Escape Room

by Maren Stoffels

  Mint has surprised me yet again tonight. She was amazing when she bandaged my hand just now. She didn’t faint at the sight of all that blood. She just got it done. I can’t say the same about Alissa and Miles.

  “My mom and dad know that I’m out,” I say. “But I don’t think I told them where I was going.”

  “My dad knows, but he’s on the night shift.” Alissa looks down at her shoes. “He won’t be home until early tomorrow morning.”

  Miles sighs. “I just said I was going to do something with my friends.”

  Mint nods. “So no one will be missing us yet.”

  That conclusion hits us like a bomb. It’s silent again, but all four of us are thinking the same thing: we don’t stand a chance.

  I wish someone would say something, doesn’t matter what. This silence makes it feel as if we’ve given up hope.

  There must be some way out of here, right? There must be someone who can help us?

  “Caitlin…,” I whisper quietly. “She knows we’re here.”

  Mint’s eyes sparkle. “Really?”

  I look at the clock, which says a quarter to nine. Caitlin’s probably on her bike by now. She’s never late.

  Mint takes a pen and paper out of the desk drawer and starts to write, hunched over. Even upside down, I can read her neat handwriting.

  Careful! Cleo’s listening!!!

  Mint’s right. If Cleo knows that Caitlin’s coming here, she’ll have an advantage. Caitlin coming will be a surprise, and then Cleo might make a mistake.

  Caitlin, the girl I felt nothing for, all those months, might just be the one who saves us.

  I take the pen from Mint and start writing. Luckily it wasn’t my writing hand that got wounded. Miles and Alissa come over and read the words too.

  CAITLIN WANTED TO COME. TOLD HER IT STARTED AT 9

  All three of them look at me. I see surprise, relief, and hope. The hope is coming from the most beautiful pair of blue eyes, which paralyze me. Even here, now that we’re surrounded by danger, they still have that effect.

  Is Caitlin smart enough

  Mint looks at me intently.

  I know what she’s thinking.

  If Caitlin doesn’t realize that Cleo’s dangerous, she’ll be in as much danger as we are.

  Who knows what she’ll do to Caitlin?

  I take the pen again.

  I HOPE SO.

  Caitlin.

  That’s that girl.

  I’ve seen her around,

  when I was watching It.

  What are they writing about her?

  I check all the cameras, but I can’t read the note.

  Do they really think they can outsmart me?

  I look at the clock, but it’s only ten to nine. The minutes are crawling by.

  I don’t know whether to be happy that Caitlin’s coming here. I don’t think she can handle Cleo on her own. Caitlin isn’t the tough kind. Actually, I’ve never understood what Sky sees in that girl. They don’t go together at all.

  I look again at the hands of the clock, but they’re moving painfully slowly.

  Dad doesn’t usually get home until around five in the morning. Might he want to patch things up before he goes to bed? I try to push away the memory of the hurt on his face, but I can’t. Dad looked at me like a dog that’s been beaten.

  “Damn well behave like a father for once!”

  I picture Dad going into my room tomorrow morning and finding my empty bed. That is the first place he’ll go, but that won’t be for another eight hours. Will we be able to survive in here that long?

  What’s Cleo planning? Does she want to see us suffer?

  Mint said she saw Cleo out jogging, but none of us know her personally. Cleo must have some reason for doing this. Or is she just plain crazy?

  A horrible din echoes around the room. All four of us jump to our feet.

  Mint leads the way to Lia’s room, where we all climb into the big wardrobe and close the door behind us. It’s a small space. I’m sitting practically on top of Sky and Miles, but the closed door slightly deadens the sound of the fire alarm.

  I knew what it was immediately. My dad has to check all the fire alarms at home every day, or he can’t sleep. Since the accident last year, it’s become an obsession.

  “Is there a fire?” I hear Sky ask.

  “It’s a method of torture,” says Mint. “Loud noises can drive people insane.”

  How come she seems to know everything? She even remembers stuff like that.

  In the semi-darkness, she looks serious. The makeup makes her seem older, as if she’s over twenty. Why did she dress herself up like that today in particular?

  I only know Mint as the girl who wants to be invisible. But why is she so insecure? Mint can do much more than she shows. I’ve always thought that. In here, she finally seems to be strong, but in an over-the-top, frantic kind of way. The contrast with the Mint I know outside is insane. I don’t get it. It feels like my best friend is a stranger.

  Above the howling fire alarm, a bell rings.

  It takes a second to get through to me,

  but then I see a girl on one of the twelve screens.

  Caitlin.

  She’s standing at the door….

  I stare at the screen.

  What’s that girl doing here?

  Now I know what they were writing on that piece of paper.

  They knew this was going to happen.

  The bell rings again.

  “Go away,” I plead.

  But she doesn’t leave.

  “Yes?”

  Caitlin looks up, surprised.

  “Oh, hello. I’m here for the Escape Room.”

  I look along the street. There’s no one else around.

  “We…we’re closed.”

  “Closed?” The girl looks over her shoulder.

  “But that’s Sky’s bike.”

