“Maybe you should hit me,”I say, looking critically at my reflection in the mirror. I’ve rubbed some dirt into my face and messed up my hair, hoping it would make me look like I’d been roughed up.
I just look like I’ve been cleaning out a dusty attic.
“I’m not going to hit you,” Alessandro tells me. “I don’t want you down there in the first place; I’m not going to injure you before I put you there.”
He’s notputting me there, but I don’t point that out again. We’re in the study at Redwood Manor, and I’m making the last preparations for my descent into the cells. It doesn’t matter how much I insist I want to do this, Alessandro is determined to worry. Just as determined as I am to go down there and talk to Julian, although I’m not looking forward to it.
I’m hiding my nerves, because I know how significant this information could be. This is super important and I need to be smart, not nervous.
So I fake it as well as I can.
“I’m ready,” I announce. Alessandro is still dubious, but I won’t let him back out now. I hold out my wrists. “Tie me up.”
He raises an eyebrow and his dark eyes rake over me. “When I tie you up,topolino, it will be for my pleasure, not for something like this.”
I catch my breath, and Alessandro blinks, seems to realize what he’s just said.
“No,” he goes on, as though he never said anything at all about his pleasure. “I won’t make you defenseless. You may need your hands down there.”
He makes a polite gesture and I walk over to the wooden wall panel that hides the secret door to the cells. He takes up his position behind me, wrapping his hand around my arm.
“Teddy,” he says, his fingers squeezing. “I…”
“Yes?”
“I want you to be careful. If he’s not going to come out with it—if he won’t give you anything—I’ll come down and take you out. I don’t want you in there overnight.”
I shake my head firmly. “No. If he doesn’t give me anything, I’ll stay down there until hedoes.”
The way Alessandro looks down at me makes me think I won’t have much choice in the matter. So that means…
Well, it just means I’ll have to beextra-convincing to Julian.
“I will never forgive myself if something happens to you,” he whispers, as he opens the door. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
It’s a lie, but I know he needs to hear it.
I don’t plan to be careful.
I plan to prod all the buttons I can in a crazy psycho-killer, until I get the result that I want.
* * *
Alessandro is convincingly heartless as he drags me through the door of the dungeon. When the smell hits me it makes me gag just as much as the first time, which I try to tell myself is a good thing, since it adds to the realism.
My stomach definitely doesn’t agree.
“Back again?” Julian’s voice threads out of the dim cage. He’s lying on his bed, reading, and he sounds bored. “If you’re going to bring me a playmate, Sandro, he needs to be in here with me.”
Alessandro shoves me into the last cell again, and I stumble in.
“You may well get your chance at him,” he says coldly.
“Please—” I begin, but Alessandro cuts me off.
“No more second chances for you. You will stay here until I decide how I want you to die. Because that…” He looks deliberately from me to Julian, who is sitting up on the bunk, looking much more interested in the proceedings now. “That is what happens to traitors.”
