Power & Choice

by Lucy Smoke

  Bellamy set his brushes aside and stepped back for a moment. I hesitated, wondering whether I should drop my arm, unsure if he was done or not.

  "We'll have to pick this up again another time anyway," he said. "The light's going anyway."

  I sighed, sagging forward and groaning as my muscles screamed. He grimaced and rushed around the easel. "I'm fine," I assured him before he could ask.

  He frowned. "Are you sure?"

  I rolled my shoulders back and stretched my legs. "I'm sure."

  As I moved around the bed, I tried to take a peek at the painting, but Bellamy moved it to face the corner I had just vacated.

  "You can see it when it's done," he said quietly.

  I smiled and nodded, leaving the room and heading downstairs. In the kitchen, everyone was gathered around the table like a giant family. Marv, however, had a file in his hand. He talked animatedly to Knix who nodded his head as he listened and dished up what looked to be chicken alfredo and asparagus. He passed a plate to Texas who passed it to Bellamy and then to me. Soon, everyone had their plates, but Marv ignored his in favor of his newest project.

  "It just doesn't make any sense," he said. "I knew a few of these girls, Knix. They wouldn't have acted like this."

  "People change, Marv," Knix said patiently. "Perhaps they got into some bad things since you knew them. We haven't formally been invited to do anything. I'm not sure if you'll be able to actually go through with an investigation. We have to think about Alex."

  "Alex?" I piped up. "My old boss?"

  Knix tensed, but nodded before turning to Marv. "We'll continue this discussion later." I frowned, but then Knix turned a smile my way. "How was your day?" he asked.

  "It was fine," I replied.

  Marv turned his head towards me just as Knix frowned at my clothes. "Weren't you wearing a dress this morning?"

  Bellamy, Marv, and Texas laughed, and I glared at each and every one of them. "I was," I snapped, "but someone," I looked pointedly at Bellamy, "decided to throw me in the pool."

  Bellamy opened his mouth to defend himself but before he could get a word in, Marv spoke up. "She and Texas painted my BMW pink," he said.

  "Bellamy helped!" I yelled back.

  "And then left him to deal with the fallout?" Marv asked, narrowing his eyes.

  Bellamy turned to do the same at me.

  I gaped at them before gesturing to Texas, "What about him?! He did too!"

  "We expect it from him!" Marv shook his head in exaggerated disbelief.

  I sputtered. "We–he–I'm–urgh!" I stabbed a piece of asparagus and shoved it in my mouth, chewing hard. Knix only looked on with amusement.

  I settled back and decided to ask him about Grayson later.

  Chapter 4

  Long after dinner was over, when Marv and Knix had adjourned to the study, Bellamy had gone up to bed, and Texas had disappeared to his room to do something with his computers, I waited in the hallway for Marv and Knix to finish their meeting. When I couldn't stand waiting in the hallway like a creeper one moment longer, I headed towards the living room and collapsed onto the sofa, sinking low into the cushions. Cleo leaped up into my lap and I absently petted her, feeling along the ridges of her spine and allowing her purrs to lull me. Abruptly, I heard the study room door open, and I scrambled up from my position. Cleo meowed at me and darted away. Marv nodded as he left Knix's study and headed towards his room, and when he looked up and spotted me, he seemed surprised.

  "What are you still doing up?" he asked, taking in my polka dot pajama bottoms and loose t-shirt. "Don't you have training tomorrow?"

  I nodded. "Yea, but I needed to talk to Knix before I went to bed."

  "Oh," he frowned. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you wait."

  I shrugged. "It's fine. I can talk to him now."

  "You mind if I come see you after you're done?" he asked.

  I smiled as I passed him, heading towards the open study door. "You know you're welcome anytime."

  He winked at me as he turned and kept walking. I knocked on Knix's open study door and stepped in when he looked up from his massive desk. He smiled and leaned back. "Hey, come on in."

  "Do you mind if I close the door?" I asked, hesitating in the doorway.

  "Go ahead." When the door clicked shut, he stood up and circled the desk and leaned against the edge. "What's up, Little Bit?"

