Page 65 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Look inside.”

I flip past the first page to find a picture of me staring back, but the name isn’t right. Neither are the rest of the details.

“Willow?” I ask. “Santa Barbara?”

“It’s fake, obviously, but real enough that it’ll take you anywhere you need to go,” says Carrson, staring downward.

I pull the key out of my pocket. I line them up on the music stand before us.

The brass key. The blue passport.

A place to stay. A way to leave.

“So you’re giving me a new identity and my old identity all at the same time?” I ask.

He hesitates a moment, weighing his words. “I’m giving you options to replace the ones I’ve taken from you.”

“You said that before,” I remind him.

“I’m repeating it because it’s important.” He gently presses a piano key, and a single note sounds out, melancholy without the rest of the chord to keep it company.

“Do you have a fake passport too? Because I’m not going anywhere without you.” I cross my arms over my chest, curling my fists.

“I know you won’t.” He smiles a little at that, but his eyes are still distant. “It’s for if I’m not here to go with you.”

My heart contracts painfully. “What do you mean?”

“You haven’t asked where I was yesterday.” He turns and straddles the bench facing me.

“Your father said you had to run an errand for him. That you needed to deliver some computer stuff.”

Carrson gives a humorless laugh. “It wasn’t an errand. It was a mission.”

The word makes my stomach go hollow. “What kind of mission?”

“The Order sends us on them sometimes, me more than most.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down as he swallows. “They’re…dangerous.”

I look him over. “Were you hurt?”

“Thom used the healing spray on me,” he admits.

“Carrson!” I exclaim, reaching for him.

“I’m okay, really.” He holds up his hands. “I never minded the missions before. I was good at them, and being useful made the risk feel worthwhile. I didn’t care whether I came back hurt.”

“Now?” I ask. Mirroring him, I throw one leg over the bench so I’m straddling it too.

He chuckles ruefully. “Now I’m fastening my seat belt. Checking the mirrors twice. Making sure I survive, because of you.”

My chest swells at that, how Carrson Ashford, who has spent most of his life walking into danger like it has nothing to take from him, is checking his mirrors because he wants to come back to me.

“You were injured.” My hand traces over his cheek, imagining bruises I can’t see, cuts that no longer bleed, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt.

“I told you, I’m fine.” He turns his head away slightly.

“If you were fine,” I counter, “you wouldn’t be getting me a fake passport.”

He’s quiet at that, his own logic working against him.