Page 70 of Pretty Savage: Defy

“Could it have been Samantha?”

“Samantha was standing beside her.”

“Rebecca?”

“In Washington.”

“That’s what Samantha said.”

I turn my head toward him. “You think she lied?”

“No.” Thomson pushes his glasses higher on his nose. “I think Samantha believes her mother is in Washington. That doesn’t necessarily mean Rebecca was there.”

The possibility sits wrong with me. Rebecca has never struck me as someone who hides in cellars, but I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by people who keep different versions of themselves in separate rooms. Father presents himself as a devoted leader while ordering executions. Rebecca plays the loving parent while instructing her daughter to seduce me. Thom spent years developing medicine that can heal others while poisoning his own liver with alcohol.

Really, I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore.

“That cellar should be empty,” I say. “The wine is stored under the kitchen, down with the Vault. Father had the cellar entrance sealed years ago. Said it was just a place for the rats to get into the house.”

“Maybe the rats have two legs?”

I reach for the controls and start another match. Thomson chooses Raiden again. He always does. When we were children, he claimed it was because Raiden could teleport. I knew the real reason was the lightning. Thomson always liked anything powered by an invisible current he could control.

“Why would someone go there?” he asks as the match begins.

Thomson’s character disappears in a burst of blue light and reappears behind mine. He attacks before I can turn, knocking my health down by half.

I block his next attack and drive him toward the edge of the screen. “If someone wanted to enter the house without being seen, the cellar would be useful. The doors are hidden from most of the windows, and the hedge blocks the view from the stable.”

On the screen, Raiden collapses under another attack. “Finish him,” demands a deep voice from the game console. I follow the instruction and win the round, but Thomson doesn’t seem to notice.

“We should check it,” he says.

“That was always the plan.” I take my hands off the controls. “I was just waiting so you could pretend it was your idea.”

He steps away from the machine and reaches for the canvas bag beside the couch. “I have two cameras, a through-wall radar sensor, and one of the smaller drones.”

“I love how you bring surveillance equipment to play video games.”

He shrugs like it’s no big deal, then checks his equipment while I look toward the closed game-room door. Laurel is off with Samantha and Rebecca, who arrived this morning despite supposedly being in Washington yesterday. They’re getting her ready for the prebonding ball tonight. She’s safe, or as safe as anyone can be with Father under the same roof and thousands of Order members arriving in town.

Still, I don’t like the idea of someone moving through the house without my knowledge. I like it even less that they were close enough to Laurel for her to see their hand.

I switch off the arcade cabinet, cutting the electronic music in the middle of a note.

“Let’s go,” I say.

The afternoon sunlight is bright enough to make me blink. Feeling a bit ridiculous, we stick close to the house, moving from shadow to shadow until we’re by the cellar. The two doors are made from thick planks of wood, gray with age and swollen from years of rain. A metal latch stretches across the middle, secured by a heavy padlock. The whole thing looks exactly as it did years ago, the last time I paid it any attention.

“What’ve you got in that bag for the lock?” I ask.

Thomson digs around and comes up with a small black case. Inside, thin metal picks rest in fitted grooves beside a compact lock-pick gun.

“You carry that around?”

“What?” he says, a little defensive. “It’s left over from breaking into Damian’s apartment.”

I turn my back to him and scan the lawn. Workers move in and out of the ballroom carrying flower arrangements, chairs, and boxes of glassware. Farther down the property, white tents have risen between the trees to accommodate the thousands of Order members expected tonight. No one looks our way.