Page 347 of End Game

Safety shears stay within reach.

Not in another room.

Not in a drawer someone has to find while panicking.

Drake holds up a pair.

Cami looks at me.

Micah puts a hand on her thigh and reassures, “Griffin already gave Ronan trauma shears.”

Drake looks our way.

“He did,” I agree.

Micah smiles. “Pretty much said if we're putting rope on people in the basement, they're staying where we can reach them.”

“That sounds like Griffin,” Cami says.

Drake nods. “He is correct.”

I make a mental note to tell Griffin.

He'll pretend not to care, but he will.

We spend some time handling different rope—cotton, hemp, jute.

They feel dramatically different in my hands, but Drake makes his point before I have time to develop preferences.

Traditional does not mean safer.

Expensive does not mean appropriate.

And if you don't understand how the material in your hands behaves, you have no business putting it around somebody else’s body.

Then he gives us cotton. “You'll start here.”

Carter glances at the jute. “The fancy pictures use that.”

“The fancy pictures aren't lesson one.”

Alexis leans toward Cami. “Pinterest lied.”

“I feel betrayed.”

Drake looks toward them. “Pinterest also doesn't show you the years of practice before the photograph.”

Alexis straightens. “Yes, Sir.”

Jeremiah's head turns slowly.

Drake looks between them. “I am not participating in whatever that was.”

Even I laugh.

Then he pairs us off—Micah with Carter and Jeremiah with me.

Cami and Alexis are just observing.