Page 45 of Black Hearts

14

Celeste

The guard pushedme inside the kitchen, gave me a scathing look, and stalked away.

I stepped over to the maid down at the end of an enormous marble island countertop. I needed to explain what was going on and try to enlist her help. Like Alex said to me earlier, we needed all we could get. Even with the vast majority of the guards dead, we had to get all the maids and kids out of the house before we dealt with the Circle members, and that wasn’t going to be easy to pull off without them noticing.

The maid was still preparing cocktails, but she glanced up when she heard me come in.

I realized, with a pang like an electric shock, that I knew her face. She was the girl in one of the videos Alex had stolen from a previous victim of his… the young girl my father tortured and raped for fun. Over fifteen years had passed since that video was filmed, but she was still here, trapped in amber, working for the Circle. She looked to be in her mid to late twenties by now.

Her tired eyes narrowed, and her brows furrowed. “Who are you?” she asked. “Are you new?”

“Sort of. I’m Celeste,” I said, stepping closer to her.

“I’m Emily,” she replied listlessly as she crushed some sugar cubes in a small bowl. “How did they get you here? You don’t look so young.”

I knew it wasn’t an insult. I was young by most people’s definition, but in terms of new Circle kidnapping victims, I was practically ancient.

“I’m John Riley’s daughter,” I said softly.

She obviously recognized the name, even after all these years, because her face blanched and she jerked away from me, sending the little sugar bowl flying off the counter and onto the floor. Grains of sugar scattered everywhere, mixing with the broken black shards of the ceramic bowl.

“Get away from me,” she whispered, hands trembling as I knelt down to help her. I realized why she was so terrified—she thought I was here to torment her. She thought I was truly my father’s daughter.

“No, please, I’m here to help,” I whispered back. “I know what my father did to you. I want to get you and the others out of here.”

Her eyes widened for a split second as she stared deeply into my own, ostensibly assessing whether or not I was trustworthy. Then she spoke up again, loudly. “No, I told you, it’s in the third drawer over there, not the fourth.”

I was confused, but then I realized she was talking loudly for someone else’s benefit. The patrol guard must’ve heard the bowl smash and returned to see what was going on.

I stood up straight and headed to a set of wide drawers, using my peripheral vision to check out the doorway. I was right; the guard had returned, and he was glaring at the two of us suspiciously.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I got you that basil you wanted for the garnishes,” I said breezily as I rifled through the third drawer. I grabbed a strainer, figuring it looked like it might come in handy for cocktails and therefore wouldn’t arouse suspicion that I was getting it out.

Emily was sweeping up the sugar and broken remains of the bowl now. “Well, it’s a bit late now. The food’s already gone out,” she said.

The guard seemed satisfied with our exchange, and he left the kitchen again a moment later.

I headed back over to Emily and started helping her with the drinks. She’d finished one tray and was loading the glasses up on top of a silver service cart. She refused to meet my eyes, and I could tell she didn’t entirely trust me or my motivations.

Yet.

“Emily, please listen to me,” I began in a low voice. “I really need your help. I need to get all the kids and maids out of the house as soon as possible, and I don’t think I can do it without someone like you. Someone they know.”

Alex had keys for the upper floor rooms (courtesy of Blaine) but he couldn’t realistically go and let the kids out by himself. They were most likely distrustful or plain terrified of any new men, even those who said they were going to help, so we had to get someone they trusted to convince them to leave their rooms.

I couldn’t do it either. Aside from the fact the kids didn’t know me, I had to stay down here and try to get the maids out, because I was far more capable of fitting in (on the surface, in case Circle members spotted me) than Alex.

Emily was silent for a long moment. Then she looked up at me and sighed, her hollow eyes seemingly staring into my soul. Something painful flicked across her expression, and she lowered her gaze again. “I’m not as stupid as I look,” she mumbled.

I frowned. “What? I don’t understand.”

“This is a game. I know it.”

“It’s not.”

She threw her hands up, her head shaking slowly with disdain. “Do you know how many times they’ve played this one with us? Sometimes it’s the guards, sometimes it’s the Circle members. They tell us they’ll help us escape. Really, they just want sex, or to hurt us. It’s amusing for them to see us looking so hopeful, just so they can destroy us all over again when we find out it was all a sick joke.”

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