  "What are you working on?" I asked at the same time. We paused, and both laughed as he turned towards the blueprints on his desk.

  "A very special client is having a house custom built." I paused in front of the desk and looked over the graphed paper.

  "What's that?" I asked, pointing to an odd angled line in the corner of one of the rooms.

  He smirked and touched the side of his nose with a finger. "You've got a good eye," he said. "This client is a little...eccentric. He loves mystery books and movies. He's also wealthier than Midas. It's a secret staircase."

  My eyes bulged. "A secret staircase?" I looked back at the blueprints.

  Knix nodded. "Yup. It doesn't go anywhere special. At least, not that one. Just to the basement."

  "Are you putting in other ones?" I asked.

  He nodded. "So close to the ocean," he started. "We don't usually build basements. But this one is special. It's going to be reinforced. Naturally, it'll be constructed out of a thick concrete slab. We have to make sure that the water beneath the soil won't decay the concrete. The client knows that it'll be likely that his basement will collapse after a few decades – if he's lucky."

  "Are you getting paid a lot for this?" I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  He laughed. "He's crazy to want a basement so close to the ocean. No one else is willing to even consider it. He'll be signing an ironclad agreement that states that he can't sue the company if it does, in fact, collapse and that he understands the risks. He still wants it, though, and we're the only ones that even gave him the time of day, so, yes, this will be a very profitable job."

  "Building secret passages and staircases sounds fun," I said.

  He nodded. "Yes, it can be."

  "Will anyone else be able to tell if there are secret passages?" I couldn't imagine that a secret would be very fun if everyone knew by looking at a wall that there was a door in the paneling or if Knix's client told all of his friends.

  "Well, it won't be easy. People are less observant than you think," he said.

  I looked at him. "How could I do it?"

  "Well," he started, "let's say there's a secret room between rooms. You can't enter it from the hallway, only from the rooms on either side. If one wall faces a room, one faces another room, and one faces the hallway, where does that leave the fourth wall?"

  "Facing the outside?" I guessed.

  He nodded. "Yes, now let's say that on the outside, there's a window into each bedroom, but not in the secret room. If the two normal rooms were side by side, then their windows would be in very specific places. Instead, if you were to walk outside and look at them, you'd see a wider space between than when you're inside, in the rooms."

  As I thought about it, I realized he was right. It was easy to think about when he put it like that. I smiled. This kind of thing was just like my favorite mystery books. I grinned at him and he grinned back before sliding the blueprints away.

  "Now, I heard you tell Marv you wanted to talk to me about something, Little Bit," he gestured for me to take a seat in front of him. "What's up?"

  I sighed and sat down in front of him in one of his two plush chairs. Knix remained propped against his desk. "I talked to Bellamy earlier and um..."

  He frowned when my words drifted off and I looked to the side, unsure how to continue. Knix was the most level headed of the guys and I knew he wouldn't react poorly, but he might still not be happy about Grayson contacting me.

  "Harlow?" he prompted.

  I huffed and rubbed the space between my eyebrows, feeling a headache starting to form. "I got a text message from Gra
yson earlier today, and I know Bellamy and Marv would be pissed, so I wanted to ask you about it."

  "You talked to Bellamy about this already?"

  "Not exactly..." I drifted. I sighed once more before coming back. "I got a text from Grayson and then I asked Bellamy why he didn't like him."

  "But you didn't ask him about the text message?" Knix clarified.

  I shook my head. "I just asked about his um...why he doesn't like him."

  "And what did he say?"

  I shrugged. "He didn't exactly answer me. He said you all used to be acquaintances or something like that. He told me I should ask you."

  "Is that what you want to talk about?"

  "Well, I'm curious, but I want to know if you would be okay if I met Grayson for lunch or something. He said he wanted to talk to me."

  Knix stroked his stubbled chin as he debated for a moment. When he looked at me, his oceanic eyes pierced right through me. "Harlow, I'm not your father. I can't tell you what you can or can't do. I can make recommendations and suggestions, but you can always choose to ignore them. I'll admit that I'm wary of Grayson as well. He's not a good person through and through."

