Page 20 of Savage Surrender

Owen is definitely not sorry about it.

“I’m only saying that a mansion position should provide better coffee. I make a great pot. Cinnamon and everything.”

“Don’t bother, kid. I need this job too much to make friends.” He keeps his attention on the tree line. “Back inside, please.”

“Yeah. I understand.”

It’s a reasonable answer and an inconvenient one. Farrow is planted beside the door we need, and I came outside looking for an angle. I’m still searching when the name on his shirt connects to a face I spent half my youth studying.

My brain scratches to a stop.

“Wait. Farrow? Timothy Farrow?”

That makes him look at me.

“I had your poster!” I chuckle awkwardly. “Not in a weird way. My dad hung it in the garage gym to encourage me to work harder.” Thirteen rushing touchdowns his senior year, nine of them after first contact. Emerald Hills legend. He still holds the school record for yards after contact. “Coach Hendricks made us watch your highlight reel before every scrimmage.”

His expression loosens by half a degree.

“You played?”

“Quarterback. I wasn’t on your level, but I threw a decent spiral. We ran your offense too. Hendricks didn’t change a single play in twenty years.”

“Stubborn old bastard.” Farrow almost smiles. Then he catches himself and glances toward the house. The wall returns. “Listen, kid. My granddaughter starts college this fall. I’m not losing this paycheck over a nice conversation about high school football.”

“I get it.” I do. Every uniform on this property belongs to someone’s father or grandfather, and most of them are doing this because whatever waits without the paycheck is worse. That’s the problem with talking to the humans. Eventually, they become human.

Another guard rounds the corner for the shift change. Farrow straightens.

I wave lazily and head inside, doing the math. South post changes first, then east. Farrow won’t bend and can’t be bought, but a man who loves his granddaughter might hesitate for half a second before hurting someone. Hurting her.

Half a second is currency.

Owen is waiting in the mudroom with a laundry basket. When I lift an eyebrow, he nods toward the north hall.

“Found something. Storage room. No cameras.” He shifts the basket against his hip. “A lot of dust.”

I follow him past the laundry room to a door that sticks until he leans his hip into it and the latch gives.

“Okay.” I open the first crate and stop. “Okay, wow.”

Mortars as fat as soup cans. Bundles of Roman candles held together by brittle pink rubber bands. A brick of bottle rockets wrapped in tissue faded like an old bruise. Behind them, a deflated flamingo float stares at nothing with sun-bleached eyes. The whole room smells like old sunscreen and gunpowder that never got its moment.

July packed into a box.

“Whitney’s parties,” Owen says. “Had to outshine everyone, including the fireworks.”

“Bless her rotten, competitive heart.”

Enough noise and color above the property will make every guard look in the same direction. We don’t need a clean door if everyone is watching the sky.

Owen continues along the shelves while I silently mourn the flamingo. There are coils of real braided rope, cans of spray paint rusting around the rims, and stacks of plastic-wrapped sheets and blankets. Enough bedding for an army - or enough fabric to knot into every foot of line we’d need from a second-story window.

He reaches for the rope. I catch his wrist.

“We don’t touch anything. This room needs to look untouched if anyone inventories it. We were never here. We’re two extremely handsome idiots doing laundry.”

“Speak for yourself.”