The Lighthouse - [H.S.]

Chapter 6 - Guest or Prisioner

Fallon James
Saturday, October 19, 2024
3:30 am

I wait for Harry to find something to say, not only to explain what's going on here but also what he knows about my brother's death. When he asked me if I trusted him, something in me snapped, and I was ready to reveal myself and everything that was going on before that first explosion went off.

"Well?" I ask, buying time to let my mind rest.

When he said he didn't hurt my brother, that he wasn't going to hurt me... for all the energy I've spent hating him, I couldn't help but believe him. He feels like such an amalgamation of different personalities. There's the cheeky man I met on the phone, the humble version I saw at the meeting today, the drunken version I flirted with tonight, and now this.

This man who has secret bedrooms filled with black silk sheets and pre-lit candles since he obviously had no doubt he wasn't going to be sleeping alone tonight.

"What is this place, anyway?" I ask, his silence an answer enough; he isn't going to explain.

"What do you mean?" He asks, getting comfortable on the end of the bed.

"What is all this?" I gently move my hands in circles. "This bedroom, this palace? How do you have access to all these back tunnels and rooms? What is going on?"

He swallows and takes a deep breath. "You ask a lot of questions, Fallon James," he says, smiling. He stands from his bed and moves over to one of the candle-lit walls. He presses against the decorative wainscotting, and a click responds to his touch. Suddenly, the panels move forward to reveal a built-in bar cart. "Do you want a drink?" He asks, moving around glasses, the clinks of the fine crystal the only sound in the room.

"No. I want answers, especially now."

He looks over and smiles to himself.

"I can't blame you." He says before beginning a rehearsed dance, he puts a drink together. "I would have a lot of questions too—first, this place. My parent company owns the entire building. HSHQ is a smaller sector of a much bigger, more powerful conglomerate. It just so happens, when they built this place, they knew I would love to host big events that would make them lots of money, so I got to put in a few requests." He finishes off his drink, reaches to a lower hidden level of the cart, and pulls out a water bottle. He looks up and, just as he makes eye contact with me, tosses me the bottle. "All the shops on the ground level are owned by a company that's owned by a company that all traces back to the same parental super company."

I hesitate, looking at the water bottle before he instructs. "You need water, we can't stay here long." I do, for some reason, as he says. "So, your other questions." He says, shuffling his feet before kneeling before me rather than returning to his bed.

"I swear to you, Fallon James," he says, placing both hands on either side of me...boxing me in "I had nothing to do with your brother's death, and after tonight?" He takes a long drink from his glass...

He doesn't need to say anything further; I can tell what he's thinking and that he feels it genuinely. He didn't have anything to do with Ethan's death, and if anything... he might be next.

"Fine," I say, not letting him finish the thought, not wanting to hear him say it out loud. "Fine, so whatever is happening out there, shouldn't we get out of here? If... if."

"If whoever did hurt your brother is after me too?" He finishes, his eyes shut. I nod my head, finishing the water bottle off. He downs the rest of his drink in one gulp before shaking his head and sitting next to me on the chaise. The room's silence is overwhelming, but for just another moment, we sit there in the quiet.