I don’t like the way he says that.
The knife lingers at my throat long enough for me to wonder if this is it, if this is where it ends, before it moves down to my shirt, where he sweeps it downward with one smooth, clean cut.
My shirt and bra split apart.
Freezing air rushes in to steal the warmth from my skin. I gasp, goosebumps rising as I brace for pain, for the trickle of blood. There’s no way he cut that close in the dark and didn’t nick me, but…nothing.
I’m not bleeding.
Not yet, anyway.
I expect Carrson to follow that up with more threats, more mockery, but I think he might’ve surprised even himself because all I hear is the sound of him, quick inhalations as if he’s affected too.
Taking advantage of his silence, I lean forward. The chains that bind me give a soft clink.
“Did they burn your shoulder down here?” I ask. “Is that how you got that mark?”
“I’ve been burned here. Bled here. We all have,” he answers.
“We?” I press. “Who?” I picture it, someone else dragged down here like him. Like this. What other victims have been tortured?
“All the brothers. Sometimes the sisters too,” he says, almost sing-song.
“But you don’t have siblings.” I frown into the dark. “Your fraternity brothers? And the sisters too? From Rosewood Hall?”
I worry my lip, trying to piece it together, the idea of something bigger starting to form. “Is that who makes up The Order? Is this some kind of deranged frat hazing?”
“Oh no,” he scoffs. “The adults were down here with us. It’s a whole thing.”
“Who?” I ask, turning my head, trying to pinpoint how close he is. “Your dad? Was he here?”
The laugh is real but full of bitterness.
“My father was the king of this room,” he says. “The ringleader.”
I go quiet at that, stunned. It’s hard to reconcile the man I’ve read about, the polished, respected Senator, with this place.
Then, more to himself than to me, Carrson murmurs, “Like I’ll be someday.”
I barely catch it. I’m too busy trying to make sense of him. Every time his father comes up, Carrson’s emotions go darker. More volatile. Resentment. Anger.
“Were you sad when he died from the heart attack?” I ask. “Your dad?”
“Heart attack?” That laugh again. The one so full of rage and pain and bitter irony that it makes me want to stick my fingers in my ears. “You’d need a heart for that, and my father, I assure you, had none.”
“Then how did he die?”
He’s at my ear again, so close his lip brushes my lobe when he speaks. “Have you not broken into that locked room yet, Becky? The one upstairs?” The knife presses deeper into my skin. “I tried to get the bloodstains out.” A soft, mocking sigh. “You know how stubborn they can be.”
The air goes cold, like the room itself is closing in around me.
“But…why?” The words barely make it out. “He was your father.”
“He was no father to me. He was only pain.” His voice breaks, raw emotion finally coming through. “Humiliation.”
“Did he hurt you?” I fill in the blanks, picturing it. The brand in the corner of this room. The cross-shaped mark on Carrson’s back. Other marks come to me, the strange scars on his thighs. “Your legs? The circles?”
“He liked cigars,” Carrson answers. He doesn’t need to say the rest. It’s already in my mind. The image of a cigar with its tip glowing red, pressed into a child’s skin. The smell of burnt flesh. The betrayal of the one person supposed to keep you safe. I grind my teeth. To think that his own father did that and no one stopped it.
