“Picked it?” Persey couldn’t help herself. They were the first words she’d spoken all day and they came flying out of her mouth on instinct. They think he turned Harvard down?
Her brother smiled at her. Not the cold, fake kind he used on their parents, but a genuinely warm one. He’d always had a soft spot for her, even now, when she had almost blown his cover, and it was a sentimentality he believed that she returned.
Not so much.
“Yeah, don’t you remember? I told you about all my acceptances: Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Cornell, Penn, Georgetown as a safety.” He nodded for each one as if willing (demanding) Persey to remember. Remember the lie.
“Sorry,” she said. “Yes, you did.”
“That’s what a fourteen eighty SAT score will get you, Boss.” Her dad beamed as he said it, as if those numbers could somehow encompass all his paternal pride. “Acceptance anywhere you want.”
Of course he believed anything his star son told him. Maybe if Persey hadn’t scored so dismally on her PSAT test, he’d give her the benefit of the doubt once in a while too. Like when she swore she studied for a test but “only” got a B-minus.
“If your sister paid better attention, she wouldn’t have been kicked out of Allen.” Her dad pretty much took every opportunity to cut her down, even though he was still not addressing her directly.
One of her brother’s buddies bounded up from behind, punching him lightly in the arm. “Dude! You ready for tonight? Party bus picks us up at eight.”
Her dad gave them a knowing wink. “You boys letting loose tonight?” His face was at once conspiratorial and envious.
“Yes, sir,” her brother said. “Just going to blow off some steam.”
“That’s my boy! I remember back in my day…” Then he started to tell some story about his own drunken antics—something about a toga party and a bathtub full of ice that was supposed to be cool and relevant—but Persey’s brother wasn’t listening. Though the permasmile never left his face, his buddy was whispering something excitedly in his ear. Something that made her brother’s eyes widen with excitement. His lips parted, and she saw his tongue pass gently over them as if he was mentally savoring the five-star meal he’d enjoy later that night.
But it wasn’t pan-seared pork belly or Royal Kaluga caviar that elicited such a response in her brother.
A cold chill rocketed down Persey’s spine, numbing her hands and feet. She remembered that day last year when she’d walked into the seldom-used guesthouse and found her brother with the corpses of several animals: possums, squirrels, even a raccoon. Their mutilated bodies had been arranged in a little scene, and her brother stood above them, taking photos with his phone. When he’d turned toward the door where she stood rooted to the ground, stomach roiling with disgust and horror at what she was seeing, he’d had that same look in his eyes. Desire. Hunger. Need.
As she watched his buddy snickering now, Persey wondered what they were up to, then quickly forced any speculation from her mind.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“SHALL WE BEGIN THIS APTITUDE TEST?”
Leah threw open the main doors of the library’s reception room, and Greg entered the lounge. He approached Persey while Leah took up a position near the closet that housed everyone’s luggage.
“Arms out, please,” Greg said, in his now-familiar deadpan voice. “Legs shoulder width apart.”
She complied, assuming this was just part of the first challenge, since Leah had signaled as much, though “aptitude test” seemed like a weirdly academic (don’t panic) way to describe this pat-down. “Is this the beginning of the escape room?”
“Looks more like a first date,” Arlo snarked.
“You’re searching her?” Shaun asked. Only, the questioning inflection was barely present in his voice, like it had started out as a statement and morphed into a question mid-thought. “So you do think she cheated at the Hidden Library.”
“You’re all being searched,” Leah explained, “before I take you to the first challenge.”
First?
Wes jolted off the sofa. “You’re treating us like common criminals.”
“Like suspects,” Kevin corrected him. “They search you before you’re booked.”
“You know that firsthand?” Wes said, curling his lip.
“He’s right,” Riot said, “and you’re tried before you’re a criminal. Innocent until proven guilty.”
“I don’t mind being searched,” Arlo said, though her body language contradicted her words. With arms folded over her chest, her subtext practically screamed I DON’T LIKE THIS. “But I’d like to know why.”
