her hand. “Good thing I have you to give me a primer.”
She grins and veers us slightly off course. “You’re right about that, because we learned that there’s an entrance to Preston through an old tunnel that starts in the old water-well shed behind the building. All of these tunnels go back to the Civil War. Like the one that leads from the lake to the bunker.”
We go to the small brick building that I don’t think I’ve ever noticed before. She extracts her key and slides it into the lock, twisting it to the side. The door opens and cool, musty air rolls past.
“Creepy.” I take a look back to make sure no one notices us, and then duck inside. Vandy shines her phone’s light and I notice fresh footprints on the dirt floor. “Guess we weren’t the first ones here.”
Vandy uses her key to unlock a second, barely noticeable door and then, hand in hand, we enter the tunnel and walk the stretch underground toward the house. It’s cool and damp, and the ceiling is low enough that I have to duck not to hit it. It’s a little claustrophobic and I’m glad when we get to a staircase that leads up. The air is cooler up here and at the top is another door. This one leads inside the house—to a dark storage pantry. I push open the swinging door to the hallway and see a dozen frames mounted to the wall.
My eyes scan them tiredly.
Shit. Needle in a haystack.
“Did your class happen to tell you where the Langford room is?” I whisper. The caretaker is in the house somewhere. Asleep, probably. And it’s possible some of the other Devils are here as well. I’m not sure what would happen to any of them if they got caught, but my own fate might as well be spun on an elaborate wheel of misfortune: swift expulsion, arrest, hard time, you name it.
“I’m not sure,” she says, chewing on her lip. “But I think that the guest rooms are named after former Headmasters, and Langford was a headmaster. So probably upstairs?”
“What about the caretaker? Where are her rooms?”
“Off the kitchen.” She snorts. “Like they let the help sleep upstairs.”
She’s right about that, so I start down the hall, away from the faint light of the kitchen, toward the staircase. We pass a formal living room and adjacent dining room. I keep my eyes diverted from the shiny trinkets and collectibles in the antique furniture. It’d be a lie to say I’m not tempted as we pass it all.
Together we climb the narrow stairs, my hand settling on Vandy’s lower back, fingers slipping under her shirt to touch her skin. This need to touch her all the time, it’s even more intense than my compulsion to take. The only thing I want to take from Vandy is something she wants to give—and that has to be on her terms.
I thought it was going to happen in her room the other night. It felt right, but then fucking Em had to barge in and interrupt us. He’d probably be proud of his cockblocking efforts if he knew about it. Right after he skinned me alive, that is.
I’ve sneaked into her room twice since then, but aside from some heavy kissing, I’ve managed to keep things PG-13. Pretty easy thing to do with the possibility of Emory knocking on her door again hanging like an axe over my libido.
The truth is that I need to slow down, anyway. Vandy is more into all this than I really expected her to be, but sex is a big step. You don’t get that back. There are too many ways for her to get hurt.
The stairs spill into a wide landing, decorated in more antiques. She turns left, heading down a hall with thick, carpeted runners that muffle our footsteps. Vandy reaches the first door and peers at the small sign next to it. “Hamilton,” it says. Clearly, this room was named after the headmaster, Bates’ great-grandfather. Her fingers are paused against the crystal doorknob and she lifts them, ready to walk on, but a thud comes from inside and she jumps back, slamming into me. Over the sound of my heartbeat I hear a giggle, followed by a too-loud, “Shhhh.”
I reach past Vandy and slowly open the door. Two figures stand by a dresser. The light of the flashlight reveals Caroline and Tyson. Caroline’s eyes widen when she sees us, and Tyson shrinks back