Chapter 34

“And that’s when everything changed.”

He blinked over and over, looking anywhere except my face for a few moments before he forced himself to show a neutrally blank expression- his mask. Carter took a lock of my hair between his fingers and played with it. If he needed the distraction, I certainly wouldn’t stop him.

“Our families decided to…” Carter looked around uncomfortably and pulled me closer, as if using me to ground him. “They decided to … train us, I suppose. Well, that’s what they always called it, anyway.”

“Train you together?”

“I say us, but we’d never actually met. I found out later that Damien went through almost the exact same thing so it’s easier to just say us.” Carter sniffed and rubbed his nose.

“What did they make you do?”

Carter nodded. “Sometimes we fought, sometimes we took a beating… or were starved, or had our heads pushed underwater over and over, or thrown out in the cold and told to make it to the end of the week.” Carter said nonchalantly and shrugged. His