“We want to make sure you don’t have any devices that could aid you in this competition,” Leah explained. “No books. No reference materials. And most importantly, no cell phones.”
On cue, Greg pulled Persey’s smartphone from the pocket of her cargo pants and shoved it in the bag he had slung over his shoulder; then he yanked a device from his own pocket. It looked like a walkie-talkie with some kind of meter readout on its face that blipped back and forth as he swept her body head to toe.
“That’s an electromagnetic scanner,” Leah explained. “To make sure you don’t have any devices hidden on your person.”
“Whoa,” Riot said, taking a step away. “Keep that cancer-causing shit away from me.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” Leah said. “No different than going through a TSA scanner.”
“Which I don’t do. Full pat-down for me. No way I’m letting the government collect a DNA readout of my body.”
Kevin looked at him curiously. “Um, even if that’s true—”
“It is,” Riot said.
“Okay, but why would they want to collect your DNA?”
Riot rolled his eyes. “Organ harvesting, human cloning. You think these genealogy testing kits advertised on TV are just so you can find out if your great-grandparents came over from Ireland versus Scotland? Fuck no. It’s to round out the government’s collection of our genetic codes.”
Kevin stared at him for a moment, then turned to Neela. “Sorry, but I think I love him more.”
“Clean!” Greg cried, stepping away from Persey to stand in front of Neela. Whatever he’d been looking for, Persey didn’t have it.
“Why would anyone want to cheat at an escape room competition?” Persey asked as Greg patted Neela down.
Kevin laughed. “I can think of about ten million reasons.”
“Egomaniacs,” Neela suggested. “Or I suppose anyone suffering from an acute personality disorder. Probably from the cluster B or cluster C groups—histrionic, narcissistic, avoidant, dependent, even perhaps obsessive-compulsive. I could see arguments as to why any of these disorders would drive a person to cheat on a seemingly irrelevant game like this.”
“True.” Persey had personal experience with enough egomaniacs and narcissists to see Neela’s point.
“True,” Neela repeated, then laughed good-naturedly. She was totally unfazed by Greg, who added her phone to the collection in his shoulder bag. “I like your style. Tell it like it is. Use three words instead of twenty. The opposite of me, right? A veritable Zelda Fitzgerald of understatement.”
Persey had no idea what she was talking about, but she was relatively sure Neela meant it as a compliment. Her energy gave Persey a headache, and yet she couldn’t help but smile. Neela was right: they were complementary opposites.
“Clean!” Greg said, backing away from Neela with his electro-whatever detector as he moved to Kevin.
“Excuse me,” Arlo said, holding her hands up in defense. “But what if we don’t want Lime Boy’s hands all over us, huh?”
“The. Fuck.” Mackenzie snorted. “Not used to having a man’s hands on you?”
Arlo scowled but didn’t respond to the taunt. “I didn’t sign a consent form. It is wholly within my rights to request some other form of a search. An X-ray machine. Or…or a female agent.”
“This
isn’t the TSA, Ms. Wu,” Leah said. “You don’t have an option. Unless you’d rather leave now and forfeit your spot in the competition?” Leah gestured toward the main door. “It’s not too late.”
Arlo eyed the door, then Greg, then Leah, weighing her options. “Fine,” she said. “But I’m going to lodge a formal complaint with the owners when this is over.”
“Duly noted,” Leah said, smiling with everything but her voice.
“Bee tee dubs,” Wes said, arms stretched out to his side as Greg moved to him. “Who are the owners of Escape-Capades these days? Since, you know, what happened…”
“Escape-Capades is controlled by an LLC,” Leah responded coolly, “registered with the state of Nevada. All board members are part of the public record.”
“Okay, but…Hey!” Wes jumped as Greg, removed something from the former’s hoodie pocket. “That’s mine.”
“Sir, no electronics.” Greg wrenched his arm away as Wes attempted to wrestle the item out of his hand.
“What is it?” Leah asked.
