“Check the bench underneath the front window,” I said. “There’s a sort of hidden lid.”
Kathryn gave Roxanne a light push, and Roxanne moved to obey.
“Oh yeah!” Evan said, taking flight. He startled Roxanne, who froze in place.
“Carefully!” I told Evan, now that Roxanne had stopped.
Evan landed on the lid. Where the front window jutted out a little, two windows set at diagonals, the middle window facing straight out, the window was built in a way that someone could sit inside it. The resulting bench, also a lid, had cushions sitting on it. Broken glass, too.
“Um, there’s something on the two windows,” Evan said, extending one wing, then the other. Pointing.
“Get back,” I told him. “Those would be explosives. Unlock the cuffs again.”
Evan flew back to the others and began freeing them.
“That’s one smart bird,” Roxanne mumbled, peering over with one eye open, the other shut. “It won’t peck us?”
“Not if you’re good,” Evan said.
“No,” I said, “he won’t bite. If you’re good.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Ellie said. “Birds aren’t like that, and if you’re not using a camera-”
“Ellie,” Kathryn whispered, checking Callan’s pulse. “Shut up. You’re smarter than that. Look at what Peter’s doing. Copy him.”
“Peter? He’s not doing anything. He’s just sitting there.”
“Emulate him,” Kathryn hissed, with an intensity that made me suspect she’d practiced it on a daily or weekly basis for a long time. “Shut the fuck up and sit still. Figure it out without asking stupid questions. Our concern is those two kids who just thrashed us and started talking about bombs.”
Ellie glanced at Peter, who shrugged.
She scowled, but she didn’t say anything further.
“Getting you guys out of the house would be a start,” I said, “But it won’t fix anything. They know who you are, you’re their mission. If you leave the house and somehow avoid the traps they rigged at each door, they’ll probably come after you to remove the witnesses. If you leave town, they’ll come after you, or they’ll reach out to someone else who’ll come after you.”
I watched their expressions, saw Ellie’s furtive glances to the hallway, and then to the kitchen, the direction of the back door.
“You don’t know me, but I know you,” I said. “More than you might suspect. I know, Ellie, that you’re wanting to slip away. That you test limits, try to claim what you think you deserve, until it all goes wrong, and then you run. I know, Peter, that your automatic assumption is that you’ll get away with it, whatever it is, and so far you’ve been damn lucky, and part of that is that you’re way smarter than most people think.”
Ellie glanced at Peter, who remained impassive.
How was he processing this? I’d once likened Ty’s art to the sort of musician that picked up every instrument for a while, gaining a general knowledge, rather than specializing in any one thing. Peter could be said to be the same, but with an emphasis on people. He got how people worked, he found weaknesses, he preyed on them, and he coasted through life. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if I learned one day that he’d conned an old woman out of her retirement savings, or started a shady company, collected the money and disappeared.
But how did someone who understood people process a situation where he was missing a huge chunk of the puzzle?
He spooked me most of all, because I wasn’t sure how he’d act or react in the midst of whatever happened next.
“Kathryn,” I said. “You’re a tyrant. I wasn’t there, but I suspect you got to where you are by relentlessly applying pressure to everyone who got in your way or threatened to get in your way, crushing them under your heel. Roxanne, I don’t think a lot of people outside the family truly get what you’re capable of.”
“Do you?” Roxanne asked. Her one open eye was bloodshot.
“More than most,” I said. “Listen, I’m not going to appeal to teamwork, or to your inner goodness, and I’m not going to try to be your friend. I’m just going to say this. If they win, if they get what they want? You’ll never get your chance to sell the house and get the money you’ve been expecting for most of your lives. You’ll probably die.”
None of them responded.
“I’ll get trouble for introducing myself to you,” I said. “I know you aren’t the types to thank me for any of this. But you were raised to be horrible people, and I was too, in a small way. Right here, right now, you need to be your own particular sort of horrible to them. If you’re willing to work together to do it, all the better.”
Still no responses.
Kathryn was woozy, and Ellie had been told to shut up, and was complying. Roxanne, it seemed, wasn’t going to speak before anyone else did. The brat, much as I’d suggested, was the sort to stay quiet and hang back until she saw an opportunity. Taking the lead ran contrary to that.
Damn it. They couldn’t even shut up and listen without being problematic.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” Peter murmured. “Who’s the fairest of them all?”
“He has mild hypothermia,” Kathryn said. She reached for his hand.
He pulled it back.
“…A fever, probably, I’d know if he let me check his temperature,” she added. “He’s not making any sense.”
“You’re a wizard, Pete,” he said. “How does the line go?”
“Great,” Ellie said. “It’s up to me and the kids.”
“Blue pill, red pill? Tumbling, tumbling, down the rabbit hole, except instead of a grinning cat, it’s kids from film Tarantino,” Peter spoke, drawing out the ‘o’ of ‘hole’ and ‘Tarantino’.
His vision didn’t waver in the slightest, his eyes fixed on me. His voice wasn’t slurred.
He knew. He knew about the diagrams on the floor, he’d connected dots and pieced things together enough to know in generalities.
I spoke, ignoring him, “If you’re wanting-”
More voices from upstairs. A sharp crack.
We fell silent, ears peeled.
I resumed speaking, a little faster, “-to do your own thing, go with Evan. Let the bird point you to possible traps. Downstairs should be safe, though I wouldn’t trust the window. There’s a cellar, and tools. Breaker box should be down there too. Upstairs, it’s a gamble. You might run into them.”
“And they’re armed,” Ellie said. “Yeah, no. Hiding in the cellar sounds good.”
“If you hide, they’ll probably find you,” I said.
“If I hide, I have a chance to find them first, while they’re looking for me,” Ellie said. “Safest, smartest plan, far as I’m concerned.”
“Safest, smartest plan,” Peter said, looking up at his sister, sounding eerily lucid compared to his momentary wackiness a bit ago, “Would be to repurpose a bomb. It’s not the movies, you can probably pull out wires until it stops working.”
“You want to fuck with a bomb?” Kathryn asked. “Fuck me, and fuck you.”
“Ellie,” he said, extending a hand up to his sister, who was standing.