Chapter 2

Espionage. Risk.” Xander’s voice echoed dramatically through the Great Room. “Defensive maneuvers. Competition.” Xander was enjoying this moment way too much. “This,” he boomed, “is Secret Santa!”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Libby said.

My gaze went to the elaborate cut-glass bowl sitting on top of the massive mantel—and then to the collection of objects beneath the mantel. “What’s with the squirt guns?” I asked.

Nash sauntered toward the fireplace. The next thing I knew, he had a pistol-sized squirt gun in each hand.

Xander opened his mouth. “Hit me!”

Nash fired. Bull’s-eye. “Festive water,” Nash told Libby and me with a wink. “Courtesy of food dye.”

Xander opened his mouth to show off a very green tongue.

Libby raised her hand, like a very earnest student in class. “Why does Secret Santa require squirt guns full of ‘festive’ water?” she asked.

The answer came from behind us. “Have you ever heard of the game Assassins?” Somehow, Grayson Hawthorne managed to make that sound like the world’s most reasonable question.

Jameson, who prided himself on being a bit less reasonable, elaborated. “In a typical game of Assassins, the players draw names. The name you draw becomes your target. The goal is to take out your target while avoiding being taken out yourself. Gameplay is spread out over days or even weeks. If you squirt someone and take them out, their target becomes yours. The game proceeds until there is only one assassin remaining.”

“You see the obvious parallels,” Xander told us.

“Between Assassins and… Secret Santa?” Libby was trying for diplomacy again. “I guess they both start out with drawing names?”

“Exactly!” Xander rubbed his hands together. “Now, for the distribution of supplies.” He disappeared behind a wingback chair and reappeared with an enormous Santa bag from which he began distributing what at first appeared to be Christmas decorations. “You’ve got your reinforced garland,” he said, piling a mound of it in my arms. “Your weaponized tinsel, your holiday drones, and, of course”—Xander lifted the single ugliest Christmas statue I’d ever seen out of the bag—“the Reindeer of Doom.”

I had so many questions. “Start at the beginning,” I told all four brothers.

Jameson smiled. “With pleasure.”

It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that Hawthorne Secret Santa was part Assassins, part Capture The Flag, and wholly competitive.

“So there is one way of permanently taking out another player and two ways of temporarily knocking them out of the game.” Libby’s expression was pure concentration.

“Correct!” Xander replied. “And what are those ways?” he quizzed.

“You can permanently take your target out of the game by getting them the perfect gift,” Libby recited. “And you can temporarily take the person who has your name out of the game either by squirting them with any type of red or green liquid or using… one of these?” My sister glanced down at the highly festive arsenal she had been given.

“Ain’t no weapon like a Christmas-themed weapon,” Xander said. “If you can get the person who drew your name with your squirt gun or tinsel before they can sneak their gift into your base, then they’re out of the game for three days, during which time, they can’t go on the offensive against the person who drew their name.” Xander grinned. “As an added bonus, once those three days have passed and the person targeting you is back in the game—if they’ve survived that long—they have to get you two perfect presents instead of just one.”

It probably said something about me that this all made a twisted, Hawthorne kind of sense. Get a perfect present for your target. Sneak it onto their secret base. Don’t get caught. Protect your base from whoever drew your name—by any means necessary.

“Okay.” Libby nodded, putting on her game face.

I still had questions. “If you take your target permanently out of the game with a perfect present, you inherit their target, correct?” I verified.

“Correct.” Jameson was enjoying this way too much.

“What qualifies as a perfect present?” I asked. Hawthornes were notoriously fond of technicalities and loopholes.

“The best gifts,” Nash said, glancing at Libby, a low, deep hum in his voice, “are the ones you don’t even know you want.” The edges of his mouth crinkled with a subtle smile. “Maybe you don’t even know it exists, but the moment you see it…”

“Perfection,” Xander finished with a chef’s kiss.

Libby slung her reinforced garland around her neck like a feather boa and shook her head. “Only you four could turn gift-giving into a competition.”

“I told you two,” Jameson said, looking directly at me, “Christmas at Hawthorne House is a contact sport.”

“Now,” Xander said dramatically, “before we draw names, a few parameters on the choosing of bases. Each player can have only one base. It must be in—or on—the House; it must be bigger than a motorcycle; and it must be marked to indicate that it is yours. If you choose to encode or otherwise mask said marking, so be it.”

Libby was right: Only the Hawthorne brothers could have come up with something like this. I looked from Jameson to Nash to Xander—and then to the brother who had said the least since we filed into the Great Room.

“Hide your base well,” Grayson advised. “Find ways of defending it without tipping off your opponent about its location.”

“Tinsel bombs are strongly encouraged,” Jameson added.

This was, quite possibly, the single most Hawthorne thing I’d ever heard of.

“Game ends Christmas morning,” Nash told Libby and me, but he had eyes only for her. “Perfect presents take time.”

Something occurred to me then: “What if there’s more than one player left on Christmas morning?”

In one smooth motion, Grayson bent to pick up a squirt gun and tucked it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Then he answered my question. “There won’t be.”