Page 39 of Good Girls Beg

"I promise I'm fine. If they start being weird, I'll leave."

An edge of unease started to work its way up my spine. What if it was too late by the time I realized I should run?

On the other hand, what choice did I have but to stay? My dads needed this. I needed this. All I could do was ride this wave out and hope like hell I didn't drown in the process.

Or end up the seventieth person locked in the basement.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TEDDIE

I stepped slowly through the house, taking note of each of the doors. Those ones, Hel said, were Fade and Oak's rooms. That one there led to the library. Hel's office was there. A powder room was behind another door.

Where, then, was the door to the basement?

Unable to figure it out from the inside, I stepped out the back door, past the pool, and did a slow walk around the house.

In the back, right corner, a spiderweb-covered egress window was built into the side of the house. Confirmation a basement existed.

I crouched and peered, but couldn't see a thing through the glass. The window was covered by a blind or a curtain. Hell, maybe it was boarded up.

Whatever it was, I got no answers except a basement was there.

I poked around, but as far as I could tell it didn't open from the outside. Not without force. A broken window wouldn't go unnoticed, so I left it for now.

I slipped back inside and headed over to the same wall above the window. Nothing was there but the pantry. Of course, the entry wouldn't be on top of the window. As far as I could tell, it wasn't near it either.

"Looking for something?" Oak stepped into the pantry and grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds. He tore it open with his teeth and tipped a handful onto his palm. "Would you like some?" He offered the bag to me. I almost expected him to add a rule or a condition, but he just stood there, holding them.

I took the bag and poured out a handful onto my own palm before handing it back.

“Thanks. I'm just getting to know the place," I said. "A house like this, shouldn’t it have hidden passageways?”

"That's what I said when I moved in," he remarked. "If there are any, Hel never told me."

Trying to contain my disappointment, I popped the seeds into my mouth and started to chew.

"Have you tried lifting up the cans to see if they open a secret door?" I asked, half-joking.

"I can't say I have," Oak replied. He eyed the cans. His brows dipped, as if suspicious that they might be hiding something he wasn't aware of.

"Where do you work out?" I blurted. Guys like these would have a gym in their house, wouldn't they? Maybe…in the basement?

"Hel converted the pool house into a gym," Oak said. "I'll show you if you want."

"I'd like that," I said. The entrance to the basement might be in there.

All right. It was a long shot, but stranger things had happened, right? I mean, if they had something to hide, they'd put it somewhere unexpected, wouldn't they? That's what I'd do if I was trying to hide a space with sixty-nine people chained-up inside. Probably.

I followed him back out, past the pool and over to the pool house.

"Hel said if there's any piece of equipment that's not in here, you don't need it.” Oak opened the door and gestured for me to step inside.

Like the other night, he wanted to keep an eye on me. This time I didn’t bother to argue. I was wearing panties and the silver anklet with the dangling teddy bear I'd found in a box outside my bedroom door. I had to admit, it was cute. I might keep wearing it. Whichever one it was who wrote that rule, they knew my style. Or they guessed well.

"Hel might be right." I scanned the room. Stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical trainer, weights. Everything I could think of, it was all here. Along with speakers in every corner of the ceiling. No need for a gym membership with all of this close by.

Not that I had a gym membership except that time when I made a New Year's resolution that lasted three days. That was two days more than usual.