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“I’m so sick of this fucking place,” he said, his voice low and still furious. “These fucking bastards on their power trips.” He spat the last sentence out.
It was a side I’d never seen of the usually so-controlled Walker.
“I’m fine,” I said, and he looked at me like I was full of shit, so I corrected, “I will be fine.”
But he just shook his head. “Oh yeah? Tell that to the belle who was here before you.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“She disappeared. And from what I can tell, she never left the property.”
I sat up in bed, confused. “What does that mean?”
He breathed out heavily. “I’m not sure. Maybe there’s a secret way out of the mansion?” Then he shook his head furiously. “This place and its fucking secrets.”
Then his eyes shot back my way. “But we don’t have to just sit around and fucking take what they dish out to us. Because no, from what the other guys have told me, it’s not usually this bad. Yeah, maybe there’s one Trial that simulates a dangerous setting, but they’ve never taken it this far before. They’re fucking escalating. I don’t know if it’s because they think they have us trapped in an untenable position or what—” He broke off, raking a hand through his hair.
My hands fisted in the covers, not knowing what to think.
“But we don’t have to take it.”
I sighed heavily, thinking he was about to start trying to tell me we should leave again. After tonight, I was almost tempted. But now that the scary part was over, it just pissed me off again that these old men thought they had the right to steal my company out from under me. I was getting ready to argue with Walker, when he surprised me by walking to the closet and getting me underclothes, a shirt, and a pair of leggings. “Want to take a walk?”
I frowned at his non-sequitur but was curious too. “What do you mean?”
He bent low and whispered in my ear, “I mean, if they think they can hold shit over our heads to make us obey, maybe it’s time we dig a little deeper into some of their oh-so-precious secrets. Politics, at least the way my father plays it, is all about leverage. Plus, I just want some straight fucking answers.”
His words were a little terrifying but after what I’d gone through tonight, also exciting. I’d been a good girl who followed the rules my whole life. But that had flown out the window the night I’d first driven out to this den of sin. My eyes had been opened to how the world really worked, and there was no going back.
I threw off the covers and got changed.
I could still hear music coming from downstairs. The party had obviously continued on without us. I shuddered and kept close behind Walker as he led the way down the upstairs hallway.
He pushed into another door that had always remained closed. I’d assumed all these doors were locked, but it opened easily. My head swung around to look both ways down the hallway, half expecting Mrs. Hawthorne to be there with a broom, ready to come chasing us away from where we weren’t supposed to be.
Then again, I suppose Walker could go wherever he wanted. He’d explained the rules to me. Men had rights to the entire mansion. It was only the belles who were confined to the room unless escorted by their Initiate.
Walker grabbed my hand and tugged me into the darkened room behind him, then he shut the door quickly. Well. I guess even though he could move around as he pleased, whatever it was we were doing, it was clandestine.
It wasn’t pitch dark in the room; there was a single small lamp on a side table beside a huge grand piano. I blinked, looking around, and realized it was some kind of music room. There were various instruments on stands around the room, and even more—antique instruments—hanging on the walls and staged around the room.
I looked around in confusion. Okay. Had Walker just brought us here so he could destroy more priceless antiques? I wasn’t sure how that gave us any sort of leverage or helped us learn anything that would help us—
But Walker was already striding confidently across the room. I scurried after him and watched on in curious fascination as he pushed the middle valve on a trumpet on display in the corner.
Then I had to stifle a yelp as a small portion of the wall cracked and opened inwards. A hidden door!
“Oh my God!” I hissed.
Walker looked back towards me with a small smile. “Montgomery and I found this when we were twelve. We’d heard rumors there were secret passages and we dedicated one summer to finding them.”
I could only shake my head, feeling my eyebrows near to hitting my hairline. “Where does it go?” I whispered.