  "What does that mean?" I asked. "He helped his brother when he needed him even though Josh didn't want his help."

  "His brother, that's someone he feels responsible for," Knix said. "He's not exactly the kind of person to walk an elderly lady across the street or help a cat out of a tree."

  I frowned. "Most people aren't like that," I pointed out.

  "I know," he replied. "Grayson is just..." He grimaced and rubbed his hand down his entire face as if he was tired before dropping it to his desk to grip the edge.

  "Grayson is?" I asked.

  "Grayson is Grayson," Knix finished, as if that summed up everything. I frowned. Before I could say anything, though, he continued. "Do you remember when you stopped that fight a month ago? When you were still in school?"

  "Yea?"

  "And how you asked Grayson to do something, but he didn't."

  I nodded.

  "That's the kind of person he is, Harlow. He's out for himself. Always."

  "You don't want me to go see him," I said.

  He shook his head. "He texted you for a reason. Marv and Bellamy don't like his interest in you. Texas tends to trust the group's instincts. I don't care for his interest either. So, no, I don't want you to go see him–not alone."

  All the time, as he had been speaking, I had been gearing up for a fight, but at his last two words, I deflated like a torn balloon. "Oh." I debated. "I can't take Marv or Bellamy," I said.

  "You won't have to," Knix said shifting away from his desk. He held out his hand to me and I took it, allowing him to help me up. "I'll take you to see him. I'm curious to know what he wants. He didn't give you any details?" I shook my head. "Hmmm, well, we can ask him when we see him." Knix placed his hand in the center of my lower back, the heat of his palm making me shiver. He led us toward the door and opened it. "Set up a meeting with him and let him know I'll be coming."

  "He didn't want anyone coming with me," I said, recalling that tidbit. "Maybe you could sit away from us during lunch and just listen in?"

  Knix shot me a disapproving look. "I'll be there, and I'll be very visible, Little Bit. There's no use in trying that. Grayson can be conniving and a tad irritating, but he's not stupid."

  Something occurred to me as we moved down the hallway towards the living room and the staircase. I paused and turned to him. "Did he work for Iris? Does he?"

  Knix sighed and pushed me, gently, across the living room in the direction of my bedroom. "Get some sleep, Little Bit. I'll see you bright and early for training tomorrow morning."

  I sighed. From the expression on Knix’s face I knew there was no way I was getting an answer to that question tonight. I headed towards my bedroom but waited until Knix was up the stairs before I turned the knob. He waved goodnight to me over the balcony and I waved back before opening my door and stepping in. The sight that greeted me made me squeal as I took in the body on my bed. With a hand pressed to my chest, I glared at Marv.

  "I told you I would be by later," he said with a smirk.

  "I thought that meant you would wait for me to get back and knock instead of climbing into my bed to scare the living hell out of me," I snapped.

  He shrugged from his position, his plain white shirt lifting as he did so, revealing a line of tanned skin above the waistband of his cotton pajama bottoms. I gulped, turning away to shake my head as I closed the door.

  My room was the smallest in the house. I was more comfortable that way. The guys had tried to give me one of the larger rooms upstairs, but I had refused. This room was just fine. It was about the same size as my old room, but the furniture was different. Knix and Marv had put mine and my mom's stuff up in a storage unit – paid for a full year. At least I had time to figure stuff out.

  My new room was painted in lavender hues, the walls a pale purple that matched the sheets on my bed. It was pushed into the corner next to a latch window. There were a decent five feet between the very edge of the bed's platform to the fold down desk Knix had built into the wall next to built-in bookshelves. All of my old books finally had a place of their own. Marv and Bellamy had taken it upon themselves to stock me up further. I smirked when I caught images of half-clothed women on the covers of trashy paperback romances. Obviously, they hadn't taken a look at the dark, suspense-filled mysteries I had grabbed from the library throw away bins if that was what they thought I liked. I left the books, though, I liked looking at full bookshelves.

  I yawned as I walked over to the charger port on my desk to plug in my phone. Deciding to text Grayson in the morning and give him Knix's verdict, I turned towards Marv. "Do you mind waiting a few minutes?" I asked.

