Laurel doesn’t answer right away. Her eyes flick to the swirling toilet, to death dissolving into water. She wraps her arms around herself.