Wes finally managed to extricate his property from Greg, then held the item up between two fingers for her to see. “It’s a fucking vape pen.”
“Electronic or mechanical?” Leah asked.
Wes’s brows scrunched together. “Um…”
An imperceptible sigh left Leah’s lips. “Does it use a battery?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I’m terribly sorry, but you can either relinquish the device or thank you very much for your time, Mr. Song.”
Wes looked as if he was going to punch Greg in the face as he dropped the e-cigarette into the driver’s open hand, kicking the leg of a nearby table as he turned away, sulking.
A taut, tense silence settled over the room as one by one, Greg searched the remaining contestants, confiscating possible devices and clearing them of additional electronics. The competition had started, and everyone’s game face was in full effect.
“Wonderful,” Leah said as Greg deposited his backpack full of contraband at her feet like an offering to the queen. She glanced into the open bag, making a summary account of its contents, then nodded swiftly to Greg, dismissing him. As he exited, Leah stood before the large bookcase. “Will you please follow me?” Then she pulled a leather-bound volume from the middle shelf, releasing a lock. With a heavy creak that felt like it came directly from a haunted-house movie, the entire bookcase swung inward, exposing a secret passageway.
“Just like the exit from the Hidden Library!” Kevin said.
“I knew it was behind one of the bookcases,” Riot said, peeling himself away from the wall. “Point for me.”
Arlo clicked her tongue. “Of course the exit was behind a bookcase.” She scowled at him, as if his very presence was somehow an insult. “The room was literally one big bookcase. How could it not be?”
Riot glanced up at the ceiling. “Trapdoor. False ceiling. One of those ladders that drops from the attic.”
“Please silence yourselves,” Shaun-bot said, stilted and weird, as if piping down was like turning your cellphone to mute. “It’s starting.”
Leah stepped through the bookcase as Shaun and Arlo hurriedly crossed the room, following close on her heels. Neela grabbed Persey’s arm and dragged her forward behind them with Wes, Mackenzie, Riot, and Kevin packing in behind.
Persey blinked as they stepped from the wood-and-leather-and-Tiffany-lamp reception room to the blinding light of the corridor. It was lit from above and below, with fluorescents running the length of both the ceiling and the translucent floor, and Persey winced from the brightness, squinting her eyes as her pupils fought to dilate. A far cry from the old-school library, the hallway made Persey feel like she was walking through a spaceship, and she half expected to pass a window with a panoramic view of stars and galaxies.
“Where are we going?” Mackenzie asked, her voice close behind. Persey glanced over her shoulder and saw that Mackenzie walked at Kevin’s side, as near to him as she could get without actually holding his hand. Persey had zero interest in who Kevin chose to spend his time with, but for some reason, the idea that it might be Mackenzie was irritating.
Leah ignored the question, sticking to her script. She was really good at that. “From the moment the competition begins, there will be no stopping it.” She pivoted mid-stride so she was walking backward as she addressed them. “You have to keep moving forward, never back.”
“Why would she say that?” Neela chattered anxiously. Without waiting for an answer, she turned her questioning from Persey to Leah. “Why would you say that? Why would we want to go backward? Is there something dangerous in there? Do we need a safe word? What could we possibly be doing where we’d need a safe word and what would it be? Linoleum? Amoxicillin? Has to be a word you wouldn’t say in everyday life but I don’t remember signing a waiver before we started, so if there’s going to be anything potentially dangerous involved I feel like we should be adequately informed beforehand so we can make an educated decision about our further participation.”
Persey marveled at her lung capacity.
“Does she have an off button?” Arlo asked.
“Do you?” Persey may have only known Neela for like an hour, but she already preferred her harmless prattle to Arlo’s constant negativity and targeted condescension.
Leah paused at the end of the hallway before a door, laying her fingertips on the handle with a dramatic flourish. “Keep your eye on the clock. If it ever reaches zero, you will lose. You will all lose. Which means you need to work together. Do you understand?”
