And the toilet simply flushes.
Damn it. Just like I said. Every time we…
But of course nothing would be revealed if you flushed the toilet the regular way, by pressing the lever down. Then every single woman who came here and did her business would open some secret door revealing all of Rouge’s deepest secrets.
I squeeze my eyes shut and think.
And the cool voice of my sister floats through my brain.
Here at Aces Underground, we pride ourselves on the weird and wonderful. Here we believe that turning the known upside down reveals the hidden.
My God. It’s not just a motto. It’s a clue.
An ordinary person would push the lever down to initiate the flushing mechanism. But an extraordinary person, who, as my sister would say, would thrive in this environment, would flush by pushing the lever up.
I do so, and a second later a groan echoes from the wall behind the toilet.
“Holy shit!” Harrison exclaims. “I think we figured it out!”
The walls give way to reveal a hidden crawlspace above the toilet, small enough for one person to go inside.
My heart pounds, matching the rhythm of the twitch of my eyebrow.
What we find in this crawlspace is going to change everything.
Just like the lever on the toilet, everything will be turned upside down.
I’m terrified…and excited.
“Looks like there’s only room enough for one person to check it out,” Harrison says. “You figured out how to open the door, so why don’t you do the honors?”
I swallow down my nerves. “All right.” I turn on the flashlight of my phone just as there’s another knock on the door.
“Will the bathroom be open soon?” The same woman as before.
“Yes!” I call back. “Just five more minutes.”
“All right! Thank you.”
“Better make this quick.” I hoist myself onto the top of the toilet and Harrison helps me up into the crawlspace.
It’s dark, so I shine my flashlight around. The crawlspace leads to a small room, maybe five feet by five feet. Concrete walls, and the only object in the room is a small table. I look it over. It’s a regular folding table, the cheap kind that would stick out like a sore thumb in the delicately furnished environment of Aces Underground.
But then my breath catches in my throat as I notice a few small drops on the table’s surface. Dark brown.
The color of dried blood.
I look under the table as my heart thumps in my ears. Underneath is a small cooler, light pink in color.
“Anything in there, babe?” Harrison asks.
“Yeah. A tiny cooler under a table. I think there’s drops of dried blood on the table.”
“Damn. What’s in the cooler?”
“I’m going to check now.”
“Okay. Just be safe.”
