I texted Lily and Sadie-Grace. Campbell texted Hope, who met us—all four of us—at the front of the hotel. I didn’t know what Campbell had texted her, but she didn’t bat an eye at Lily’s presence.
“The golf carts are parked around back,” she said. “You obtained your keys?”
“Easy as pie,” Campbell replied.
“Apple pie,” Sadie-Grace added confidently. Then, in the interest of full disclosure, she continued. “Or so I assume. I wasn’t there.”
“We only have three keys.” I phrased my question carefully. “Is that going to be a problem?”
I was keeping secrets from Lily. If and when the truth about my parentage came out, she might hate me, but I wasn’t going to sit back and let anyone else hurt her if I could help it.
“Not a problem,” Hope replied cheerfully. “Each White Glove picks her own replacement. Victoria can’t cut any of you as long as I’m interested.”
Apparently, she hadn’t found Lily interesting enough to keep around on her own, but if she was part of a package deal with me and Campbell—so be it.
What are the chances that Lily can change any of the other White Gloves’ minds tonight?
Lily must have sensed something was off with me, because she squeezed my hand as we rounded the back of the hotel. “Don’t worry,” she whispered as a line of a dozen golf carts came into view. “I won’t let them cut you.”
Hope was as good as her word. Victoria didn’t say a thing about Lily’s presence. I counted sixteen other Candidates present, along with the eight White Gloves.
“Keys, please,” Victoria told us. I handed them over. She tossed one to Sadie-Grace. “You’re with Nessa’s group. Hope, you can have Campbell.” Another key toss. Victoria waited a moment and then closed her fist around the last key. “Sawyer and Lily are with me.”
Each golf cart had two seats—one front-facing and one back. I ended up behind the wheel of our cart. Lily was sitting beside me, and Victoria had taken up a perch on the backseat.
On the carts around us, the other White Gloves and Candidates chattered. Every single one of them was dressed to the nines.
Golf carts? Check? Formal wear (lake version)? Check.
“What exactly are we doing tonight?” I asked.
The answer, it soon became apparent, was off-roading. Victoria directed us past the hotel, past the ramp down to the docks, past the golf course and the tennis courts, past the condos, down a gravel road. . . .
After that, things got rural, fast. Our drive ended outside a gate. The grating beneath it prepared me for the possibility of cows.
“Sawyer.” Victoria nodded toward the gate. “Would you do the honors?”
She probably expected me to be horrified of the mud or the fact that the headlights on the golf cart couldn’t compensate for how quickly things had gotten dark when the summer night had finally lost its sun.
But darkness I could handle. Mud I could handle. I had a healthy respect for—and accompanying wariness of—cows.
Trespassing I tended to take on a case-by-case basis.
“We have to cut through here to get to the woods.” Victoria took note of my hesitation, however brief. “There’s already a trail from point A to point B. Having second thoughts, Taft?”
“Sawyer doesn’t have second thoughts!” Sadie-Grace insisted from the golf cart behind us, loyal to the bone. “Sometimes, she doesn’t even have first thoughts!”
Thank you, Sadie-Grace. I jumped out of the cart and opened the gate. Mud flicked up onto my lower calves as I walked back to the golf cart. Aunt Olivia was not going to be happy about the state of my sandals.
Once I was situated behind the wheel again, Victoria leaned between Lily and me and waved me forward.
“The Candidates are many,” a White Glove called out behind us. “The Chosen are few!”
Victoria didn’t sit back down. Instead, she braced her hands against the frame on either side of the cart, her arms and legs forming an X that I could only partially see when I glanced back at her in the dark. She angled her face skyward, her long hair waving behind her, lost to shadow, as I gave the golf cart a little more gas.
“Let the games,” Victoria murmured, “begin.”