  I give her the smile I’ve been practicing in the mirror for months.

  The smile that fends off every annoying question.

  “Then why don’t you come on in?”

  The fire alarm falls silent. As suddenly as it started, it stops.

  Mint is the first to get up. “I’ll go see if it’s safe.”

  No one offers to go instead. Everyone would rather stay inside the wardrobe. It feels like a safe island in a sea full of sharks.

  Mint leaves the door open and more light creeps into the wardrobe.

  “You okay?” asks Miles. He hadn’t said anything about my hand until now. He hadn’t even looked at it.

  “Fine,” I lie. I have to do my best not to look at the bandage, which is now soaked with blood.

  “Did it sever your tendons?”

  Why did he ask that? I don’t want to think about it. Just the idea makes me want to puke.

  “I don’t know. I can’t move my fingers.”

  Miles’s face clouds over. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” Alissa remarks. “It was Cleo who shut that hatch, not you.”

  Miles looks at his sneakers. “But if I hadn’t come along, you guys couldn’t have done this Escape Room. You’d have been one player short.”

  Does Miles really think this is his fault? I’m mad at him because of Alissa, but he doesn’t deserve this.

  “If it hadn’t been you, we’d have brought someone else,” I say quickly.

  Mint returns and looks at us with a serious face. “We have to go back. Cleo has a message for us.”

  Something’s wrong. I can tell from Mint’s face.

  “What’s going on?” I ask as Alissa helps me to my feet.

  “Just come with me.”

  In the doctor’
s office, I see the metal door again, with a trickle of blood running down from the hatch. My blood.

  I turn my head away, but the image remains.

  “There’s a new message.” Mint holds up a ball.

  “Open it, then,” Alissa says.

  Mint’s eyes flash to me. “I’ve already read it, but I don’t know if…”

  I already know what she’s going to say before the words cross her lips. “She has Caitlin.”

  I feel numb, stunned. My hand even stops hurting for a second.

  Caitlin came here because of me, because she thinks she’s my girlfriend. And now that lunatic’s got her.

  This is our game, our pain. “C-Caitlin has nothing to do with this,” I stammer. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  I double over. My dinner splashes onto the floor, and it keeps on coming. I go on throwing up, as if I’m vomiting out my entire body.

  With every gasp of air, I call Cleo every name under the sun. No one stops me. The three of them just let me scream. No one tells me to quit it or even rests a hand on my arm. Because they think Cleo has overstepped every boundary: she’s hurting someone I love.

  But that’s not it. I’m flipping out because she’s hurting someone I don’t love. All this time, I let Caitlin believe I liked her. Why? Because I’m scared the truth will come out.

  “Let her go,” I say to the camera. “Tell me what you want and let her go.”

  Nothing happens. Cleo remains silent. The clock on the wall says our time is up, but this Escape Room has only just begun.

  Is Cleo looking at her screens now? Is she looking at me? Maybe she’s laughing. She’s broken me, first my hand and now my heart. If anything happens to Caitlin, I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life.

  “You lay one finger on her, and I’ll kill you.” I wipe my mouth. “Do you hear me?”

  “Come on.” Mint pulls me away. “You need a clean bandage.”

  “What difference will a bandage make? That woman’s going to kill us, Mint.”

  Mint shakes her head. She remains perfectly calm, even now. How does she do that? We’re like rats in a trap.

  “Who are you?” I yell at the camera. “What do you want from me?”

  Mint forces me to sit on the desk chair and unwraps the old bandage. It’s stuck to my hand in places, but it’s not painful anymore.

  What has Cleo done to Caitlin? Has she drugged her? Hurt her? Or worse?

  I squeeze my eyes shut, but then I picture Caitlin in her nightgown. She wraps her soft legs around me. A sign of love for her, a stranglehold for me.

  Will I ever be able to put this right?

  “Just close your eyes,” Mint says quietly. She treats me gently, as if that’s what I deserve. She’d be better pinching me and telling me I’m a cowardly bastard. Because that’s exactly what I am.

  “Cleo?” Now Miles is giving it a try. “You don’t want to do this.”

  Does he really think there’s any point talking to that woman?

  “You don’t want to hurt Caitlin. I know you don’t.”

  Miles must be blind. He saw what Cleo did to my hand, didn’t he?

  Another ball rolls into the room, but this time there’s more than just a note inside. I see something black inside the ball, which falls out when Miles opens it.

  It’s a lock of hair.

  Caitlin’s hair?

  I feel like I’m about to faint. But I’m still sitting upright.

  Miles looks at me, as if he needs my permission to read the message.

  “Go ahead,” I say in a hoarse voice.

  A life in exchange for a bunch of hair—and it’s Mint who’ll be sitting in the hairdresser’s chair. While Alissa takes the scissors and snips, she can give her friend some beauty tips. We all know Alissa’s the fairest in the land, and it’s time she gave mousy little Mint a hand. Snip snip, Alissa!

  Cleo seems to know us very well. She hits us in the places that hurt most of all: my passion for drumming, Mint’s looks. How does she know all this?