  He quirked an eyebrow, and I rolled my eyes.

  "I need to pee," I stated plainly. "And I want to brush my teeth."

  He tapped the file in his hands. "I'm sufficiently entertained," he replied. "Take your time."

  I popped into my private bathroom off the side of my room. Knix had made sure to add it, saying that living with four guys would be hard enough without having to share a bathroom with them. Marv, Bellamy, and Texas managed to share bathroom time between the full bathroom in the upstairs hallway and the full bathroom downstairs. Knix, too, had his own in the master bedroom.

  I stepped into my bathroom and closed the door as I hurried about my business. I brushed my teeth and pulled my hair back into a braid that wouldn't get in my face if I tossed and turned in my sleep. When I exited, Marv was in much the same position. I strode to the desk and set my alarm for 8 am, whimpering as I did so. One thing I did not like about living with the guys was the fact that they tended to get up with the birds. They only had two settings, early and earlier. I didn't complain though. It wasn't like I didn't have enough to do. Plus, according to Texas, naps were good for you – it kept you from murdering people and spending the rest of your life in prison.

  I flopped on the bed next to Marv and looked at him. He flipped his file closed and slid it over to me. I took it, got up, and placed it on my desk before returning to the bed. He sighed as I laid back down again.

  "What's up with you?" I asked.

  "It's been bothering me," he said, "what my mother was saying earlier today about the girls coming from the etiquette camp."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "I knew those girls," he said earnestly, his hazel gaze meeting mine with serious intent. "I know people change, but these girls...most of them have good families. They have a lot to live for. One of them...she..."

  I reached forward and touched his arm. He clasped my hand and I let him. I laid my head on his chest and cuddled closer, trying to comfort him like he had comforted me a month ago when he had snuck into my room in the middle of the night. He sighed as I curled closer still holding his hand.

  "She committed suicide," he finally managed to say. I turned my face into his shirt, but kept list
ening. "And it just doesn't make any sense. She had no history of depression or anything. Her parents are heartbroken. The note she left, it was just two words: 'I'm sorry.' That's it. She wasn't the kind of girl to do that–and I know that there's more to people than meets the eye. I know that there are people out there that hide their pain every day, and sometimes they're the ones you see smiling the most. But I knew her, Harlow, I knew her."

  It broke my heart to see him so upset, his face so drawn and worried. I glanced behind me at the file. "Is that all there in the file?" I asked.

  He nodded. "I saw her parents today, I had to ask–it was hard to see."

  "When did you do that?"

  "After you and Texas took off. I took one of the other cars. It's been months since their daughter...passed away. She did it last December, a few months after that etiquette camp. They're still devastated. They don't understand and neither do I."

  "What about the other girls?" I asked.

  Marv leaned up and looked at me before letting his head fall back with a thump onto the stack of pillows with a heavy sigh. "It's...they're messed up. Very different. I haven't spoken to their parents yet, but what information I could dredge up tells me that they're on the same path, just a little more outspoken about it. They've both been arrested, though none of the charges have stuck because...well..." He looked down at me a bit sheepishly. "Their parents are some of the wealthiest people in Charleston."

  I nodded, unconcerned. I didn't judge him for it and I didn't judge them. Yea, it wasn't fair but there wasn't really much I could do about it. I needed to focus my attention on what I could do. "Tell me about them," I urged.

  He groaned. "I don't even know where to start."

  "The beginning is usually the best place to start."

  He smirked at me and wrapped one arm around my waist, cinching me to his side as he rolled the both of us over so that my back was facing the wall. "Smartass," he teased. Then his face fell back into its serious expression. "If it were only that easy. It seems that no one knows where it started. There's speculation from the families–like my mom–they connect what happened to the girls with the change in their activities. None of their new behaviors started up until they came back from that camp, but it could have already been in the works before they went. No one knows. And as much as I understand where the families are coming from, it's a little difficult to swallow the beliefs of grieving parents. They're looking for anyone to blame because it's hard to accept, sometimes, that there might not be anyone to blame."