“Don’t go for the buzzer beater,” Wes said. “Check.”
“How utterly cliché,” Arlo added.
Mackenzie smiled. “Him or the game?”
“As you move further through the challenges,” Leah continued, “it might help to remember why you’re here in the first place. This is a test of your aptitude.” Persey wasn’t entirely sure why Leah used that word again, but something in the back of her brain suggested it might be important later, so she made a mental note. “Some of your strengths are tactile, others scholastic, but whatever your talent, I wish you good luck.”
Leah paused as she opened the door with a flick of her wrist.
“You’re going to need it.”
THE ROOM LEAH USHERED THEM INTO WAS DARK—SHOCKINGLY so, after the blinding white lights of the hallway—and as they shuffled through the doorway single file, Persey unconsciously reached out her hand and touched Neela’s shoulder, using her as a guide so she didn’t bump into anything. The lights from the hall hardly penetrated the new space; the darkness seemed to repel the light, pushing its beams away. She could vaguely discern the outline of an object right in front of her—a low, elongated structure that looked like some kind of shelf or wall—and though she could sense rather than see a smattering of large furniture pieces staged nearby, she couldn’t make out any details.
Persey fought the urge to flee back into the hallway. She really, really, really didn’t want to be there. She could feel a restless fluttering in her extremities, and the telltale tightness in her chest, as if someone was lacing a corset too tight, crushing her ribs and her diaphragm and her lungs in the process. A panic attack was lurking in the depths of her belly, ready to take over her entire body.
You shouldn’t be here, she argued with herself. Tell them you made a mistake.
She was just about to leave (flee) through the still-open door when she heard it click into place, simultaneously cutting off even the slightest glow of light from the outside.
Calm down, she told herself, fighting back the spreading anxiety. You just have to get through this. Eyes on the prize.
“Now what?” Arlo twittered nervously. “Are we just supposed to stand here?”
In an instant, Persey’s anxiety vanished. It was comforting to think that the self-confident Slytherin found this experience as off-putting as Persey did, and it reminded her that she wasn’t alone.
“I don�
��t see a countdown clock,” Shaun replied. “The game must not have started yet.”
“Maybe we have to turn the lights on?” Neela suggested. “Find the mechanism and—”
Without warning, overhead lights flickered, then buzzed to life, flooding the room.
“Oh,” Neela said, almost disappointed that there wasn’t an immediate puzzle to solve. “Well, that works too.”
Meanwhile, for the second time in as many minutes, Persey’s eyes needed to adjust to harsh, blue-hued fluorescents. Only, unlike the futuristic feel of the hallway, Persey now found herself in the most depressing-looking space she’d ever seen: an office full of cubicles.
The ceiling was low, paneled, and lined with said fluorescents. The walls were gray, the high-endurance industrial carpeting picked to match, and all the common office-place necessities had been included, like a water cooler, complete with a dispenser for teensy paper cups, and two side-by-side coffee machines, each with half-filled carafes resting on their hot plates. The walls on either side of them were blank, just textured wallpaper that looked as if a rake had been scraped through wet plaster, and in each corner of the room sat an indoor office plant—ficus, if Persey wasn’t mistaken. Mounted on the far wall at the end of the room was a whiteboard covered in handwritten notes in red, blue, and black ink.
Two rows of desks stretched before them, each with a low wall around it on three sides, creating individual cubicles, the nearest of which had been decorated as if someone actually worked in it. The details were impeccable, the ambiance suitably drab—it was as if Leah had ushered them onto the research-and-development floor by accident instead of starting the game.
BZZZZ!
The sound of a buzzer pierced the tense silence and made Persey jump. Beside her, Neela let out a muffled yelp. Mackenzie seemed to find that incredibly funny: she snorted and buried her face in Kevin’s bicep to prevent herself from laughing out loud, while Arlo rolled her eyes, but whether it was at Mackenzie, Neela, or both, Persey wasn’t entirely sure.
#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending) Page 6