  And then it finally dawns on me what Cleo wants from us. I look at the lock of hair on the floor. A life in exchange for a bunch of hair.

  How could I ever have thought that this Escape Room was an exciting game? I was really looking forward to it. Every key we found sent adrenaline racing through my blood.

  But this Escape Room is hell. We have no idea where it’s going to end, and Cleo isn’t finished with us yet, not by a long shot. She’s only just begun.

  The hair is proof of that. If Mint doesn’t do as Cleo says, Caitlin’s going to die.

  Caitlin won’t stop crying.

  Just because I cut off a bit of her hair?

  I wrap my scarf around my neck again.

  Hair grows back.

  But some wounds never heal.

  Snip snip, Alissa!

  So it seems that Cleo knows what I think about myself. She knows it would be the ultimate humiliation if Alissa of all people were to cut off my hair. She knows I’ve been living in her shadow since the first day of school. That people only talk to me because I’m with her.

  But how does Cleo know?

  Is she that good at reading people?

  I think back to the park, where she smiled at me as she went by. Later, in the meadows, she turned up again. So that wasn’t a coincidence.

  “She’s been watching us,” I whisper. The others look up. “She was there in the park, and later when Miles…”

  “When Miles what?” asks Sky when I stop in the middle of my sentence.

  When Miles flipped out.

  “When Miles delivered the pizza.”

  I feel another sharp jab in my stomach. Miles’s pain?

  I look at Sky’s hand, which I’ve wrapped in a clean bandage. In Lia’s room, in front of the mirror, I’d felt a pain in my own hand. But that was before he…

  I gasp. All the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. My wrist didn’t just hurt after Alissa fell in gym class, but before, too. My eyebrow and nose hurt before Sky and Alissa had their piercings. My hand hurt before Sky’s hand was shut in the hatch.

  The pain I feel isn’t just a result of other people’s pain. It’s a warning of pain to come.

  “What? Cleo’s been stalking us?” Sky says.

  Alissa’s eyes widen. “When we came in, she said something about my nose piercing. So she knew it was recent! But how could she…?”

  “She knows us.” Sky looks like he’s about to throw up again.

  I feel sorry for him. He doesn’t deserve this.

  I have to do as Cleo says, or Caitlin will be in danger. It’s not worth it, is it?

  My hair will grow back again.

  “Snip snip, Alissa,” I say firmly.

  Alissa turns deathly pale. “What?”

  Did she really think I’d refuse?

  “What’s more important?” I say. “Caitlin’s life or my hair?”

  Alissa picks up the scissors I just used for Sky’s bandage. Sky pushes back the desk chair. I sit down and clasp my hands around the armrests. The stomach pain flashes through me again, and I’m convinced it’s Miles’s pain. Should I warn him? But what would I say?

  “Are you sure?” Alissa asks.

  “Just do it,” I say.

  Alissa cuts in silence. Now and then, a bit of hair falls onto my lap. The difference between us will soon be huge. It hurts me when boys look at her, but now it feels as if it’s Alissa herself who’s dishing out the pain. She’s mutilating me.

  I force myself not to cry. I’m not going to shed a single tear in here. I won’t give Cleo the pleasure.

  When Alissa finally puts the scissors back on the desk, I look at the floor. There’s a carpet of hair, long strands and short tufts all mixed together.

&n
bsp; I touch my head and feel the spikes prickling. Shocked, I pull my hand back. I need to know what it looks like, but I’m scared of what I’ll see.

  I walk to Lia’s room and wipe the powder from the mirror with my hand.

  For the second time, I see a different Mint. Her cheekbones suddenly look sharp and striking, and her hair is cut short. The girl in the mirror reminds me of a soldier who’s recently come back from the war.

  Slowly, I realize this is my reflection. This is me.

  I let a laugh slip out, because it suits me. It looks damn good on me.

  Sky comes and stands beside me and looks at me in the mirror.

  “Whoa,” he whispers.

  It takes me a moment to interpret his expression, because no one’s ever looked at me like that before. It’s how boys always look at Alissa.

  * * *

  —

  We’re sitting on the floor in Lia’s room, because the office smells of puke. No one says anything. I sneak peeks alternately at Miles and Alissa.

  Alissa hasn’t said anything since she cut my hair. Miles is avoiding me, as if I have a scary disease. Did he notice when I nearly let it slip about the meadows?

  “The flyer for this Escape Room…,” Sky says, interrupting the silence. “There was a reason why it was at my work. She led us here.”

  I get anxious at the thought that Cleo planned all this down to the smallest details. It makes her seem even more dangerous than I already feared.

  “We thought it was our own plan to book the Escape Room, but everything was prepared for our visit. Cleo wants to take revenge on us here.”

  “Revenge? But why? And on which one of us?” I ask.

  “No idea.” Sky is supporting his hand. The new bandage is already starting to leak too. He’s losing too much blood. It needs stitches—and soon.

  Should I look for a needle and thread? But I have no idea how to do it. I could just end up making it worse.

  “I don’t have any enemies,” I say. “How about you?”

  Sky ponders the question. “Don’t think so.”