Instead, they were ten steps ahead of me, only thinking the opposite direction. They were going to keep their promise to ensure that I would never again end up tied to a chair or something worse.
“It’s not recording,” Victor said. “It’s not even on right now. The cameras will only turn on if for some reason we can’t reach you on the cell phone. There’s one in every major room and the hallways.”
“And the bathroom,” I realized, feeling the thread of a shiver starting at the base of my spine.
Victor breathed a sigh. “Yes, but also not on right now. The procedure is to text you if you’re not with us and we haven’t heard from you within an hour or so. We’ll text three times within ten minutes. It gives you an opportunity to reach us just in case you didn’t hear your phone the first time. No text or call back, we start with your bedroom, and then all other major rooms before checking something like the bathroom.”
I wasn’t sure I liked this new plan. They could look in on me at any time. But would they? Did I trust them?
I swallowed back the fears. I had promised I would do what they asked in order to remain here. Otherwise Mr. Blackbourne would remove me from the house. They weren’t ready for that sort of thing, not without involving the Academy. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I wasn’t sure I was willing to find out just now. I wanted to know about the Academy, but I didn’t want to do it at such a high risk. I had to trust them.
“What about at night?” I asked. “Am I supposed to check in every hour?”
“No. You can sleep. Keep your phone with you.” He shifted on his feet, putting weight from one foot to the other. “I can’t promise they won’t check on you while you sleep.”
My fingers fluttered to the base of my throat. It was surreal, but perhaps since they’d already slept in the room with me, some even in the same bed, it didn’t feel intrusive. It felt almost lonely.
Did I prefer to have them with me?
“You’re not mad, are you?” Victor asked, stepping closer to my side.
I glanced over at him. “Mad?”
“I know it feels... invasive. I felt the same way when it happened to me.”
His inflection struck me. “Is your house rigged up like this?”
“Yes. We all have cameras.”
My eyebrows flew up and my eyes widened. “And you get checked up on?”
He shrugged. “Only if no one can reach me by my phone. It’s a security precaution. We’re not put at risk due to our families so much now, so we’re not required to check in. Your situation is a little unique to us.”
He didn’t have to say it. His tone inflected it for him. My parents were a high risk. Theirs weren’t.
But how could I be mad about something they lived through already? Maybe I had been wrong. If they all went through it, maybe the cameras would have been something they would have eventually done. Maybe I was wrong about not being a part of them because they didn’t include me in the morning workout or a few of the other things they had to do. Maybe they were getting around to it, working it in slowly as they thought to do so.
“I’m not mad,” I said as honestly as I could. “It’s... surprising. But I understand. You can’t sleep here all the time.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he said, his eyes sparking again. “But yes, we can’t do that every night.”
I smiled at him, catching his intention but unsure how to respond. I’d enjoyed it, too, even if it was crazy and extreme. I still wasn’t sure if I fully processed the idea of them sleeping with me in the bed, and a few of them had already done so.
“You can check the cameras, too,” he said. “Do you have your cell phone?”
I paused, trying to remember where I’d put it. Blushing, I tucked my hand inside my shirt, lifting the phone from the cup of my bra.
Victor grinned, taking the phone from me. “Secret pockets,” he said. He flipped the phone in his hands and pushed a button. He drew close to show me the illuminated screen. “This here,” he said, pointing to an app displaying a pink heart. He touched it. The app activated, showing a map of a cartoon house. It was the side view of two upstairs bedrooms, the bathroom, both staircases, a couple hallways, a master bedroom downstairs, and a kitchen and living room and the garage. “You can press any of these,” he said, and he pressed the cartoon bedroom that was colored in pink, “and...”
While he paused, a loading icon circled itself. The screen changed to reveal Victor and I standing together in the room at that moment, from the angle of the camera in the vent. My eyes instinctively went to the vent and back to the phone, as if trying to catch myself.
“It’ll make things easier on you, too,” he said. “You can check on your mother and Marie without having to risk getting caught snooping.”
This made it better. I had access to my own cameras. It was now a tool for me, not just them. “You have this app on your phone?”
He smiled, pulling his phone from his back pocket and pushing a button, showing me the pink heart, dead center on the front. “You’re always with me.”
I rolled my eyes, unable to smother the smile. “Don’t I get your app?”
He shifted, as if debating this. “Maybe later.”
Did they not trust me? Or was there another reason?
“But now that’s out of the way,” he beamed, stuffing his phone back into his pocket and crossing the room toward the attic door. “There’s one more thing.”
“Did Luke cut that beam out?” I asked, knowing Gabriel had asked him. I turned off my phone, drawn to Victor’s new surprise.
“Not just that,” Victor said. He dropped to his knees, hooking his fingers around the door handle and opening it. “Crawl inside.”
I peered in to the shadows of the attic,
not able to see far. I twisted the phone around to use it as a light but his hand closed around mine, stopping me.
“Trust me,” he said. “Just go a few feet in.” The fire flickered in his eyes.
A smile brushed my lips. They might pick on Gabriel for his presentation style, but Victor had a flair for it, too.
I crawled through the open doorway. Not a foot inside, as I expected to feel the rough of the raw wood, I was surprised by softness. My fingers spread out, smoothing over the fibers of a cushioned carpet.
The next part I noticed was the air. It wasn’t the warm and thick air, but as cool as the rest of the house. It was still dark and I crept forward, anticipating other surprises.
When I was about halfway to the platform, I stopped, sitting on my heels, and looked back toward Victor.
He hovered in the doorway, a shadow against the light filtering in from the bedroom. He crawled in, closing the door behind himself and casting us into complete blackness.
“Victor,” I whispered to him.
“Trust me,” he said.
I waited.
A click.
The area lit up around us. A track of lighting had been installed to the side.
The sconces were shaped like roses.
The lighting followed all the way to the back. The plush carpet below me was a deep blue, nearly black. The walls were covered in a dark material. I traced my fingers over the wall, feeling padding.
“It’s been sound proofed,” Victor said, crawling toward me. He stopped two feet in and pointed to the side wall. “There’s this, too.”
I knee-walked back on the carpet toward him. Against the wall was a miniature wardrobe about the size of a large travel trunk. It was painted a similar dark blue color as the carpet.
Victor opened the front, revealing a tiny collection of the clothing he’d purchased for me yesterday. Skirts, shorts and blouses were hung up on the right side. A few pairs of underwear and a couple of bras were folded neatly into place on shelving on the left.
“I’m sorry about the colors,” he said. “We had to keep it dark. The light switch is hidden, but if they ever looked inside on their own, a pink or light color they would probably see and...”