Page 111 of Pretty Savage: Defy

I sent the first limo ahead, watched its red taillights pull out into the road and disappear.

The second limo waited for us while Wesleyson and I went back for Tipson.

I was grateful for the excuse because I didn’t know how to answer her.

The presidency has never felt like a future. It’s an instruction Carr and everyone else have been repeating for as long as I can remember. Most of my life has been arranged that way, a path drawn by other people and called destiny until refusing to follow it became impossible to imagine.

Laurel shifts in her sleep. Her lashes flutter, and her hand slides closer to mine on the seat between us.

She’s the only thing I’d ever deliberately chosen for myself. The only time I’d ever really gone against the Brothers. They’d argued against saving her. Said it was reckless. Unwise.

Watching her sleep, I can’t say they were wrong.

But I’m glad I didn’t listen.

She’s the wisest unwise choice I’ve ever made.

Telling her I love her should have made me feel exposed. Instead, the words left me lighter. Then she said them back, again and again, and I wanted nothing beyond what I already had.

I scan the limo, checking on everyone else. Tipson’s awake now, more alert than I expected. Abbie and Cicley are talking with Brentson. Thomson is quiet, which isn’t unusual, but he hasn’t looked away from the window since we left. I’ll ask him what’s up later.

Dawn breaks through a yellow haze by the time my father’s house comes into view. Hundreds of cars cover the lawn and the field beside it. I’m not surprised. Every guest room in the mansion is occupied, and Order parties rarely end after a single night.

“We’re here,” I call, shaking the people closest to me, rousing them. We all tumble out of the car. I watch the limo drive away and head inside.

The first clue that something’s wrong is the lack of security guarding the doors.

The second is the sound of gunshots.

I shove Laurel behind me and spread one arm across her, blocking her. “Stay back.”

“What’s happening?” Her hand closes around the back of my shirt. “Carrson?”

“I don’t know.” I’m already pulling out my dagger as I check on the rest of the crew. Every trace of drowsiness is gone. Jackets open. Hands disappear under waistbands and reach toward ankle sheaths. Guns and knives emerge from places no one outside The Order would have thought to look.

A few seconds ago, we were exhausted college kids stumbling home from a party. Gunfire strips that away, leaving behind what we were raised to be.

Children of The Order.

I lift two fingers and point left, close my fist toward the right, then circle one hand through the air.

Spread out. Check the perimeter. Find the threat.

We invented the signals while playing war in the woods behind this house when we were ten. No one hesitates now. Sam takes two Sisters around the left side of the mansion. Thomson and Brentson disappear around the right. The others divide behind them while I approach the front doors with Laurel close to my back.

Laurel tries to peer around my shoulder. I move with her, keeping my body between her and the rest of the house.

“Stay behind me.”

“I can’t see what’s happening.”

“That’s the point.”

I ease the front door open a few inches, holding my body off to the side, then nudge it wider with my foot. Laurel stays close behind me.

The first bodies lie just beyond the entryway.

A man and a woman. His arms are flung around her, his body twisted over hers as though he tried to shield her before they fell.