Page 78 of His Angel

“Bugged?”

“They’ve seen and heard way too much that goes on in there for it to not be riddled with cameras.”

“Great.”

“I found this when I was tidying up the other day,” he says, pulling over and opening up his phone. He brings up a picture, zooming in on a small camera above his bookshelf.

“Did you leave it where it was?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to risk alerting whoever is watching, but I haven’t seen any others around.”

“It seems a little obvious, don’t you think?” I ask, handing it back over as he starts the engine again, rolling us towards the main road. “Did you find any when you moved our room around yesterday?”

“No.”

“I’d be tempted to say that’s been placed by someone else. If there are cameras elsewhere in the house, then they’re seriously discreet and well hidden, andthatis neither of those things.”

“Good point,” he ponders. “So, what do you know about The Sect?” he asks, pulling out onto the main road and leaving the campus behind.

“They apparently put cameras in your house and are generally pretty scary and unpredictable.”

“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. The Sect is an elite secret society and membership is passed through bloodlines from father to son.”

“But our dad passed away earlier this year.”

“Hence you didn’t get the full details before being dropped in the thick of it,” he explains.

“But you did?” I ask, cocking my head and adjusting the climate control.

“More than you did. They made it sound like it’s a level playing field at the initiation, but it isn’t, there are only three bloodlines in each intake, the twist this year is that one of them includes twins.”

“So everyone else is what, filler? Cannon fodder? Those are real fucking people's lives they’re messing around with.”

“Messing around. Yeah, that’s what they’re doing. Fucking about with their futures.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t you remember what you signed in blood?I understand there is no way out from here, except by death or excommunication.”

“So, they’ve been excommunicated. What does that even mean?”

“They’re fucking dead, Nick. Don’t be so damned naïve.”

Fuck.

“Are you telling me we’re guaranteed to get through though, with us being the bloodline members?” I clarify.

“If only it was that simple.” He sighs. “If we fuck up, we’re still out. There’s no guarantee in The Sect, but there’s also no way the non-bloodline initiates will ever make it to the end. Tamsin was fucked the second she picked Taylor as her partner.”

“Let’s not mention that to Ivy.”

“Wasn’t planning on.”

We fall silent, me processing what he’s said and him waiting.

“None of that explains the flowers.”

“No, it doesn’t.” He pulls down to the coffee shop car park, parking the car as he works out what he’s going to tell me about it.

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